Cat Goodrich
Faith Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD
June 27, 2021

Bless This Mess: Shiphrah and Puah
Exodus 1:8-20

I just learned something amazing that I need to tell you about.  I heard it on the Radiolab podcast, which I love, though I should have known it already.[1]  Have you ever wondered how a baby breathes before it is born?  Its little lungs are developing, it’s floating in the amniotic fluid, it clearly can’t breathe air – so how does it get oxygen?  Through its umbilical cord!  All the oxygen a growing fetus needs comes from its mother!  Blood oxygenated in its mother’s lungs, is pushed by its mother’s heart down into the placenta, and through the cord, into what will become the baby’s belly button!  There’s a large vein that runs from the belly button to the baby’s developing heart, and the vein carries the oxygenated blood from the mom there.  And in my heart, and in yours, the two sides are separated.  Right side, left side.  The right side of the heart gets all of the blue, depleted blood from the body and pushes it into our lungs, where it absorbs oxygen and drops off carbon dioxide, so we can breathe it out.  Then the red, oxygenated blood flows to the Left side of our hearts, where it’s pushed back out to the rest of our bodies, carrying oxygen to our brains, our arms, our legs, our toes.  And it goes like that, pulsing through our bodies for as long as we live.

But a developing baby’s heart is different.  Before a baby is born, there’s a little opening in their heart, a trap door between the left and right sides.  The oxygenated blood from the mom and the depleted blood from the baby’s body mix together, and get swooshed around the baby’s body.  Some goes back out through the vein and cord and placenta to the mom’s body, to her lungs, where she breathes out the carbon dioxide from not just her body but from her baby’s body, too.  And again and again.

Isn’t that amazing?  But if that’s how it works, how does a baby go from inside, out?  What happens when the baby is born, and moves from breathing through its umbilical cord to breathing on its own?  From its lungs developing in the warm sea of amniotic fluid, to taking in the bright, dry air?

The magic happens during labor, when the mom’s body is contracting and pushing and opening to prepare to give birth.  As the baby moves down the birth canal, the contractions squish and squeeze its body, smooshing and pushing the water out of its lungs.  And as soon as the baby is born, into the world, the shock of the cold air hits its skin, and causes the baby to gasp, to take a big breath in.  That first gasp, and the cries that follow it, start a chain of events in its body.  The lungs inflate.  The brain sends a signal to its heart, and the door slams shut, closing off the two sides of its heart, so that the rich oxygenated blood coming from the baby’s lungs gets pumped to the rest of its body, and the depleted blood gets pushed back to the lungs – just like that, within the first few seconds of being born.  The umbilical cord has already started to close up, the connection through the placenta closes off, and we, each one of us, has learned to breathe.  And we keep breathing, in and out, for the rest of our lives.

When both of my girls were born, I remember laughing with relief and amazement as they took their first breaths and immediately began to wail, with such tiny intensity, as only a newborn can wail.  Tiny, ferocious cries, shocked and furious at the bright, cold world.  So beautiful, so LOUD, so full of life!

I’ve often wondered about the midwives and doulas, the obs and nurses who get to see this miracle over and over again.  Does it change them to see life emerge again and again?  Do they become inured to it?  Is it always a miracle?

Surely the experience of attending many births inspires a profound respect for the sanctity of life. I have to guess that was what motivated Shiphrah and Puah to defy the order of the Pharoah.  Because rule of the Pharoah was absolute.  He who would order the mass murder of infants would not hesitate to sacrifice two women who disobeyed him.  But they defied him anyway.  I can imagine their hands, strong hands that had caught countless babies, gently guiding new life into the world, suddenly clenched into fists as they steeled their courage and got their stories straight.  They couldn’t kill the boy babies.  They wouldn’t.  They would have to take a deep breath and lie, that’s all there was to it.  They would clasp hands and face him together, stand up to him together.  Pharoah was just a man, after all.  He might not know how unlikely it was for a woman to give birth alone.

There’s some debate about who these women were.  Were they Egyptians charged with helping the enslaved Israelites give birth?  Were they Israelites themselves, trained as midwives for their community?  It’s hard to say.  But they were women, so their power was limited.  The risk was extreme.  And still, they dared to defy the most powerful man in the country.  They did what they could, using their hands and hearts to protect the vulnerable.  And look at the ripple effect: their courage inspired others, which ultimately saved Moses, who went on to save his people.

Last year, in the desperate weeks after George Floyd was killed, a friend shared a list outlining methods of nonviolent protest and persuasion[2].  If you’d asked me to name them, I could have come up with a few: boycotts, petitions, picket lines.  Sit-ins, public art, protest marches.  Blocking traffic. Prayer vigils.  I’m sure you could name others.  But this list – it was long.  Almost 200 items, everything from strikes and walk-outs to creating alternative trade systems.  There are countless nonviolent ways to resist the dehumanizing forces that seek to shape our world.  Countless ways to say NO to Pharoah.  And some say acts of political defiance have their roots in this story – in the resistance of Shiphrah and Puah, two women, two midwives, saying NO.  We will not do it.  We will not kill the boy babies.  Our hands were made to bring forth life, to guide babies into the world, to save, not to kill.  To carefully clean the vernix and blood from noses and mouths so babies can breathe freely, to swaddle their tiny bodies and keep them safe, and warm.  Our hands were made for life, not for death.

I have to guess that they were terrified to defy Pharoah in this way.  Surely their voices shook and their palms were sweaty as they stood in his throne room to say, it’s impossible – the Hebrew women give birth too soon, before we get there.  Surely the midwives were afraid.  But they did it anyway.

That is the definition of courage, isn’t it?  To be afraid, but to do it anyway?

Tomorrow marks the 52^nd anniversary of the uprising at the Stonewall Inn[3], a gay bar in New York, that fateful night that sparked a revolution of LGBTQ rights and gave birth to gay pride.  Regular, humiliating raids on nightclubs in the late 60’s pushed the community over the edge. And so, for five nights in the Village, men, women, trans and nonbinary folk resisted the violence of billy clubs with a can-can kick line, refusing to hide who they were, refusing to back down.  Instead, they took a deep breath, and clasped hands together and proudly went out, into the streets.  And after years of organizing, and resisting discrimination again and again – six years and one day ago, the Supreme Court finally made it legal for two people who love each other to marry regardless of their gender.  And the fight continues for trans and non-binary folx.

Just over a year ago, George Floyd’s cries of “I can’t breathe” caused us to gasp with shock and desperation, to clench our fists and move out to the street, to resist state violence and advocate for change.  To say no to policies and practices that lead to death, to use our hands, our hearts, our voices to proclaim that Black Lives Matter, and to work together to reform how we keep our communities, our people safe.

So if the pressure these days feels like too much to bear…  if the news or your work or family is just pushing and squeezing and bearing down on you until you feel wrung out… or it causes you to gasp and cry out in shock.  Remember your heart was formed for this life by the shock of a world so cold it caused you to gasp.  Remember Shiphrah and Puah.  Remember that God gives us to each other, and calls us into community so that we can take a deep breath together and say, enough is enough.  Remember all the times people of courage and faith have held hands and joined together in the sacred struggle for justice in this world.  So that we might stand together and channel the courage of those midwives, to resist the hatred of Pharoah, to use our hands, and our hearts to change the world.

[1] McEwan, Annie and Matt Kielty, “Breath,” Radiolab podcast, story produced by Annie McEwan, Matt Kielty, and Molly Webster at WNYC Studios, 6/11/21, https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/breath

[2] “The Methods of Nonviolent Protest and Persuasion” post by Julia Siergiey Juarez on 6/2/20, shared by Kelsey McClure in the Faith in Action Alabama Facebook group on 6/2/20,  https://www.facebook.com/groups/210845526087728/posts/862975674208040

[3] Info largely derived from article on Stonewall Riots, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonewall_riots

 

 

Cat Goodrich
Faith Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD
June 20, 2021

Bless this Mess: Joseph
Genesis 37:2-8, 18-36

Relationships can be complicated, can’t they?  I don’t know if we should find it encouraging or disheartening that the foundational stories of our faith are filled with families that put the fun in dysfunctional.  Right from the start, we have stories of sin: deceit, murder, envy, conflict, anger, and strife, misogyny and racism.  But it’s not all bad!  From the beginning, it’s clear that God looks at all of the tangled family systems, and the imperfect people, and she shrugs her shoulders and says, “eh, I can work with that.”

Today is Father’s Day, and what a day to revisit old Jacob – Father to 12 sons, who go on to establish the twelve tribes of Israel, and one daughter (the ill-fated Dinah).  Today’s story starts with Jacob: the son of Isaac and Rachel, grandson to Abraham and Sarah.  Jacob, who stole the birthright and wrestled an angel.  Jacob, to whom God promised presence, protection, and progeny.  Jacob, clearly not a candidate for Father of the year.  Because look at what happens with his sons.

Jacob’s favorite son is Joseph, the youngest at the time of this story- the baby.  As a sign of his love, Jacob gives Joseph a fancy robe, and not just any robe, a technicolor dreamcoat – one with long sleeves, which meant he didn’t have to do the hard labor expected of men at that time.

Those of you who grew up with brothers or sisters know that siblings tend to keep score.  We don’t necessarily need to win, but we want things to be distributed equitably.  We want life to feel fair.  Equal slices of cake.  Equal chores.  Equal love.

Except in Jacob’s house, love is lavished on the youngest one, so with the others, resentment grows.  It doesn’t help that Joseph is a tattletale, a bit of a brat, with bad dreams to boot.  Strange dreams. Dreams in which he, the youngest, rules over his family.  Dreams that flip the script on primogeniture, that age-old practice of valuing the firstborn son above all others, making the first born the one who would inherit the Father’s possessions and power. In Joseph’s dreams, the last becomes first.

I have lots of dreams: some are strange, some are mundane, most fade before I’m fully awake. Science still doesn’t completely understand why we dream. Sometimes, dreams are a way for our subconscious to make sense and sort through the day’s events.  Sometimes, dreams help us process memories.  Psychoanalysts like Freud and Jung believe dreams bring to light your hidden self; your needs, fears, or frustrations.

People have long believed dreams were a window to the spiritual realm, or another world, or even the future.  Dreams play a significant role in the Biblical narrative – think of Jacob’s dream of a ladder connecting heaven and earth, with angels ascending and descending upon it.  The prophets’ dreams of the peaceable kingdom where wolf dwells with the lamb, dreams of restoration and return, dreams of a new heaven and a new earth.  And in this story: Joseph’s dreams stoke the fires of enmity between him and his brothers.  Resentment leads the brothers to throw Joseph into an empty cistern, and as if that’s not bad enough – to sell him into slavery.  Dreams can be dangerous.  But that’s not the end of this story.  Years later, Joseph manages to land in the Pharaoh’s court and rise to prominence in Egypt because of dreams and his ability to interpret them.  That position enables Joseph to save his family, when they flee famine in Canaan and come to Egypt, begging for food and safe haven.  Dreams, it turns out, can save us.

What are your dreams?

A few days ago, Michelle Obama posted a picture of herself as a child, standing beside her father, holding his hand as he strikes a pose – her mom stands a little bit behind them, looking on.  Remembering her dad as Father’s Day approached, she wrote, “My father gave great advice, taught me the value of hard work, encouraged me to ask questions, and always gave me the space to do so. I always thought he was so cool!”[1]

In her autobiography, Becoming, she writes extensively about her upbringing, her memories of childhood, and the ways her parents supported and encouraged her over the years.[2]  Her dad was diagnosed with MS in his mid-thirties, and it would eventually kill him – much too soon, when he was 55.  She describes how he first experienced weakness in one leg, then needed to walk with a cane, then a crutch, then two, lurching and struggling to the car to get to work each day, then again up the steps to come home – never once complaining.  He gave up his dream of becoming an artist early on, working first to support his younger brother’s architectural degree, then to support his own growing family – repairing and maintaining boilers for the water company, never missing a day of work despite his advancing illness.

She writes of her dad’s dad, the grandfather she calls Dandy, who was the grandson of enslaved people and the son of a millworker.  Her grandfather was smart, and hardworking, but she remembers him being a grouch.  Early on, he’d hoped to go to college.  But coming of age as a Black man in the Great Depression, his options were limited.  He worked at a lumber mill, and even after chasing opportunity by migrating North to Chicago, he couldn’t get hired as an electrician or carpenter because he was denied a union card.  He eventually found work with the postal service, but, she writes, “he lived with the bitter residue of his own dashed dreams.”[3]

Though her parents lived primarily within a two-mile area on the South side of Chicago for most of their lives, she writes, there was no expectation that would be the case for her and her brother Craig.  Her parents sacrificed and saved so she could get out, encouraging her to reach higher, push farther, to work hard, and to dream.

It’s what most parents want for their children – a better life, freedom to learn and grow and thrive.  And in the sad, troubling tale of old Jacob and his scheming sons, who sell their youngest brother into slavery – then deceive their father by letting him think Joseph is dead – if we look hard, we can catch a glimpse of God’s dream for all of us.  At least, I think we can.  Because time and again in the Biblical story, in that culture that valued some lives way more than others – the lives of men and especially the life of the first-born son above everyone else, God flips the script and elevates the least and the last above all others.  God subverts the system, showing us that there is another way, a better way to live together – a way that leads to liberation, and reconciliation even with the ones who have harmed us the most.

When Joseph is deep in the pit, with his brothers callously lunching nearby, he doesn’t know this, of course.  That first night on the road with the Midianite traders, stripped of his coat and sold into slavery, scared and sleepless, Joseph likely couldn’t see into his future.  He had his dreams, but he had no way of knowing if they would come true.  But he held onto them, and his dreams sustained him.  And if this story teaches us anything, it’s that God was with Joseph even when he was deep in the pit, abandoned and left for dead by his family.  God was with him when the Midianites put him in shackles and sold him to the Egyptians.  And God was at work, even when it seemed like all hope was lost.

There is some irony in reading this story today, the day after Juneteenth was first observed as a federal holiday.  Themes of enslavement and liberation, injustice and freedom ring through the story of Joseph and his descendants, the children of Israel who become captives in Egypt.  There is tension for me as I try to make sense of where God is in this story, how God is at work in a world where such terrible suffering is allowed.  I hope we will let the tension between Joseph’s story and the questions it raises around God’s sovereignty and providence give us faith, and not doubt.  Because God is at work, even when we feel like we are down in the pit, even when it seems like all hope is lost – the story of Joseph teaches us that though the arc of the universe is long, it bends toward justice.

I hope we let Joseph’s dreams where the last become first shape our imaginations, fuel our continued struggle for liberation – trusting that despite the suffering that plagues us, and the structures that bind us, and the poverty that grinds us, and the hatred that still simmers just below the surface – God IS at work, playing the long game – moving us, in all our brokenness, our envy and strife, our frailty and faults – toward justice, toward freedom, toward reconciliation, and, ultimately, toward peace.

May it be so.

[1] Obama, Michelle, @michelleobama post on Instagram, Thursday, June 17, 2021.

[2] Obama, Michelle, Becoming, New York: Crown Publishing Group/Penguin Random House LLC, 2018.  I drew from pages 24-40 for this section.

[3] Ibid, p 39.

Cat Goodrich
Faith Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD
June 13, 2021

Bless This Mess: Jacob
Genesis 32:21-32

This morning we will hear part of the story of Jacob, one of the patriarchs of our faith.  Jacob was a trickster, a fraud.  Jacob was a wrestler from before his birth,[1] struggling with his twin brother Esau in the womb. We know this because he came out of the womb grasping Esau’s heel – so Jacob means heel, usurper.  The second born, who wanted to be first.

Jacob, you’ll remember, was his mother Rebekah’s favorite.  He’s the kind of guy with a million-dollar smile, but you could only trust him about as far as you could throw him.  He gets his hungry brother to trade his birthright for a dish of lentil stew… then he wraps his arms in wool to trick his father, old Isaac, into blessing him as the firstborn son.

When Esau is enraged by Jacob’s trickery, and threatens to kill him.  So Jacob flees to his uncle Laban’s family.  Uncle Laban is his mother’s brother, who turns out to be as tricky as Jacob himself.  Jacob lives there for almost 20 years, marrying two of Laban’s daughters, and growing wealthy with all manner of sheep, and goats, and livestock acquired by somewhat questionable magical means.

As time passes, his relationship with Laban becomes strained, and Jacob decides it’s time to return home.  Problem is that he must pass through Edom, the lands where his brother Esau lives, to get to Canaan.  When Jacob fled in the first place, all those years ago, Esau swore he was going to kill his brother for stealing his birthright.  So Jacob’s a bit concerned about running into Esau’s territory, but he has no choice.

So the trickster decides to be a little tricky.  He comes up with a strategy to avoid certain death, and divides his herds and his people into different groups, sending some as a gift to Esau, and others in another direction.  And in case that doesn’t work, he leads his children and wives across the river with the rest of his entourage and leaves them there, maybe hoping that Esau’s army will have pity on them because they’re defenseless.

Great guy, Jacob.

This is where our story picks up this morning.  Listen for a word from God.

(read Genesis 32:22-31)

I rarely have trouble sleeping.  I’m not a worrisome person.  I’ve learned not to drink coffee too late in the day, or else the caffeine leaves me jittery and awake – so most nights I can fall asleep and stay there without too much trouble.

I do tend to procrastinate, so long, late nights were common in college and grad school, as I would stay up till the wee hours writing or studying, doing work I shouldn’t have put off until the last minute.

When the girls were little, sleep was hard to come by, too.  Particularly the first year, when they would wake up to eat several times each night.  It was exhausting.  But I realized I love the silence, the stillness, the strange peacefulness of being awake when it feels like the rest of the world is asleep.  You can hear the clock ticking, the refrigerator kick on and off, the house breathing and settling, the birds begin to stir and sing at dawn.  Even now, my most productive time is often early in the morning, before the rest of my family has gotten up, when I can write without distractions.

Still, the dark awakens anxiety – I’m sure many of you can relate to the feeling of lying awake, trying to fall asleep, with a loop of every awkward thing you’ve ever said running through your head.  I like to remember poor choices, and relive my most embarrassing moments – or imagine worst case scenarios for what might happen in the days ahead.  Is it just me?

This year, our sleep has gotten worse.  The anxiety and stress of the pandemic has led to an epidemic of insomnia.  People have so much to worry about, and it’s keeping us up at night – which isn’t good, because we weren’t getting enough sleep to begin with.  Who got a full 8 hours last night?  My friend Dave Barnhart writes, “Most of America is walking around chronically sleep deprived. Our sleep deficit shortens our lifespans, diminishes our creativity, makes us more susceptible to disease, reduces our emotional intelligence, increases the risks of depression, anxiety, dementia, and diabetes, and causes more traffic accidents than drunk driving.”[2]

This past fall, a radio show/podcast I love set up an insomnia hotline – people called in to share what was keeping them up.  And it was everything – people couldn’t sleep because they were worried about getting sick, anxious about finding a job, or paying bills; some people were awake because they had to be for work; still others were awake for the sheer joy of living – the night was too beautiful to end.  The recurring truth, though, was that people were anxious and lonely – an aching, deep, loneliness led them to call a radio hotline in the middle of the night.

As many as half of Americans will experience insomnia at some point – which is why this story about Jacob feels particularly apt for me right now.

Because it’s night.  He’s alone, and he’s dreading what the day will bring, afraid that Esau is still angry with him for stealing his father’s blessing.  And suddenly he’s attacked by a stranger, with whom he wrestles until dawn.

There are a couple of clues that this is no ordinary bandit.  In ancient folklore, spirits often fear the daylight and are only active at night.  The stranger’s otherworldly strength, evidenced by his ability to fight all night long, and still put Jacob’s hip out of joint at the end of the bout.  His unwillingness to share his name.

Jacob seems to know this, too, because he refuses to let go – demanding a blessing from this being who attacked him in the night.  What do we make of this?

The traditional read of this story is that Jacob is wrestling with God themself – God who then rewards Jacob’s persistence and determination with a blessing of prosperity and progeny.  God who gives Jacob, the trickster, a new name: Israel, who strives and overcomes everything that stands in his way.

You’ve heard people say, “Let go and let God…” well, this is the opposite of that.  This is a story of the power of persistence – like the story Jesus told of the widow who would not stop asking the judge for what she wanted, until he was so annoyed he finally gave it to her.  This is nevertheless, she persisted story, a story of someone so determined to survive and to thrive that he wrested a blessing from the very hand of God.

Preaching professor David Lose reads this as a baptism story[3] – not a baptism by water or a baptism by fire.  More like a baptism by mud as they struggle and squish in the mud on the riverbank.  Baptism because Jacob comes away from the encounter with a blessing and a new name.  He’s struggled all night within himself and with God, remembering every wrong he’s ever done, every awkward moment, all the tricks and deceptions, all the mess and brokenness.  And he clings to God through the struggle.  And though it is painful, he finds grace in the midst of the struggle.  A blessing.  A new name, just as the water in baptism names and claims us as members of the body of Christ, beloved children of God.

The struggle changes Jacob.  Some say he walked with a limp for the rest of his life.  He is marked by this encounter with God.  And when the dawn breaks and Jacob leaves to meet his brother, he discovers that Esau is not waiting with weapons drawn, ready to attack.  His long lost twin greets him instead with open arms – Jacob, the trickster, is forgiven.  All those years lost in worry, estranged from his twin – all those sleepless nights – for nothing.  As Jacob limps his way into his brother’s embrace, he says that seeing the smiling face of Esau is like looking at the face of God.[4]  What a blessing forgiveness is.

I don’t know what’s keeping you up at night. Maybe you love the quiet productivity that early morning hours can bring.  Maybe it feels like worries jump out and grab you out of nowhere when you shut off the light, like a stranger in the night.  I can’t know the thoughts that may race through your head as the clock ticks and the darkness covers you like a blanket and sleep evades your grasp.  All I can suggest is that it might help to be a little more like Jacob:

Cling to God, wrestling with questions and struggling for faith even in the darkest of times.  Persist in pursuing your dreams of what might be, but isn’t yet.  And trust that by the waters of baptism, God’s blessing and grace are already yours – your heart has already been washed clean of every mistake, every awkward or deceitful thing forgiven.  Whatever the day might bring, God has already named and claimed us as beloved children.  My prayer is that you will feel covered by the blessing of your baptism no matter what the night brings.  And that that knowledge will give us strength to persist, to resist, to push on toward whatever dawn lies just beyond our grasp.  Thanks be to God.

[1] Willis, Amy, “Commentary on Genesis 32:22-31,” Preach This Week, August 3, 2014, https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-18/commentary-on-genesis-3222-31-8

[2] Barnhart, Dave.  “Spirituality and Mental Health: The Importance of Sleep,” June 10, 2021, on his blog, https://davebarnhart.wordpress.com

[3] Lose, David, “The Power of Names,” Dear Working Preacher, 10/14/13, https://www.workingpreacher.org/dear-working-preacher/the-power-of-names

[4] Wil Gafney pointed out this connection in her “Commentary on Genesis 32:22-31,” Preach This Week, July 31, 2011, https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-18/commentary-on-genesis-3222-31-2

Cat Goodrich
Faith Presbyterian Church, Baltimore
June 6, 2021

Bless This Mess: (Abraham), Hagar, and Ishmael
Genesis 21:8-20

School is not out yet, but this is the first Sunday in June. And it’s gonna be a hot one. Anyone who went outside yesterday can attest – it feels like summer is here!

The last church I served had a tradition of doing summer sermon series – a chance to delve into parts of the Bible you don’t always get to hear, if you stick with the lectionary. Series can be thematic, and fun – I heard Christa did one on Noah’s ark! And they offer something different, a change of pace during the summer.  Today I’m starting a series is called Bless This Mess: Stories of brokenness and redemption. I landed on this theme because the past year has felt a little messy.  Really, really broken at times. Messy personally, as Dary and I juggled the stress of working full time and parenting full time and trying to teach and care for our girls in the midst of the pandemic, especially at the start. I remember feeling like I was trying to do three jobs at once and doing a bad job at all of them, exhausted, worried, overwhelmed and barely holding it together.

And things have felt pretty messy and broken nationally and internationally. Our catastrophically bungled response to the pandemic. Continued violence – police violence against black and brown people, mass shootings, and a quagmire in Myanmar, Israel Palestine, and here in Baltimore, nine people shot over Memorial Day weekend.

The Bible is full of powerful stories about problematic people in messy, complicated situations. Throughout in our salvation history, God chooses to work through imperfect people in difficult, conflict-ridden realities to bring about redemption and healing. Over the next 8 weeks, we’ll revisit some of the stories of our ancestors, stories that don’t always get told because they aren’t neat and tidy, and hopefully find reassurance and good news there.

I have to admit, if I was hoping for a summer theme that would be fun and light, I may have missed the mark. Because this story of Hagar and Ishmael is a doozy. It’s awful. It’s what Phyllis Trible calls a text of terror.[1] Womanist theologian Delores Williams says Hagar’s story is a story of slavery, surrogacy, poverty, rape, exploitation, desperation, “homelessness, single parenting, and radical encounters with God.”[2]

Hagar and Ishmael are imbedded in the longer story of Abraham and Sarah, the matriarch and patriarch of our faith.  And as much as their story is about God’s promises, progeny, and unbelievable blessing, the chapters that include Hagar are painful and traumatic – they leave us wondering why God would allow such things to happen. A quick summary to refresh our memories:

Abraham and Sarah go to Egypt to escape a famine. At the border, Abraham lies to save his own neck by saying Sarah was his sister, allowing her to be taken into Pharaoh’s harem. The rabbis surmised that Hagar was a gift from the Pharoah when Sarah left to return to Israel – how else would an enslaved Egyptian woman come to be possessed by an Israelite?

God covenants with childless Abraham that his descendants will number more than the stars. As the years pass with still no bebe, old Abe and Sarah worry and doubt that God will fulfill God’s end of the deal, and decide to take matters into their own hands. Sarah gives her handmaid Hagar to Abraham, and he takes her. Look at the cycle of trauma: Sarah, who was exploited and abused in the harem of Pharoah becomes the oppressor, treating her handmaid like an object, a thing to be taken or given at will.

Sarah immediately regrets this decision, it seems, because when Hagar conceives, she treats her harshly, abusing the girl such that Hagar is forced to escape into the wilderness. But an angel meets her and sends her back – back to the abuse, back into slavery, so that Hagar’s son Ishmael is born in the house of Abraham.

But God remembers God’s promise, and when old Sarah finally learns she is pregnant the hills ring with her laughter…she names him Isaac, which means he laughs. As the children grow and play together, Sarah’s jealousy becomes too much, so worried is she that Ishmael will supplant her son as the firstborn. Sarah demands Abraham send them away, into the desert, to their deaths. So he does. As Hagar casts her babe beneath a bush and leaves him there to die, God finally intervenes, sending an angel to help her find water in the wilderness, guiding her to a well that will save their lives, promising again that Hagar’s descendants will outnumber the stars.

This is a terrible story.  My Hebrew professor says, “in this story, no one is without blame – not even God.”[3] To help us make sense of it, and to uncover a bit of good news in the midst of the mess, I want to tell you about names.

First, the name of Hagar…that was probably not her name. Sure, scripture names her Hagar, but that word means foreigner, sojourner in Hebrew – Wil Gafney says, her Egyptian mama didn’t name her that![4] Gafney points out that in Islamic tradition, she’s called Hajar, which means splendid, nourishing. A fitting name for the mother of the children of Islam!

In our tradition, Hagar is dehumanized, used and abused, and sent to die in the desert. But she is also the first and only person who names God in the Bible. It happens during her first escape into the wilderness, when she is scared, and pregnant, and running for her life, when an angel finds her to send her back to the house of Abraham. Up to this point, God is just called Elohim – a Canaanite word for God or Gods meaning strength, or might. God hasn’t shared the name YHWH yet, we don’t know God as YHWH, I am who I am, until God appears to Moses in the burning bush! But Hagar, this foreigner, this woman on the run, is met in the wilderness and gives God a new name. She names God El-roi! I know.  El-roi means God of seeing, God who sees…or as one translation says: The Living God who Sees Me.[5]

And the name Ishmael – do you know what Ishmael means? It means, God hears. God hears. God indeed hears the cries of the child in the desert, and sends angels to attend to him, to save him and his mother.

God sees, and hears. God sees the suffering of a used and abused woman, shut out and sent to die in the desert. God hears the cries of her thirsty, terrified child. And God sends angels to attend to them.

Again and again in the gospel story, Jesus sees those that others ignore. People who are blind. Children who are neglected. Sex workers. Men who are crippled. Widows offering what little they have to God. All who are marginalized. He sees them, and hears their cries, and stops whatever he is doing to respond with love, offering healing. Bringing them back into the fold. Christ, who shows us what God’s love is like. Christ, who calls us to love others as God loves us…to see and hear others as God sees and hears us.

There is a greeting used by the Zulu people in South Africa, “Sawubona.” It means, “I see you.”[6] Not just the casual, “hi, how are you?” we say each day, but “Hello – I see you.” I acknowledge you as a human being, just as you are.

The response to Sawubona is “Ngikhona,” which means, “I am here.” I’m truly here because you see me. It changes us to be seen, to be in relationship.

And there are so many people who society tries not to see, aren’t there?  Avert your gaze and keep on walking. Whatever you do, just don’t make eye contact.

Yet ours is a God who sees us for who we are and loves us – wherever we are. However we are. Whatever we have suffered and survived. And despite the messes we make, and the pain we carry. The story of Hagar teaches us that when we find ourselves in the wilderness, in the midst of the mess, when we feel most desperate – God sees. God hears. God reaches out to us – and leads us back to life.

So we who wish to serve God, we who seek to follow Christ, must seek to see God…in one another. As we gradually take off our masks and move out of the isolation of the past year, what would it mean if we allowed ourselves to be vulnerable. To be honest about the times we felt despairing, the pain we ourselves have suffered…the pain we ourselves have inflicted. The vulnerability of seeing and being seen is what allows us to admit mistakes and find forgiveness.  To connect with each other.  And maybe, just maybe, to meet God.

Let’s practice really, truly seeing each other. Let’s try it. Turn to your neighbor and look them in the eye. Go on, really look! Take a breath, and tell them, “Sawubona. I see you.”

Reply, “Ngikhona, I am here.”

Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

[1] Trible, Phyllis, Texts of Terror: Literary-Feminist Readings of Biblical Narratives.  Overtures to Biblical Theology, 1984.

[2] Williams, Delores, Sisters in the Wilderness: The Challenge of Womanist God-Talk.  Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1993, p. 4, qtd. By Miguel de la Torre, Genesis, Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011, p. 171.

[3] Darr, Katheryn, Far More Precious Than Jewels: Perspectives on Biblical Women, Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1991.

[4] Gafney, Wilda, Womanist Midrash, A Reintroduction to the Women of the Torah and the Throne,  Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 2017, pp40-41.

[5] Boulton, Matthew Myer or Elizabeth, Salt Project lectionary blog.

[6] I first learned of this greeting and the response from Alvin Herring, now Executive Director of Faith in Action, at a Faith in Action Alabama training in 2015.