Sarah and Hagar

Welcome to our series on Women of the Old Testament. Not all of these stories are going to be easy, especially this week and next, however, these are important stories of women of our faith and it’s important to see them as they are, just we do with all of the stories of the Bible that we look at. So join me as we explore together the Women of the Old Testament, beginning with Sarah and Hagar.

I don’t think it’s much of a stretch of the text or the imagination to say that Sarah and Hagar had a difficult relationship. Hagar was the servant of Sarah and was forced to bear Abraham and Sarah a son on their behalf becuase Sarah was not able to have children. This happens because when God further defines the covenant with Abram (before he is Abraham) Abraham points out that the closest heir is Eliezer of Damascus. God says that Abraham will have his own biological heir. However, God doesn’t state that it will come from Sarah until after Sarah has already given Hagar to him so that they can have an heir. Sarah did what she felt was right until after it was too late and tensions immediately arise between these two women.

After Ishmael is born and is growing up God does fulfill God’s promise to give a son to Sarah and Abraham and they have a child and he is named Isaac because Sarah laughed when she heard she was going to have son herself. It also works out that Sarah has laughter brought back into her life through the birth of her son, so his name has both those meanings associated with it. Things seem to be going at least somewhat well until they celebrate Isaac no longer nursing, which was a sign that he would likely make it to adulthood and Sarah sees Ishmael playing and laughing with Isaac. It’s in this moment I believe the reality that with Isaac and Ishmael both being Abraham’s heirs, and Ishmael being the elder, Isaac will not receive any of the inheritance or covenant with God, and Isaac is the one who means laughter not Ishmael. I can only imagine what must have been going through Sarah’s mind while she is trying to celebrate her son.

It’s a this moment where I have to pause from sharing and filling in the gaps of the Sarah and Hagar story to put these difficult moments into perspective. What any of us do, or have any of us done to ensure the safety, security, and happiness of our children? I doubt any of us were in the exact same situation as Sarah and Hagar, but we have all been in positions where we had to make decisions on what is best for our children and what would we do to ensure their future? That is essentially what is going through Sarah’s mind as she contemplates the future of her son who is the younger son despite being from her and Abraham. I’m sure there are boundaries that we may not cross but I am also sure that there are many things we would do to make sure our children were taken care of and succeeded in life.

Then on the other side of things we have to see Hagar. Hagar has done only what has been asked of her. She went with Abraham because she was told to do it. She bore him a son as she was told to do. She returned back to Abraham and Sarah after the angel told her to do it. Then she goes away into exile because she has been told to do that. She then listens to God again and she and Ishmael are rescued from the desert and imminent death. Hagar, despite her feeling better than Sarah for bearing a son first, has done nothing but what she has been told to do. What is so incredible about all this faithfulness is that God is with her through it all. God is with her the first time in the desert and promises that God will be with her and her son in the future, then in the desert again, God provides a means for immediate life and for life in the future. Hagar is not perfect but she is faithful and we see how God responds to her faithfulness to God’s word.

In these stories we don’t see the most flattering side of Sarah, instead we see her flaws and her shortcomings. And that’s ok. It’s ok to see the ways that even someone who we know as the matriarch of our faith live as a fully human person, a mother who wants what’s best for her child and messes up in process. It’s not just ok, but is may even be good to see how the authors of these stories share with us just how real and human these women are, just like us.

Which leads me to my final point in this window into the stories of Sarah and Hagar, two women thrust into such difficult circumstances of their own doing. Sarah taking matters into her own hands and Hagar though faithful, acting better than Sarah because she wasn’t barren. Despite all of this, God uses these two women and God is faithful to these two women. God’s holds fast to God’s covenant with Sarah and Abraham and delivers a son to the two of them so that their can have offspring as vast as the stars in the sky. God even returns laughter to Sarah’s life, a woman who had shame and a stigma for 90 years of not being able to have a child. God, despite the circumstances of age gives Sarah the gift of mothering her very own child so that they can fully live into the covenant promise God made to them.

God is also faithful to Hagar and also to her son Ishmael. God was with them both times they were in the desert and God fulfilled the promise God gave her the first time in the desert by making of him also a great nation of many people even though the covenant would go to Isaac. And as we see later in the Genesis 25 is the list of all of the children of Ishmael that are named which will make up the nations near Egypt. Again, a reminder that God was faithful to God’s promise to Hagar which was meant for her son.

Sarah and Hagar, two incredible women of faith who at their best fully trusted and relied on the promise of God and fully flawed women who did what they felt was best for their children. And in the midst of it all, God is able to work through the good and the messy, the belief and the unbelief and God is able to work through it to bring God’s promises to these amazing women of faith. So know that in the midst of life, when we are doing our best and we succeed, and when we are doing our best and we faith to fully follow in the path that God would have us go, know that God is there working through it all to bring about God’s love, promises and plan for us and this world. Amen.