Genesis 21:8-21, Matthew 10:29-31
And God Heard
Today is Father’s Day. Traditionally the Christian church has referred to God in masculine terms, “Our Father who art in heaven.” Many passages in the Bible that have traditionally been looked at as speaking of God as Father could just as easily be looked at as God being parent, or even Mother.
I want to begin today by thinking of all the characteristics that you would imagine in an ideal parent. This may not be like your parents, but how you picture an ideal parent would be. Whatever is your ideal, God far surpasses that.
In the lesson from Genesis, we have the example of Abraham and Sarah as parents. Normally, in scripture, when God speaks, God expects a response. But what happens when God listens?
We are often tempted to respond before the person speaking to us finishes talking. If we do not receive all their message, we can easily be responding with insufficient understanding. Relationships strengthen when both parties feel respected and acknowledged, especially in terms of communication. Who doesn’t want to be heard?
The story of Abraham and Sarah demonstrates the challenge of truly accepting the promise of God and relinquishing control while waiting for its realization. Many years this Abraham and Sarah were promised to have a son. Abraham, through this son, would be the father of a great nation. Then they had no son. They thought that maybe their nephew Lot would be the son that they never had. Nope, that wasn’t it either. They tried the idea of a surrogate mother, with Hagar, a maid to Sarah, being the mother of a son. Hagar had a son, Ishmael. But that wasn’t it either. Finally, Abraham and Sarah had a son. They called him Isaac.
We get the impression, all the way through the stories of Abraham and Sarah, that God was not consulted about Hagar at all. How could they, or we for that matter, expect God to hear our questions and concerns if we never voice them to God? Prayers that are never prayed should not expect to be answered.
Chaos results because while Abraham and Sarah plot and scheme, the creator already has a plan. The two paths—human and divine—seem to be at odds. Ishmael, son of Hagar, arrives first. Later, Sarah gives birth to Isaac. Had they waited on God, would the conflict have been avoided?
So, we see Sarah as a mother. She is watching Isaac and Ishmael playing together. She becomes jealous of Ishmael and even feels threatened that Ishmael would be taking the inheritance away from Isaac. Isaac is the child of the future. Yet, Ishmael has some claims that will not be so easily reduced. He is the oldest son of Abraham. He is not adopted. He was born to the man of promise.
Abraham and Sarah have a simplistic method to solve their problem. They send Hagar and Ismael away. Get them out of the way and then that will solve the problem, or so they think. Abraham abandons Ishmael and Hagar instead of protecting them within his own household.
When situations in life turn bad, even to threaten life itself, what do you do? Hagar prayed. And God heard Hagar. And God also heard Ishmael, so Ishmael must have been praying also. Lots of people have great expectations of what God will do in their lives, and I have heard people speak of losing their faith because of God not taking care of things as they wanted. In situations like that, I have asked people about praying, and often been surprised that they did not pray. It was as though they thought God would just do stuff as they wanted. How can God hear us if we do not talk to God? How can God answer if we do not ask?
As it turns out, both sons were blessed beyond what they could have imagined. Abraham and Sarah were concerned about what Isaac would receive from God, as though there was a limit to what God could or would give. We still do that. We still function out of a mentality of scarcity, so we feel the need to compete for, covet, and hoard resources. We do that as individuals. We certainly do it as countries.
What if we embraced the abundance of God’s creation for abundant life? How many of the wars and disagreements between people and nations would even happen if our response to perceived or contrived scarcity was prayer first over plotting against our neighbor?
Listening is often the most dangerous thing we can do. Listening means knowing, finding out about something and knowing what’s going on. Our eyes have eyelids that can instinctively close against what we do not or should not see. Our ears don’t have lids that can instinctively close against the words uttered. They can’t hide from what they sense they’re about to hear.
What if we truly talked to God, truly told God our hopes, desires, joys, sorrows, as well as our worries? What if we truly trusted God to respond to our needs and circumstances because God is not only still speaking, God is still listening? And God hears.