Bible Text: Genesis 21:8-21, Matthew 10:24-39 | Preacher: Rev. Berlin Guerrero | Series: 2020 | There is a serious side to the story last Sunday…

 

The Old Testament reading is an account of the life of Hagar, Abraham and Sarah’s slave woman and her child by Abraham, named Ishmael. Sarah wanted to protect God’s promise to Isaac from whom nations will be born. So Sarah and Abraham, with God’s consent, sent Hagar and Ishmael away, into the wilderness of Beer-sheba.

 

The wilderness is not a safe place to be because you can die of hunger and thirst. Hagar knew they would die in the wild, so she decides that they die far apart, separately. She cannot bear to see her child die.

 

But God hears their cry and sends the angel with instructions.

 

“What troubles you, Hagar? Do not be afraid; for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. 18 Come, lift up the boy and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make a great nation of him.” 19 Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. She went, and filled the skin with water, and gave the boy a drink.

 

As promised to Isaac, God will also fulfil his promise to Ishmael that from him God will also make a great nation.

 

What can we learn from this story especially as to How God works to fulfil God’s promises?

 

First is about chosenness. God choses individuals and leaders from the people, not as  separate from the rest of the community because of the corporate character of God’s call and also the collective nature of God’s promise. God’s promise to Abraham and Sarah is a promise not only to the Abraham and Sarah but also to the nations that will come from them. To make a great nation out of them.

 

The question is how can be a nation or a people be called great? There has been a lot of world leaders whose slogan when campaigning for the top position in the land is to make their country great again. Example: MAGA – Make America Great Again, or Make Australia Great Again. Most great nations in history have been those able to advance economically and politically ahead of others. But this advancement is usually with a cost. Not necessarily to their people but to the other nations or peoples they conquer and colonize.

 

Name what you may call a great country, and with it comes a list of countries they have subjugated. Some countries earn their greatness by coming as liberators but once the colonising country is defeated, the so-called benevolent country becomes the new coloniser and oppressor.

 

What does God mean when God says he will make this nation great? God has a different way in measuring one nation’s greatness. One is obedience to God’s will and faithfulness in serving God’s purpose of redeeming the whole creation and the whole of humanity. It is a servant nation of a servant people. It does not seek domination of others but the freedom of others from all forms of oppression and domination.

 

Second lesson is that God makes promises not to just one group of people only but also other groups of people apart from the chosen one. This is another way how God works. God works unpredictably. God does not put his eggs in one basket. God has the creativity to work with other people aside from the ‘chosen’ one, or aside from who call as Christians, aside from us, aside from the church.  In John 10:16, Jesus said, “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.“

 

Our lesson:

 

God’s purpose is too big that it needs the cooperation and unity of more than one chosen people. A preacher wrote:

 

The difference between Isaac and Ishmael, then, is not so much chosenness, but calling. Isaac and his progeny were called to the task of being the means through which God would bless the nations. They were to model what a faithful relationship with God looks like, what it means to live out God’s will for his creation. They were to show and tell God’s love for the whole world, and ultimately, to participate in God’s redemptive work by being the people through whom the Messiah of the world would come.[1]

 

Third lesson is, it is the realization of  God’s promise that pushes forward the story of the whole humankind. God is writing God’s story. It is His story. It is God’s work in Creation, and in bringing birth to humankind, created beings who are said to be a little lower than angels, mankind become co-creators and co-writers in God’s story.

 

We must trust that God works in mysterious and wonderful ways to bring about God’s plan for the whole creation; and that God works with other people apart from whom we know as God’s Chosen people.

 

It is therefore our mission to participate in God’s work in the world. We are workers in God’s vineyard, called to be labourers to reap the harvest because the labourers are few.

 

This call to be a people of God and to be God’s children was exemplified by the Son of God himself, Jesus the Christ. In the Gospel according to Matthew 10:32-39, Jesus encourages disciples to remain firm in their commitment to Jesus and their mission, even when that mission generates inevitable conflicts, even within their families. The saying in 10:34 is crucial: although Jesus has called his disciples to be peacemakers (5:9), his mission does not bring peace, but a sword, so long as the powers resist God’s rule and will. The very act of peacemaking, as Jesus’ ministry demonstrates, generates violence, for healing, restoration, and the conquest of death threaten the foundations of all human assertions of power in defiance of God.

 

This is the reason why peacemakers, human rights activists, environmental advocates, leaders of workers and farmers organizations, journalists and broadcasters become targets of suppression and repression by governments who want to keep the status quo. The role of the government of the rich and powerful is to preserve the existing social order because it is they who benefit from the unjust social arrangement. Activists, critics and dissenters are labelled criminals and terrorists. These people are who I believe God is working with, the sheep from a different fold, because their sacrifices exemplify the Christ and the causes they espouse are the tenets of God’s kingdom.

 

As we continue to travel this pandemic road, we also seek not to return to normalcy, but move forward to build something better. Let us not aspire to be back to normal. Do you see yourself coming back to church the same person that you were, or something has changed which pushes you to seek changes for a braver and perhaps a bolder church?

 

Remember, God called us because God wants to make something great out of us, not something haphazard, hit-or-miss, indiscriminate, not run-of the mill, but something great – a great people, a great nation that God is pleased about.

 

Amen.

 

[1] Benckhuysen, Amanda; Commentary on Genesis 21:8-21; The Working Preacher, June 21, 2020. https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=4492 (Accessed 19 June 2020).