Sunday Sermon - June 21, 2026

God's love is for all people.... yes those people. Sometimes the people of God fall short on being God's love in the world, but God never does. Hear how the story of Sarah and Hagar help us remember how expansive God's love really is. 

Genesis 21:8-21

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Scripture quotations from the COMMON ENGLISH BIBLE. © Copyright 2011 COMMON ENGLISH BIBLE. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

A reading from Genesis. The child Isaac grew and was weaned. And Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned. But Sarah saw the son of Hagar, the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, playing with her son Isaac. So she said to Abraham, Cast out this slave woman with her son, for the son of this slave woman shall not inherit along with my son Isaac. The matter was very distressing to Abraham on account of his son. But God said to Abraham, Do not be distressed because of the boy and because of your slave woman. Whatever Sarah says to you, do as she tells you, for it is through Isaac that offspring shall be named for you. As for the son of the slave woman, I will make a nation of him also, because he is your offspring. So Abraham rose early in the morning and took bread and a skin of water and gave it to Hager, putting it on her shoulder, along with the child, and sent her away. And she departed and wandered about in the wilderness of Beersheba. When the water in the skin was gone, she cast the child under one of the bushes. Then she went and sat down opposite him, a good way off, about the distance of a bowshot, for she said, Do not let me look on death of the child. And as she sat opposite him, she lifted up her voice and wept. And God heard the voice of the boy, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, What troubles you, Hagar? Do not be afraid, for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. Come, lift up the boy and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make a great nation of him. 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. God was with the boy, and he grew up. He lived in the wilderness and became an expert with the bow. He lived in the wilderness of Peron, and his mother got a wife for him from the land of Egypt. The word of the Lord.

SPEAKER_01 2:10

Would you all please pray with me? Good and gracious God, we pray that you breathe your spirit into and among us, that we don't just hear words with our ears, but hear in our hearts the message you have for us this day. Amen. So we are continuing our journey through the story of Genesis. And as we kind of has to happen when you're reading through Genesis bit by bit on Sunday mornings, we skip a lot. So we started off, right, with Abraham or Abram being told that he's gonna be the father of many, even though he's as good as dead old. I love that line from Paul. Well, love hate. And then we get into um Sarah's return of laughter and joy through God's blessing. And now all of a sudden we have this character, Hagar. Hagar and Sarah have, to put it very lightly, a strained relationship. People who know the story are chuckling. Because let's rewind and go back through their story a little bit. So Abraham and Sarah go off traveling through the wilderness, do-do-do-do, following God's call. At one point, Sarah basically gets sold, and then bad things happen, and the person who bought Sarah's like, I don't want her. And so releases her, and then somewhere in that mess, Abraham and Sarah start to collect, get Egyptian slaves. And Hagar is presumed to be one of those Egyptian slaves. So Sarah's first connection with Hagar is through trauma, basically, is through a really bad time in Sarah's life. And then Hagar is a slave, she is owned, she is property, she is dehumanized. And then as they go through, we're waiting for this promise of God of a child, and Sarah gives up and says, Fine, Hagar, you have a child. And Hagar didn't have any choice in this matter because she was a slave. And so she is forced to go through this. And then when it becomes clear that she is pregnant, Sarah gets mad at her and upset and jealous because she's pregnant, like Sarah wanted her to be, and then mistreats her and treats her very poorly and harasses her and all this stuff. So Hagar, understandably, runs away. She says, I'm done with this, I'm not dealing with this anymore. So she runs away. And then, while she has run away, keep in mind, this is now an Egyptian slave woman who is pregnant in the middle of nowhere. It's not looking good for her. While she is out there, God shows up to her and says, Hagar, I see you, I see your suffering, I see your misery, I will be with you and I will care for you. And Hagar, interestingly enough, this Egyptian slave woman who has been mistreated, dehumanized, and harassed, this Egyptian slave woman is the one person who names God. She has a divine connection, she has a divine experience. She experiences God's presence and she names God as the living God who sees. Because when she felt absolutely invisible, God saw her and God showed up for her. And so after that encounter, Hagar feels strong enough, courageous enough, equipped enough to go back to Sarah, to go back into that situation. And I presume at that point maybe things settled out a little bit. At some point, Sarah had her own kid. But then Isaac is weaned, which means he's now past the point of fear of infant mortality. He's now considered to be like a child that they can start to lean some hopes on. And Sarah sees Isaac, laughter, playing with Ishmael. And as Sarah's watching this exchange, she is once again filled with fear and jealousy and anger. Because she wants to make sure that there is no mistake. Her son, Isaac, would receive all the inheritance, and nothing should go to this slave woman's child. If you notice in the reading, Sarah doesn't even call her by name. It is always this slave woman and her child. Hagar is treated so poorly that she doesn't even get a name in Sarah's mouth. And so Sarah demands that Hagar and Ishmael get exiled into the wilderness. They get kicked out. Forcefully, brutally kicked out. And again, remember, we are in the wilderness. There is nothing for miles. It's not really clear how old Ishmael is, I'm guessing child-ish ages. And so we have this woman, this Egyptian slave woman and her child, exiled into the wilderness, which is basically a death sentence for them. They have no resources, they have no provisions, they have one skin of water. They have basically a water bottle. That's not enough. And Abraham is distressed, understandably so, but he still does it. They kick Hagar and her child out, and I'm not sure how long they are out. A water bottle probably does not last very long in the heat of the sun of the wilderness. And at some point, Hagar is watching her beloved child die. And she can't bear to be in that space another second. And so she puts him to bed under a bush and walks away and holds vigil from a distance so that she can't hear his cries. Hagar, after a lifetime of feeling lost, of being mistreated and dehumanized, and feeling misery and suffering upon misery and suffering, has hit her ultimate low in this space. And then the living God who sees. Offers promise and hope and life for them too. We, as people of God, people who do connect our story to the story of God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and connect our story to that part of the family, we are called to look at the world with God's eyes. We who are named and claimed by God are called to look out and see and hear people who are marginalized, exiled, dehumanized, to see them, to tend to them, to care for them, and to bless them. Because don't forget, at the very beginning of Abraham's story, it says, I have blessed you so that you will be a blessing to others. That is our inheritance. Of course, sometimes God's people get it wrong. Sometimes we fail to do that. Sarah did. Sarah, just a couple of weeks ago, we were lifting her and Abraham up as the epitome of faithfulness, as they packed everything up and followed God's call. And in today's reading, Sarah gets it wrong. Sarah leans into fear and anger and forgets God's blessing and promise of life. Exiling Hagar and Ishmael was wrong. And we get it wrong sometimes too. Sometimes we try to limit where God's presence is. Sometimes we try to gatekeep where God's love goes. Sometimes we try to say God's blessing is for us and not for you. Sometimes we get it wrong too. When I was at confirmation camp this past week, there was some 10th graders. And for our closing worship, we invited them, if they would like, to offer a grace moment. A grace moment is a time when they stand up for maybe a minute and offer a story of a time where they saw God show up in their life. And this one girl, she stood up, and you could tell this was a very vulnerable moment for her. She stood up and she said, I was in a church, and I was told, I was made to feel as though God's love was not for me, that I would not be accepted and cared for. And so she gave up on church. She felt like church was not for her. Because if God's people could not love her, then how could God love her? Fortunately, this young girl found a space where she was able to encounter scripture and to hear the promise of life and love and grace and mercy that is for her. And she learned that very hard lesson that sometimes God's people get it wrong. But God never gets it wrong. God's voice is always the voice of love and justice. God's love shows up in the midst of hardship, not to necessarily always alleviate it from us, but to be there in the hardship with us, to hear our cries and to be present in that space. In today's story, we see God loves Hagar and Ishmael. And God's love for Sarah and Isaac still remains. That covenant remains. God will still continue to bless them through God's grace. Because in this story, we see, we hear, we know that all people are made in the image of God. It's another theme we pulled throughout Confirmation Week, reminding everybody that you are made in the image of God. And the image of God does not limit itself to these four walls. God made humankind in God's image. Before there was Abraham, before there was Isaac, before there was Ishmael, God said, You humankind are made in my image, and my love and grace is for you. Sarah and Isaac are made in the image of God. Hagar and Ishmael are made in the image of God. You, who are here, are made in the image of God. And the people that society would just assume push aside, push away, push down, guess what? They too are made in the image of God. And we confess that sometimes we're like Sarah, afraid that there isn't enough of God's blessing to go around, afraid that if I admit that someone else is made in God's image, then maybe I am not. Sometimes we are like Sarah, and we let fear and jealousy and anger lead the way. But even in those spaces, God sees, hears, and shows up. The living God who sees, the God who hears, comes among us and reminds us that God's presence, hope, grace, life, and love are for all people. For you, for those people, and for those people. For Sarah and Isaac, for Hagar and Ishmael. God's love and presence and grace shows up even when it feels like we are at the end of our ropes. So may you hear this this day. Sometimes God's people gets it wrong, but God never gets it wrong. And God has declared you to be made in the image of God, named, acclaimed, beloved. And you have been blessed to be a blessing. Amen.