All right, so today we are beginning a new series
here at the beginning of the year. We're calling
it The Wilderness. Here's the beginning of a
calendar year. It's a natural time for people
to be thinking about what's coming up. Maybe
how will this year be different than the last?
It reminds me of a Cannon Crow song. Maybe this
year will be better than the last. Some of us,
we just had the best years of our lives. We got
a promotion. We got a new relationship. Everything
went right. We felt closer to God than we have
ever felt before in others. Maybe not so much.
Some of us feel like we just walked not just
through but deep into the wilderness. Some of
us feel like that's where we live. It's like
we didn't just take a tent. We didn't just go
camping. We took our whole house with us. And
when we feel like we're in a wilderness, what
happens is we might start feeling like God has
lost track of us. We might start feeling like
we're replaceable. We might start feeling invisible,
forgettable, dispensable. But the scriptures
show us over and over again that God meets us
in the wilderness. So for the next six weeks,
we're going to be walking through the wilderness
as people in the Bible experienced it. And I
hope that we will see that God will meet you
no matter where you are in any season of your
life. So let's open up our Bibles to Genesis
chapter 16. There's Bibles on your table. If
you don't have one, you can actually take one
of those home or there's more of those out on
the bookshelf in the lobby. You can't steal them
because they're free. And then if you don't want
a physical Bible, you can also just download
a digital one from any of the digital app stores.
We're going to be in chapter 16 of Genesis, the
very first book of the Bible, easy to find. We're
going to read a long passage, 1 through 13, I
believe. Yep. And we have a tradition of just
giving the scriptures our full attention when
they're read in the context of a sermon. You
can do that any way that you see fit. But one
of the ways that we do that is by standing together
as we are able. If you would like to join me
as I read. Now Sarai, Abram's wife, bore him
no children. She had an Egyptian slave whose
name was Hagar. And Sarai said to Abram, you
see that the Lord has prevented me from bearing
children. Go into my slave, it may be that I
shall obtain children by her. And Abram listens
to the voice of Sarai. So after Abram had lived
ten years in the land of Canaan, Sarai, Abram's
wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her slave, and
gave her to her husband Abram as a wife. He went
in to Hagar, and she conceived. When she saw
that she had conceived, she looked with contempt
on her mistress. Then Sarai said to Abram, May
the wrong done to me be on you. I gave my slave
to your embrace, and when she saw that she had
conceived, she looked on me with contempt. May
the Lord judge between you and me. But Abram
said to Sarai, Your slave is in your power. Do
to her as you please. Then Sarai dealt harshly
with her, and she ran away from her. Verse 7.
The angel of the Lord found her by a spring of
water in the wilderness, the spring on the way
to Shur. And he said, Hagar, slave of Sarai,
where have you come from and where are you going?
She said, I'm running away from my mistress Sarai.
The angel of the Lord said to her, return to
your mistress and submit to her. The angel of
the Lord also said to her, I will so greatly
multiply your offspring that they cannot be counted
for multitude. The angel of the Lord said to
her, now you have conceived and shall bear a
son. You shall call him Ishmael, for the Lord
has given heed to your affliction. He shall be
a wild ass of a man with his hand against everyone
and everyone's hand against him. And he shall
live at odds with all his kin. So she named the
Lord who spoke to her. You are Elroi. For she
said, have I really seen God and remained alive
after seeing him? Let us pray. God of every tribe,
every tongue, every color, and every nation,
we thank you for the scriptures that we have
them, that they have persisted through the millennial,
throughout thousands of years, that we can still
consider them and learn from them. And I pray
that whatever you have to teach us today, that
it would stick, that it would become a part of
the framework of our faith as we become more
like your son, Jesus. Amen. Thanks, y 'all. You
can have a seat. All right, so just before this
in chapter 15, where we didn't read, God promised
Abram that he would be the beginning of a great
nation. We don't know how many years that there
are between chapter 15 and 16, but we know that
when Sarai was around 75 years old, that's where
we are in chapter 16. And you can probably imagine
or understand why she started looking for other
ways to accomplish God's promise for Abram. Giving
birth at any age is one of the most difficult
things that the female human body can go through,
let alone in your late 70s. So Sarai provides
her own solution. She says, you can't have a
kid with me, but I want you to have what God
has offered you, and so I want to offer you,
Sarai, my slave, so that you can have... a kid
with her. Now, this wasn't uncommon in ancient
culture. Having children with a concubine or
a second wife to keep a family going was an acceptable
custom. But Abram should have known better. In
chapter 15, God didn't say explicitly, word for
word, that his son would have to be from Sarai.
But the promise is there if you're paying attention.
Chapter 15. The reason that God gives Abram this
promise is that Abram's complaint to God wasn't
just that he had no son or that he had no heir.
It was that everything that he had would be handed
down to one of his servants. So when God says,
I'll give you a son of your own, it is implicit
in that promise that the solution will not come
from one of his servants. Abram's problem. isn't
that Sarai hasn't conceived yet. His problem
is that his patience was too short. His problem
is that his imagination was smaller than his
libido. It should go without saying, but impatience
and libido should not be our markers for truth.
Well, it hasn't happened yet. Well, I really
want it. These are not the filters that we are
meant to comprehend God's truth through. Anytime
we say, this is what God wants, this is what
God said, but we ignore the agency of the people
around us, we should also be careful. I don't
know about you, but At some point, I lost track
of how many times I'd heard people say, the Lord
is saying to you. And often in my life, some
of those were right. But often in my life, many
of them were just something someone was saying.
We should be careful and mindful what air quotes
we put around God's words. But especially, especially
when it removes the agency and free will of somebody
else. Reality is that Hagar was not given a choice.
She was a slave. She was given to Abram by a
pharaoh in Egypt. She had no choice in leaving
her home. She had no choice in being Sarai's
servant. She had no choice whether to have sex
with Abram, whether to have a child with a 90
-year -old man. She was told. She was gifted.
Was it an acceptable custom? Yes. But we should
not forget that acceptable customs have their
victims. So she runs. Says that the angel of
the Lord found her near the spring on the way
to Shur. Something that... I learned in studying
about this passage in years past was that the
spring on the road to Shur was the same road
that would lead you back to Egypt. Presumably,
she's pregnant and she's just trying to get home.
She has a master that doesn't care about her.
If you read it again, it says that he took her
as a wife. But then when animosity and conflict
came up, he said, she's your slave. She's someone
that was used for her womb. She's someone that
got used for her body. She's just trying to get
home. And so... That's why it's difficult to
hear the angel say, go back. It can feel unfair.
It can feel unjust to send Hagar back to Sarai
and Abram. Abram, who doesn't care about her,
to Sarai, who is harsh to her. But the practical
reality is also that her chances of surviving
this journey back to Egypt were slim. Not only
because it was a long road back to Egypt, but
because a woman, a pregnant woman, traveling
by herself with no food and water 4 ,000 years
ago didn't have the best odds of making it anywhere
safely. The angel tells her to go back, not because
it would be easy, not because any of it was okay,
but to save her life. To save the life. of her
son. Let me say, if you are in a physically abusive
situation, God is not asking you to stay. There
might be other situations where the timing is
different, but please don't hear this story about
Hagar and think God is asking you to stay and
to go back to someone that is physically hurting
you. Don't even get in the car and go back. God
does not want you to be in a place that you are
being physically hurt. Now, as far as we know,
Hagar was not being physically abused. That doesn't
make any of the verbal abuse or harsh treatment
okay. What I am saying, what I think the scriptures
are telling us, is that when this angel tells
her to go back, that he's not sending her back
to a place that she will die. God is never asking
us to stay in a place. where our partner will
physically hurt us. Now, for Hagar, the angel
knew that going back would be difficult. And
so what we see is that the angel also gives her
a promise of future. He actually says, the future
of your family... will be the same as the future
of Abram's. Not only will she not die, but the
angel says, I will so greatly multiply your offspring
that they cannot be counted for multitude. Where
have we heard something like that before? It's
the same thing, not word for word, but it's the
same thing that God said to Abram. And with this
bittersweet promise in hand, With this baby Ishmael
in her womb, Hagar says, You are El -Roi. Have
I really seen God and remained alive after seeing
him? This encounter is what's called a theophany.
That's your theological word for the day. If
you leave now, I feel I have done my job. Theophany.
Theological word. It is when God appears on earth
in a physical form. One of the factors for deciding
if it is in a theophany or not is whether that
person or angel accepts worship that belongs
to God or allows themselves to be called or treated
like God is only to be treated. Hagar says, have
I really seen God and remained alive? And the
angel does not correct her. But not just that.
It's in what she says, what she calls him. She
says, you are El Roy. Those words mean you are
the God who sees me. She doesn't just feel like
she has seen God. She feels like she has been
seen by God. And something that's very fascinating.
is that Hagar is actually the first recorded
person in all the scriptures to give God a name.
Think about that. Abram is Father Abraham, beginning
of a people. Adam and Eve, first people described
in the scriptures. All of the people that came
after. Noah. Anyone from the first 15 chapters
of the Bible. No one else. is recorded as looking
at God, talking to God, and giving God a name
that then God accepts. But a female, Egyptian,
runaway slave used for her body. Guys, I don't
know how to make it any more important. The least.
The absolute least person gets to name God. She
saw and she felt seen. Maybe some of us have
never felt either. But I don't think... That
if that's how you feel, that God has lost track
of you. I don't think that it means that God
has forgotten your future. I think that if God
sees an Egyptian slave, then he sees you. If
he sees someone that was treated harshly and
misused and cast out by Father Abraham, then
he sees you. And I wonder if maybe today each
of us should also consider giving God a name.
Naming. who you are and who God is to you in
this moment in your life. You can call just God,
God. You can say just Jesus, Jesus. You can say
Abba, Father. You can say Elohim, Emmanuel, Jehovah,
Jireh, my provider. You can say Yahweh. You could
say El Roy. Or you can take a moment and think,
where am I with you right now? How would I name
you? Are you the God who feels what I feel? Are
you the God who sees my pain? Are you the God
who holds me close? You are the God who saw me
in my mother's womb. He surely saw Ishmael. So
he has seen you. And I think... That there is
as much of a promise for every single person
in this room, every single person in our neighborhood,
every single person in our city, as there was
for Hagar and for Ishmael. There is a promise
for you. In the same way that the promise of
a future for Hagar and Ishmael could not be stopped
by Abram and Sarai and their impatience and their
frustration and their humanity. The future and
promise that God has for you cannot be stopped
by anyone that you think is controlling your
life either. The promise of God is not determined
by anyone that you know. The promise of God is
not determined or controlled by your ex. God's
promise or the future that he has for you is
not determined by your boss, your career, your
vocation, where you live. The promise and future
that God has for you is immutable because it
is God's. Before it ever enters our womb, before
it is ever in our hand, it is in his mouth. And
if it is from God, no plan of God can be thwarted.
So I don't know what kind of wilderness you have
been in or you feel that you are in. Truth is,
this last year, not on my top 10, everybody.
But I know that God has not lost track of me.
And so I believe that God has not lost track
of you. Let us pray. All -seeing, all -knowing,
ever -present God, you are where we are. There
is nowhere we go that you cannot see us, find
us, be present to us, convince us. I pray that
those that have not seen might see. That those
that have never felt seen might feel seen. And
that those that have felt both will take the
hand of someone in the wilderness and walk with
them. And show them the way. I name you love
because you are the God that is love. Amen.