Sermon
of June 19, 2005
Presented by Rev. Chuck Ericson
Scripture lesson: Genesis 21:1-15
“Abraham: The Ideal Father?”
This is a continuation of a story we heard last week from Genesis 18 where Abraham received three visitors who bring a divine message that he and Sarah will have a child. This is the story of the birth of that child and the events that transpired afterward, including this very poignant story of Sarah observing the two children playing – Ishmael is the name of Hagar’s son and Isaac is Sarah’s son – and feeling jealous and angry and suggesting to Abraham that Hagar and Ishmael need to be banished into the wilderness. A very poignant story that really reveals to us the raw human emotions that people felt 3,000 years ago that are much like the feelings people have today when there is jealousy and dissention within families. One of the things it reveals to us is how humanity has remained much the same over the years. There are some great lessons in this story and I think there are some lessons that have to do with Father’s Day. Abraham in some ways might be thought of as an ideal father, and I wanted to take a few moments to look at some of those qualities or characteristics of Abraham. If you’re not a father, that’s OK because I think these same qualities apply to any way we try to live out our lives as God’s people.
One of the qualities I see here is the importance of fathers such as Abraham taking time to celebrate with their children and families. Abraham is a man of God who followed the commands of God and the traditions and customs of God’s people in those days. He was diligent about observing the rituals and ceremonies that had to do with families. There was a ritual eight days after the birth of a male child that took place in the temple, and there is this ceremony celebrating the weaning of a child when that child was about three years old. That’s the ceremony that’s mentioned here. Abraham puts a feast together and invites the family, including Hagar and Ishmael, for the celebration on the day which Isaac is weaned, which defines another stage in his maturity and development. One of the key things to remember is that Abraham took time to do that, not only to call for the celebration but to be there. Abraham was a busy man; you may recall that God called him to leave Hebron and go to Canaan and settle there and start a great nation. That’s a big job, not only to lead a nation but to start one, and to become a guide of all the people. Getting that started was an immense responsibility. Abraham had great burdens on his shoulders and in his heart that he took with him, and yet he took the time to be there. That’s a simple lesson but I think it’s an important one for fathers and all family members. When there’s an important moment to try to be there.
Some of you follow golf, and there was an important story about fatherhood and being there in the golf world this week, in a golfer named Cory Pavin. The U.S. Open is starting to have a history of good stories involving golfers, including Payne Stewart and Phil Mickelson. This year, there’s a story of Cory Pavin who played the first round of the U.S. Open in Pinehurst, North Carolina, on Thursday, got on a jet and crossed the country to go to San Diego, stayed for a while and around midnight got on another jet and came back to Pinehurst in time to tee off in the second round at noontime. Anyone who’s traveled knows that’s a very grueling and tiring thing to do, to fly coast-to-coast in a span of around 18 hours or so. And yet the reason he did that was it was his son’s graduation and he didn’t want to miss it. Now there could be arguments about whether he should have been at the U.S. Open at all, but he’s a golfer and that’s his job. He’s supposed to be in the big tournaments. And he’s won the U.S. Open, so he’s especially supposed to be there. He left and caused himself great loss of sleep and got tired, I’m sure, and probably couldn’t play at his peak performance because of that, but it was important for him to be at his son’s graduation and not just watch it on video later on. It’s a great example of that same simple truth that this story illustrates, to be there whenever possible in our family lives that are times of celebration, whether it’s a Baptism or graduation or birthday or anniversary – whatever the important family celebration. There are times we can’t, due to illness or an emergency or an absolute requirement of work that we just can’t get out of, but whenever possible to make the arrangements to be there is incredibly important. We like to think we’re very busy in our lives, but none of us is as busy as Abraham was. If Abraham could be there, most of the time most of us could be there too.
A second lesson from this story is that for fathers to remember how important it is to be compassionate in difficult situations. Abraham shows compassion for Hagar and her son Ishmael when Sarah looks over and sees the two children playing together and becomes enraged and jealous. You might not realize how serious this is unless you know the whole story. Some of you do, but maybe not everybody does. Abraham and Sarah wanted to have children but for a long time it was not happening. It was customary in those days for a substitute to be invited in. So Sarah invited her maidservant in, Hagar, for Abraham to try and have a child, and they did. They had this child, Ishmael. But it was not long after Ishmael was born when Sarah becomes pregnant. Everything was pretty much as OK as it could be up until then. But now that Isaac was born jealously wells up inside of Sarah and anger at seeing those two boys playing together. Her son Isaac should be the prominent one and shouldn’t be associated with Ishmael. So she says to Abraham, “Send them away; banish them.” And Abraham follows his wife’s wishes, but he does so with probably as much compassion as he could muster under those circumstances. It says in those passages “when morning came,” which means he didn’t send them away right away, he let them gather their things and prepare themselves for travel the next day. When morning came, Abraham got up and he gathered together some bread and some water and gave it to them and helped them on their way. It was a very difficult thing to do, surely, and he had to do it, but at least in the midst of it he showed compassion. He got up early with them and gave them provisions to go on their way. It was about as much compassion as he could give, and it came from his heart.
On Father’s Day, one of the things I like to do is think of my own father and my memories of him, and sometimes share them with you. When I think of compassion, my mind almost immediately goes to a time when I was young and my father and I had an argument. I got angry and ran from the living room upstairs to my bedroom and slammed the door and got as far away from him as I could. Now, after a little while, I could hear him start to come up the stairs. The reason I knew it was him is that my father’s left arm and left leg were paralyzed because of an injury in World War II, so when he came up the stairs the cadence of his slow steps sounded different from anybody else. I looked out of the corner of my eye from the bed and I saw the doorknob turning and him coming in and sitting on my bed with a tear in his eye to tell me he was sorry we had fought. There are two things about that that connect, for me, with Abraham. First there was compassion. For me, that was the perfect thing for him to do, the perfect outpouring of his love, as Abraham did for Hagar and Ishmael in the other story. But the other thing it showed is that compassion requires effort to be expressed. Abraham had to make an effort, to get up early and get things together for Hagar, just as my father had to make his way up those steps, which was difficult for him. Real compassion often involves making an effort.
The last thing about the story of Abraham and fatherhood, for me, is the importance of listening for God in all situations and concentrating on hearing God speaking in some way or another. Abraham was the classic example of a person who listened to God. He left his home in Hebron and headed toward the promised land of Canaan because God had called him to do that, and he listened and heard it. In last week’s lesson, he was listening when the three men came to him and brought him the divine message from God that Sarah would bear the child. And he was listening here when Sarah got angry and said to get that woman and her son out of here, because God intervened and spoke to Abraham and said, “Abraham, do as she tells you to do.” The King James Version of the Bible says Abraham was grieved and didn’t know what to do. But God’s voice came to him and said to do as she says, I will take care of it and it will be OK. Each child will become a great nation and in fact, our faith and the Judeo-Christian tradition trace faith back through Isaac to Abraham. In the Arab world, Muslims trace their faith back through Ishmael to Abraham. That’s why you hear the term “Abrahamic faith” once in a while. There’s a connection of the great religions of the world back to Abraham. So in order to work this problem out, Abraham had to be listening to God. That’s the key thing. And indeed, as harsh as all this may seem, God took care of Hagar and Ishmael, and brought them more water and showed them the way to freedom and a new world and a new life and another nation.
I had been rummaging around in my garage trying to clean it out, and the things I run across once in a while are these boxes I took out of my mother’s apartment after she died. As I was getting rid of other things, one of the things I found was a diary of my father’s from 1951, not too long after he had completed the major rehabilitation after his war injury and was back home and working a few hours at the Aetna. He kept this diary, and Sunday after Sunday he talked about going to church and listening to the sermon. “February 25, 1951 – Ruth and I went to church and Rev. Gates from the Wethersfield State Prison was substitute for Rev. Keith Jones who was ill.” Another one from a different year says, “Washing machine repaired. Coil spring adjustment in pump. Five dollars.” When was the last time you got anything repaired for $5? Of course, they were making $35 a week in those days. “Sunday, March 11 – Ruth and I went to Asylum Hill Congregational Church to hear Rev. Mr. Bernard Drew’s sermon ‘On the Edge of Trouble.’ We spoke with Rev. Drew and his wife Gladys after the service. Sunday, March 25 – Ruth and I drove to church with a white carnation apiece. Rev. Keith Jones’ sermon was ‘Prisoner of Hope.’ After the service we drove to South Park Methodist Church to pick up my grandmother. June 1 – Ruth and I went to church to hear Rev. Jones’ sermon ‘Reflections of Light.’ July 27 – Ruth and I went to church this morning to hear Rev. Jones’ sermon ‘Using a Right Measure.’ September 7 – Ruth and I went to church this morning to hear Rev. Jones’ sermon ‘Bearing Christ’s Postmark’ at the First Church of Christ in Wethersfield. In the afternoon, we had dinner with my mother and stepfather in West Hartford.”
Very kind of mundane things here, everything from going to the store to watering the garden and things like that – but all those Sundays of going to the church and hearing the minister and these are the messages we heard. I believe that’s one of the ways in which my father listened for God in the wake of his injury and his attempt to recover and get as much of his life back as he could – his listening to sermons and listening for God’s Word to come to him and bring him some reassurance and guidance as he recovered from those horrible war injuries. It’s a great illustration for us, again, not just in hard times but in all times to be listening for God to direct us and guide us, in everyday life and also when things get tough, as they were for Abraham and Hagar and Ishmael, and also as they were for my dad at that time.
The good news today is that Abraham was not a perfect father. He might not have been the ideal father, but he was an ideal father in these ways that we’ve thought about this morn-ing – in the fact that he was always listening for God and which direction to go, which direction to go and what to have hope for, how to handle a problem, how to have compassion, how to celebrate with his family. We will be blessed – fathers, parents, family members, all of us – as God’s people, if we follow that simple way of Abraham, to listen for God, to follow God, and even when it doesn’t make any sense at all, to trust God, that God’s guidance will be right.