Have you ever felt double-crossed by God? Ever feel as if God made you a promise and then took it back? As if God moved you to the back of the line? Abraham was first called by God when Abraham was 75 years old, and promised a baby. Now, ten years later, as we take up our text, he and his wife Sarah are still waiting…and waiting. (Their names were “Sarai and Abram” here, later changed to “Sarah and Abraham”…I am using their more familiar names for simplicity’s sake) What do you do when you feel as if God has welched on a deal? Lewis Smedes once said that all hope has some anxiety attached to it. So when we feel anxious, what do we do? Of course! We take things into our own hands. We help God out, because obviously, God needs our assistance running the universe, at least our corner of it!

 

Have you noticed? We run ahead of God. We don’t consult God or ask for guidance. We do something without seeking God’s leadership and then wonder why God didn’t bless the plan. And then we ask God to help us clean up the mess! It reminds me of that recruit from South Missouri who joined the Army and was in basic training. He was out on the rifle range and his CO heard the young man whisper each time he squeezed the trigger, “Ready, fire, aim!” That’s what we do. We shoot first, then ask God where the target is.

 

Sarah and Abraham hatched a plan to nudge God’s plan along. It’s a bit embarrassing, and not one of their finer moments. To be sure that Abraham would have an heir, Sarah offered her maid (her slave girl) to Abraham, to have a baby together. And you thought surrogate maternity was a new thing! Yes, from biblical literature and other ancient Assyrian texts of the day, we know that it was an acceptable custom for Hagar to carry the baby, but the baby would be legally Abraham’s and Sarah’s.

 

There was just one problem. Sometimes, something is legal, but not in God’s plan; something may be culturally acceptable but not God’s will. The moment Hagar became pregnant by Abraham, trouble started. Sarah obviously lost face and was humiliated. Sarah could not bear children; this young Hagar could. Think about it. Hagar was always around the house, cleaning and cooking. And every time Sarah looked at Hagar, she was reminded: that woman had sex with my husband. You know, we’ve come a long way in the thousands of years since Abraham and Sarah lived. But in at least one area, we’ve made no progress. We still haven’t learned the lessons of sexual intimacy: what we do with our bodies, we do with our entire personalities. We still haven’t learned that “casual sex” is an oxymoron. “Casual sex” is like saying you want a shallow deep relationship, or that you want a temporary permanent relationship. Sexual relations always complicate things, and thoroughly so when they precede commitment.

 

If the young people here today think that “hooking up” is OK and harmless, you’re just dead wrong.  Last fall, Sojourners magazine ran an article about human sexuality. They invited people to tweet their thoughts about what the church should teach about sex. One person wrote, “I…wish I knew how unique a bond sex creates between people.” Another wrote, “…sex is always about another person’s soul.” Sojourners, Sept.-Oct. 2009, p. 22] 

 

You see, when we run ahead of God, so often we end up using people to push ahead our own selfish agenda. Notice that neither Abraham nor Sarah ask Hagar if she wants to be a part of their plan. Sarah never speaks to Hagar, and never calls her by her name. She’s just a slave girl, a piece of property. And Abraham doesn’t come off any better. When confronted with the tension between the two women, he says to his wife Sarah, “Do whatever you want with her. She’s your slave.” Hey, Abraham was 85 years old. He had lived long enough to know you don’t get between two feuding women!

 

In v. 6, as the story describes how Sarah then treated Hagar, the word for “dealt harshly with” is the same Hebrew word used in Exodus, for the way Pharaoh oppressed the Hebrew people. In fact, Hagar was so mistreated, she ran away.

 

But God is able to take our messes, our sins, our attempts at controlling our world, and bring about good things. The angel of the Lord found Hagar, and the Hebrew verb gives us the idea that God was actively, lovingly seeking her. And note that God knew her name, knew where she was, and knew all about her heartache. The angel asks two questions (v. 8): 1) Where have you come from; 1) Where are you going? Good questions for us this morning.

 

Three times, in intentional repetition, vv. 9-11: “The angel of the LORD said to her…” To let us know God doesn’t just speak in pretty church buildings, but also in dusty deserts. God’s tender, caring voice not only comes to pious folks who use all the “God talk” but also to lonely, runaway, pregnant girls who have been used and tossed aside.. A Jewish rabbi was once discussing this passage, explaining that in the synagogue, his people read aloud through the entire Torah over successive Sabbaths. And he said that every year, when they come to this passage, he hold on to his chair and tries not to sun away. Why? Because Hagar gave birth to Ishmael, the father of the Arab race. Factor that in to your personal political views about the current land controversies in the Middle East—the Arabs are Abraham’s children, too! And while Isaac would be born to Abraham and be the child of Promise (capital P), God’s love and promise are for the Hagars, Ishmaels and all the people of the earth. Hagar and Ishmael may move out of the main flow of the biblical story, but they never move out of God’s care. And neither do you.

 

Later, in v. 13, Hagar wonders that she has seen God and lived to tell about it. The greater wonder is that God saw her. And that God sees you and me. When no one else cares, when we’ve been abused and hurt, God sees. And even when we mess up and try to take God’s plan into our own hands, God loves us, forgives us and cleans up the mess. If our God could take the ugly Cross and out of it, build our forgiveness and hope, God can do anything with our smaller messes.