MLP Service Sermon

"God Hears"
sermon on Gen 21.9-21
Welcoming Worship Celebration hosted by More Light Presbyterians

This isn't the first time Hagar has been in the wilderness. Sarah
kicked her out once before. It was when Hagar first became pregnant
with Ishmael. The whole thing was Sarah's idea, but once it happened,
they became bitter toward one another. Sarah was the wife and Hagar
was the servant so it was clear from the beginning which one would
lose.

That time, Hagar wandered in the wilderness until she found a spring
of water. God met her there and told her about the son she would have.
She gave prayers of thanks, calling God "the God who sees." Eventually
Hagar returned to Abraham and Sarah's family.

It's an impossible situation. As Sarah's servant Hagar has to do what
Sarah says. Even her body is under Sarah's control. Sarah says sleep
with Abraham and get pregnant. Hagar has to do it. And when she
finally produces the son, the heir, she's in trouble again because now
there's competition.

The whole situation is defined by injustice. These boys can't be
friendly brothers because the rules of inheritance prevent it. These
women can't be friends because one owns the other one. Hagar is a
servant, a foreigner, a woman, and (apparently) a person with nowhere
to go besides Abraham's house or the wilderness. It's
impossible--Hagar can't do anything except get pushed around by
Sarah's demands. Or can she?

Now Hagar has been kicked out of the house again. Sarah says it was
because Hagar mocked her.

It's an interesting charge: mocking. If Hagar is being charged with
mocking, it means one of two things. Number one: Sarah is so insecure
about her status in the family that anything Hagar says comes across
as mockery, whether intended that way or not. Insecure people in
positions of power tend to hear an awful lot of mockery. Number two:
Hagar's previous experience with God in the wilderness has given her
dignity... that makes it difficult to go back and accept the
conditions of servitude.

In the wilderness Hagar discovered that God could provide for her.
That there are limits to the harm that injustice and exploitation can
do. That inside the despised slave, the woman, the foreigner, there
still lives a part that is free. The part of Hagar that God speaks to
is the part that has more choices besides just accepting Sarah's will
or complaining about Sarah's will. As a child of God Hagar is
somebody, and it doesn't matter in the least what Sarah says about
that.

The story doesn't say this, but I imagine that the moment Hagar first
met God in the wilderness didn't just give her dignity, it gave her
courage to teach her son dignity as well. Even though he was born in
captivity she won't let him grow up without knowing he belongs to God,
that no one owns him except God.
In that case Hagar is going around with her head held high. She has
newfound courage. She knows she's a child of God and isn't that
already a mockery of the system that holds her captive?

So Hagar is wandering in the wilderness again. Short on food and
water, she's probably losing those feelings of confidence now. This
time around she has a little boy to take care of, and there is no
spring of water to be found.

But. Of the many things Hagar is, the most important is child of God.
Out there in the wilderness, she is not any of those other
things--slave, foreigner, despised, victimized.
The wilderness is the place where Hagar is only a child of God. That's
a little scary. When someone owns you, at least they feed you. Out
here in the wilderness, so far, there's no food.
So even when she has given up on everything--she's given up on finding
water, she's given up on the life of her son, she's probably given up
on God too--God hasn't given up on her.

Hagar and her abandoned son sit down and cry. And God hears.


It is very easy to forget that we are children of God. It is very easy
to get wrapped up in other kinds of belonging, other kinds of security
and all that. We might be Sarah, feeling threatened at every turn. We
might be Abraham, wishing the conflict would just go away. We might be
Hagar, getting kicked out and exiled. Surely if anyone here can go
around claiming that they're the righteous victim it's Hagar. It's
very easy, when we get hurt, to just go around being the hurt person
or the lost person instead of being the child of God. It's like we're
going around with a giant flashing neon arrow over our heads that
points at whoever hurt us or pushed us away. "Hi, I'm Heather
Reichgott, the candidate for ministry who might never be ordained
because of those people over there who won't allow it." And that
becomes my explanation for who I am and what I'm doing with my life.
How different it is when the arrow points up at God instead: "I'm
Heather Reichgott, child of God." How different our stories become
then. How much more free we are.

Here's a question for you. And I am expecting to hear answers. This is
not a rhetorical question. Who decides whether or not Hagar is a child
of God?
[The people said:] God!
Does Sarah get to decide that? does Abraham?
No!
Does majority vote get to decide that?
No!
Who decides whether or not we are children of God?
[One voice:] Nobody!
[Another voice, simultaneously:] God!
Okay, we had two answers there, Nobody and God. In different ways
those are both beautiful answers of faith! Who decides whether Sarah
and Abraham are children of God? Do they have to make it happen
themselves? Does it depend on kicking out the right people?
No!
Who decides?
God does!

Well, this is a people of great faith. Look around you, at this
collection of lesbian and gay and bisexual and transgender people in
this room. And straight people, I know there are some of you here too.
Who gets to decide whether this [gesture: the people] is the people of
God or not?
God does!

Okay then. You know, so often, LGBT people and our friends and allies
get into the habit of acting as if we need somebody's permission to be
the people of God. It's like we're standing on the outside of some
door somewhere and knocking on it begging to be let in. I don't know
where that door is or where it leads but we're standing there knocking
on it and begging and making noise. And the longer we stand around on
that doorstep, the more people will give us lines like "it's not time
yet" or "the people inside can't handle it" or "you'll
drive other
people away" or "let's find a middle ground," or my personal
favorite,
"someone will be angry." Notice that the people giving us those lines
never have a timeframe. There is no "yet" that they're waiting for.
There is no point at which the people inside will all be able to
handle anything without the risk of a little anger. It's just
stalling. It's a device to prolong the process of knocking, and as
long as we all agree that we're outside knocking and they're inside
not coming to the door, it can go on forever.

But you all just told me that you're the people of God already, here
and now. You all just told me that we're on the inside, for the one
and only reason that God put us here. So let's ask ourselves: whose
permission do we need? We are God's people. We're here. We're queer.
We're the Presbyterian Church's organists and Sunday school teachers
and youth groups and lifelong members, and yes, we are the elders and
deacons and preachers too. Even if the church isn't admitting it at
the moment.

The only thing left to do is to get the Presbyterian Church to tell
the truth about itself, the truth about us, the very queerest part of
the people of God.

[picks up bowl and starts playing with the water]

Let's think about the wilderness again for a moment. The wilderness is
not a happy place to be. It is scary. It is confusing. Not much water.
Predatory animals. Predatory people, very possibly. No one goes to the
wilderness on purpose. You hang out there only if you're lost or if
you got kicked out of somewhere and you have no place else to go.

In the Bible the place where God is closest to the people is the
wilderness. Even though when people want to worship God, they go to
the safe places: cities, the temple, the house churches. The
wilderness is where Elijah meets God in the cave, and where God turns
Moses into a leader. The wilderness is where every one of the prophets
says God was closest to us. And many of us have experienced this
already: the times when we're scared or confused or vulnerable, or
when we wound up someplace by accident, is when God turned out to be
the closest.

I think it happens that way because in the wilderness, our survival
depends on God. We can't depend on the Sarahs and Abrahams of the
world to let us back into their inside group. We have to depend on God
to hear our cries. We need God to show us that we were God's people
all along, that the only kind of belonging that matters is already
given to us for free by God and no one else.

In the wilderness, God provides a miracle for Hagar. It isn't a
Parting the Red Sea, Hollywood kind of miracle. It is a kind of
miracle that many of us might be more familiar with. God opens Hagar's
eyes so that she can see a well of life-saving water. The well may
have been there all along. But it wasn't a well that Hagar the victim
could see. It wasn't a well that Hagar the exile, Hagar the despised,
or Hagar the lost could see.
But Hagar, child of God, could see that well.

People of God, there are wells everywhere. Let God open your eyes this
week and you'll find them. This is water that God provides for God's
children. Homophobia does not stop it. Injustice does not stop it. God
hears us and God provides it. And with the thirst-quenching
well-water, God provides the dignity of knowing we are God's children,
we are the church, gay and straight and trans alike.

Today it is that promise, that tremendous gift of God, that we
celebrate. This year, may it be good news for the whole church. Amen.