Living in the Spirit
June 16, 2014
Scripture Reading: Genesis 21:8-21
The child 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.’ – Genesis 21:8-10
Why do we do the awful things that we do? Indeed, part of our way of being was penciled in generations before we were born by our culture and our specific family’s traits. Sarah came from a culture that valued only women who could have children. Part of that was economic: like selling a cow that could not produce a calf. A non-producing animal is not worth its feed. Part of it was patterns of inheritance. We see that throughout the Bible. The oldest son is the primary heir. Oh, wait I favor Isaac over Ismael, Jacob over Esau, Ephraim over Manasseh. The story we read today came from the tradition of Sarah descendants. I wonder how God’s perspective would read. Do we ever think that what we do today may still be festering on battlefields 4000 years later?
Reading further into the scripture, God does not render any judgment on Sarah’s behavior or whether it is a part of God’s vision for the world. God simply states that God can continue to work out God’s plan through Isaac and that Ismael will lead a great nation, also.
The subject of this website came from stories like this. Wholeness leads to oneness and oneness leads to justice and justice leads to wholeness. It is a great spiral. We chose whether it goes up or down. When we work to be whole ourselves through the love and healing force of God, we too can love each other and justice will result. When we allow our lives to wallow in self-deprecation, we usually become alienated from our neighbors who then become our enemies, and there is no justice.
We serve an awesome God who loves us and wants the very best for us—all of us. We are never made better by the denigration of another and we always suffer the consequences of our failure to love.
Prayer: Lord, teach me how to love you, myself, and my neighbor. Amen.
All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of American. Used by permission. All rights reserved.