Sunday, June 21, 2026

Fourth Sunday after Pentecost – Year A

Genesis 21:8–21 (NRSVUE)

Hagar and Ishmael Sent Away

8 The child grew and was weaned, and Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned. 9 But Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, playing with her son Isaac. 10 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.” 11 The matter was very distressing to Abraham on account of his son. 12 But God said to Abraham, “Do not be distressed because of the boy and because of your slave woman; whatever Sarah says to you, do as she tells you, for it is through Isaac that offspring shall be named for you. 13 As for the son of the slave woman, I will make a nation of him also, because he is your offspring.” 14 So Abraham rose early in the morning and took bread and a skin of water and gave it to Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, along with the child, and sent her away. And she departed and wandered about in the wilderness of Beer-sheba. 15 When the water in the skin was gone, she cast the child under one of the bushes. 16 Then she went and sat down opposite him a good way off, about the distance of a bowshot, for she said, “Do not let me look on the death of the child.” And as she sat opposite him, she lifted up her voice and wept. 17 And God heard the voice of the boy, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, “What troubles you, Hagar? Do not be afraid, for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. 18 Come, lift up the boy and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make a great nation of him.” 19 Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. She went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink. 20 God was with the boy, and he grew up; he lived in the wilderness and became an expert with the bow. 21 He lived in the wilderness of Paran, and his mother got a wife for him from the land of Egypt.

Commentary

In the foreground is a feast; two boys are playing around the edges. Abraham is their father, Sarah we know is the mother of Isaac and Hagar, the slave, is the mother of the other boy (Ismael). The weaning of Isaac is the occasion of the feast that Abraham is hosting. Sarah’s demand that Abraham “cast out this slave woman with her son” sets in motion a crisis in which we learn about God’s interaction with humanity. Abraham’s compliance is total, his agency outsourced to Sarah and to God. Seemingly encouraging Abraham to do an evil deed, God in fact is rearticulating the promise that Isaac and Ismael will both have a future legacy. Hagar goes into the wilderness with Ismael where certain death awaits them as the bread and water supplied by Abraham runs out.

Sarah’s act and Abraham’s complicity are systemic, not merely individual; sin here is “rebellion against creation” through the violation of relation (Marjorie Suchocki, The Fall to Violence: Original Sin in Relational Theology (1994). But, in the wilderness, where the disadvantaged slave and her son are at great risk, God is actively in creative relationship with Hagar and Ismael. In that barren place, God hears the cries of Ismael and speaks to Hagar with compassion – “What troubles you?” In the way of process theology’s relational becoming, Hagar is fully a subject with God, as they work together to create in this moment something extraordinarily new and beautiful (v. 18). Hagar is the first to be visited by God and then the surprising declaration: “God was with the boy”. To view any of this as predetermined closes off the relational and dynamic nature of God, so evidenced in this text. According to Suchocki, God is in some sense becoming. “For God to feel the world is for God to recreate the world within the divine self, and to integrate those feelings of the world in the divine character.” (Fall to Violence, 74). Verses 19-22 illustrate a God who is creating with the world (and these characters in it) – God was with the boy, he grew, he lived, became an expert, his mother got a wife for him.

The passage began with a feast; systemic rebellion against creation and relation emerges in the actions of Sarah and Abraham. However, the wilderness episode with Hagar and Ismael illustrates “God’s creativity interact(ing) with the world’s creativity” through divine influence. (Suchocki, 56). We should be careful, however, not to assuage Hagar’s grief entirely – there is still wilderness. God is there and in the becoming; the past is not erased even as past and future are unified in God’s influencing, luring love.

Where do you see the rebellion against creation and relation – and where is God creatively interacting with humanity and creation? Perhaps in your context you take time to lean into Hagar’s experience, to wonder at how it is that we can move forward in relationship with our God, without the need to silence or erase the brokenness of our past.