Family failure
There used to be people who thought that if a character in the Bible did something, that something must be alright because it’s recorded in the Bible. Actually a lot of things recorded in the Bible are there for an example of what not to do.
It was Sarah’s idea: just as sixteen years ago it had been her idea to have children by giving her maid to Abraham. Now she is demanding that Abraham send the woman away. In the years since Abraham’s household had become a two-wife family the home had been rocked with scorn, anger, truancy and cruelty. You would think Abraham never wanted to hear Sarah give advice again, but here she is and her advice sounds more like a demand.
Isaac was the son promised by God, but Ishmael was the Abraham’s first born son, the very first time he held a child of his in his arms, how to give up a bay so dear? Again how could Abraham train Isaac to inherit the blessing that through him should all the families of the earth be blessed, without grieving Ishmael if he lived in the same house?
If there had been a mother-in-law around (which there wasn’t) she would probably have told Sarah that she should keep a quiet tongue in her head from now on. She would have told Abraham that it was all his fault for listening to a woman in the first place. Come to think of it we don’t need a mother-in-law to make that kind of statement. Some church elders are just as capable of saying the same thing. “The woman is commanded to keep silent” The preacher says standing in his raised pulpit preaching to a congregation that is expected to not respond. “All the trouble between Israelites and Arabs is due to Abraham and Sarah because they didn’t have enough patience.” Yes I’ve actually heard that said, and it was from a man with three years of seminary behind him, can you believe it?
In the time of Abraham’s distress God speaks to him. God doesn’t condemn Abraham for not waiting long enough. He doesn’t condemn Sarah for loosing hope. Neither does he change his plans to accommodate the mess that Abraham and Sarah have made of their family life, God has already taken action, he does not change his plans and divide the blessing equally between the two sons, but he extends his blessing to include Ishmael also. Ishmael also will be fruitful and become a great nation; Ishmael also will father twelve princes. He will roam free, and never be enslaved.
God demonstrates his patience in this family history. God does not withdraw his blessing because Abraham and Sarah made a bad mistake. (I’m not talking about determined continued sinfulness) his mercy encompasses our failures and surrounds the results of them. Let me emphasize that, whatever has been the result of our failures, God is still willing to extend blessing to those involved. Even to bless the products of our failures. Solomon was the son of Bath Sheba for whom David committed remote-controlled murder.
To protect ourselves against temptation and to protect our society from depravation we prefer to cast out the people who made mistakes and ignore their children. In some societies they suffer hard penalties and some societies stone the women who were pressured into adultery, but not the men. So it’s taking a risk to say that God forgives our mistakes and extends mercy to the people involved. How can we defend society if we don’t root out the evil doer? Perhaps by rooting out the evil in our own hearts.
As for Hagar, God opens for her a well of water. The cast out and the rejected mother and son receive from God the same highly prized means of life and livelihood that was so valued by the son of Abraham, who dug his own wells.
How to apply this to you and I: when at last we run out of energy and are forced to live a more restful life we seem to think about the past more often than we did. Or is it because we have less too look forward to? When there is still a spouse living with us we re-assure one another that we did the best possible thing. But one-day the spouse dies and we cannot talk over the things we regret. Then it may be that we begin, too often, to think ‘If only...’ Sadness invades our evenings and we begin to remember the family-failures as if they were the only things we did. (Of course we have been taught to be self-congratulatory about all the things we did well.). In the wakeful times in the night things get out of proportion, and poison the morning.
So what must we do about the failures that have happened in almost every family? One thing that is biblical (We can say a thing is biblical when it runs all through the Bible and is confirmed again and again) we can remember the 23rd psalm. And recite the last verse into the lonely darkness: Goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. Because it is true that God’s mercy extends to the mistakes we made, to the failures in our lives, and God’s goodness is constantly available to all who will receive. Sometimes (I have seen it often, to the people who do not know or understand about his mercy and goodness.) On the internet just now is the story of a small boy who looked round to see two girls following him, “Who are they?” questioned his friend. “Well I guess they must be Goodness and Mercy says the child, our Sunday school teacher said that they were going to follow us around all our lives, so we’d better get used to it.”
Before I stop, I must tell you that I made many friends among pastors who thought it was biblically incorrect for a woman to have any power of advice, decision or teaching. To those friends I would like to send a poster to be hung beside the entrance into their church’s sanctuary, it will say, “LISTEN TO HER! Genesis 21.12.” But then why should I do that; isn’t it the privilege of their women-folk; those good women who are so earnestly trying to honor God by being silent and obedient?
Genesis 17.20
2 Samuel 12. 24
.
It was Sarah’s idea: just as sixteen years ago it had been her idea to have children by giving her maid to Abraham. Now she is demanding that Abraham send the woman away. In the years since Abraham’s household had become a two-wife family the home had been rocked with scorn, anger, truancy and cruelty. You would think Abraham never wanted to hear Sarah give advice again, but here she is and her advice sounds more like a demand.
Isaac was the son promised by God, but Ishmael was the Abraham’s first born son, the very first time he held a child of his in his arms, how to give up a bay so dear? Again how could Abraham train Isaac to inherit the blessing that through him should all the families of the earth be blessed, without grieving Ishmael if he lived in the same house?
If there had been a mother-in-law around (which there wasn’t) she would probably have told Sarah that she should keep a quiet tongue in her head from now on. She would have told Abraham that it was all his fault for listening to a woman in the first place. Come to think of it we don’t need a mother-in-law to make that kind of statement. Some church elders are just as capable of saying the same thing. “The woman is commanded to keep silent” The preacher says standing in his raised pulpit preaching to a congregation that is expected to not respond. “All the trouble between Israelites and Arabs is due to Abraham and Sarah because they didn’t have enough patience.” Yes I’ve actually heard that said, and it was from a man with three years of seminary behind him, can you believe it?
In the time of Abraham’s distress God speaks to him. God doesn’t condemn Abraham for not waiting long enough. He doesn’t condemn Sarah for loosing hope. Neither does he change his plans to accommodate the mess that Abraham and Sarah have made of their family life, God has already taken action, he does not change his plans and divide the blessing equally between the two sons, but he extends his blessing to include Ishmael also. Ishmael also will be fruitful and become a great nation; Ishmael also will father twelve princes. He will roam free, and never be enslaved.
God demonstrates his patience in this family history. God does not withdraw his blessing because Abraham and Sarah made a bad mistake. (I’m not talking about determined continued sinfulness) his mercy encompasses our failures and surrounds the results of them. Let me emphasize that, whatever has been the result of our failures, God is still willing to extend blessing to those involved. Even to bless the products of our failures. Solomon was the son of Bath Sheba for whom David committed remote-controlled murder.
To protect ourselves against temptation and to protect our society from depravation we prefer to cast out the people who made mistakes and ignore their children. In some societies they suffer hard penalties and some societies stone the women who were pressured into adultery, but not the men. So it’s taking a risk to say that God forgives our mistakes and extends mercy to the people involved. How can we defend society if we don’t root out the evil doer? Perhaps by rooting out the evil in our own hearts.
As for Hagar, God opens for her a well of water. The cast out and the rejected mother and son receive from God the same highly prized means of life and livelihood that was so valued by the son of Abraham, who dug his own wells.
How to apply this to you and I: when at last we run out of energy and are forced to live a more restful life we seem to think about the past more often than we did. Or is it because we have less too look forward to? When there is still a spouse living with us we re-assure one another that we did the best possible thing. But one-day the spouse dies and we cannot talk over the things we regret. Then it may be that we begin, too often, to think ‘If only...’ Sadness invades our evenings and we begin to remember the family-failures as if they were the only things we did. (Of course we have been taught to be self-congratulatory about all the things we did well.). In the wakeful times in the night things get out of proportion, and poison the morning.
So what must we do about the failures that have happened in almost every family? One thing that is biblical (We can say a thing is biblical when it runs all through the Bible and is confirmed again and again) we can remember the 23rd psalm. And recite the last verse into the lonely darkness: Goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. Because it is true that God’s mercy extends to the mistakes we made, to the failures in our lives, and God’s goodness is constantly available to all who will receive. Sometimes (I have seen it often, to the people who do not know or understand about his mercy and goodness.) On the internet just now is the story of a small boy who looked round to see two girls following him, “Who are they?” questioned his friend. “Well I guess they must be Goodness and Mercy says the child, our Sunday school teacher said that they were going to follow us around all our lives, so we’d better get used to it.”
Before I stop, I must tell you that I made many friends among pastors who thought it was biblically incorrect for a woman to have any power of advice, decision or teaching. To those friends I would like to send a poster to be hung beside the entrance into their church’s sanctuary, it will say, “LISTEN TO HER! Genesis 21.12.” But then why should I do that; isn’t it the privilege of their women-folk; those good women who are so earnestly trying to honor God by being silent and obedient?
Genesis 17.20
2 Samuel 12. 24
.
posted by Jessie Coates at 6:52 PM
1 comments
