4th Sunday after Pentecost
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.” The matter was very distressing to Abraham on account of his son. 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. As for the son of the slave woman, I will make a nation of him also, because he is your offspring.”
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. When the water in the skin was gone, she cast the child under one of the bushes. 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. 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. Come, lift up the boy and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make a great nation of him.” 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. God was with the boy, and he grew up; he lived in the wilderness, and became an expert with the bow. He lived in the wilderness of Paran; and his mother got a wife for him from the land of Egypt.
The God Who Sees You
On Tuesday, there was a event at St. Paul’s Methodist Church, called Listening to Our Neighbors. It started in the morning with showers, haircuts, and footcare for our unsheltered neighbors. Then everyone got together for lunch, sheltered and unsheltered alike, all together. And after lunch, we all went into the sanctuary, to give our unsheltered neighbors a chance to talk about their experiences and to voice their concerns. We weren’t there to try to solve all of their problems in the short hour of the forum. It wasn’t about finding solutions. We were there to listen, to be present, to make sure that they knew they were seen and heard.
Many of them expressed how difficult it was to find jobs or housing because of the preconceived notions that people have about them. That they were drug users or alcoholics. That they were too lazy to work. That they were unable to work, or couldn’t be responsible with their money. Some of the barriers they encounter are simply too high for any unsheltered person to climb over. And, no minimum wage job will ever be enough for a person to pay rent in Helena, on top of covering all of their other basic human needs.
It was difficult to listen to some of their stories. A few men talked about how they had served time in prison, and how it was impossible for them to get a job now, because of that. Several people spoke about what it was like to live in their cars, and how they would be hassled by police if they tried to sleep in the wrong place. There were a lot of comments about the lack of services, the lack of sources for water, and of course, the lack of housing.
It’s easy to forget these neighbors of ours as we go about our day-to-day lives. I have to confess that I don’t see very many unsheltered people on any given week. The numbers vary, as each agency has a different definition for who counts as an unsheltered person, but the latest statistic from The United Way shows over 1,500 unsheltered people living in Montana, 143 of which live in Helena. The numbers keep going up every year. This isn’t something that’s just going to go away if we ignore it.
We can’t ignore them. We need to see them. We need to hear them. We need to listen.
The Bible is filled with stories about God coming to the aid of marginalized people, like our unsheltered neighbors. Today’s story about Hagar and her son Ishmael is a perfect example of that. In case anyone needs a reminder, Sarah didn’t trust God’s promise that she would bear a son. So, she told her husband, Abraham, to lie with her slave Hagar, so that Hagar could bear a child, and Sarah could claim the child as her own. I know, to our modern sensibilities, this is wild, but it fell within the boundaries of what was considered acceptable behavior for their time.
According to the text, when Hagar did become pregnant, she became proud, and thought of herself as better than Sarah. Of course, Sarah didn’t like this, and was so mean to Hagar that Hagar, pregnant with Abraham’s child, ran away into the wilderness. But, an angel of God found her, and asked where she was going. She said she was running away, but the angel told her to return, because God would multiply her offspring. She would have so many descendants that they would not be able to be counted. And, Hagar named God “El-roi”, which means “God sees me.”
Remember God’s preferential option for the poor, how God always stands in solidarity with the poor and the powerless? Well, Hagar was powerless. First of all, Hagar was a woman, and women had the double burden of not having lot of rights in this place and time, while also bearing a lot of responsibility and expectations from their families and the wider community. She was a slave and an Egyptian, so in Canaan, she would have been a foreigner. The only way she could’ve had a lower standing in society would’ve been if she had leprosy. She had no power, not even over her own body. She was the person who was the least likely to be seen.
But, God saw her. God saw her, and told her to go back, because the wilderness was no place for a pregnant woman, and God had plans for Hagar and her child. God sees everyone, sees their real worth, sees who they really are. It doesn’t matter how the world sees them, because God sees the truth. Everyone is important. Everyone is precious. And, God cares about each and every person in the world.
Plymouth Congregational Church has been working with The United Way, and many other local organizations on the Move the Dial initiative, to take care of our unsheltered neighbors, and to start working on how to meet their basic human needs, which includes secure housing.
We need to pay attention. We need to listen. And, we need to help. Our hope is that in the next few years, sooner if we can manage it, we’ll be able to start different projects to bring an end to homelessness in Helena. I can’t tell you what those will be or what they will look like, because I don’t know. I don’t know if anyone knows. This is going to take creativity and innovation, and it might not look like what we expect.
But, what we can expect, because it happens almost everywhere when people try to do these things, is the “Not in my backyard” attitude, or NIMBY for short. It’s the attitude that stops initiatives in their tracks. It’s the attitude that fails to recognize who our neighbors are. We need to push back against that. We need to see the humanity in everyone, and help our community set their prejudices and their fears aside, so that they can really see who their neighbors are.
Hope is found in being seen. What do we see when we see an unsheltered person on the street? What do we see when we see members of the queer community or people who aren’t Christian? What do we see when we see a foreigner, or someone who’s disabled? What do we see when we see someone who’s mentally unstable? Or a criminal? Or, someone who’s politics are different from our own?
Our job is to see people the way that God sees them. We need to build bridges and shake hands. We need to have conversations, and we need to listen. We need to see. Look at your neighbors. Look at all of them and see who they really are, see them the way that God sees them. Amen.
~ Rev. Charles Wei
