Isaac is born (Gen. 21:1-6), and when the time comes for him to be weaned, Abraham makes a great feast, and Hagar and Ishmael attend the celebration. When Sara sees Ishmael, who would have been about 15 years old, playing with his little brother, she demands that Abraham “cast out this slave woman with her son, for the son of this slave woman shall not inherit along with my son Isaac (Gen. 21:10b).   

Abraham is distressed by Sarah’s demand, as we discover with the first words God speaks to him, “Do not be distressed because of the boy and because of your slave woman” (Gen 21:12b), and God then promises to make a great nation of Ishmael also, because he is the offspring of Abraham.      

The disturbing result, then, is that Abraham takes Hagar and Ishmael out to the desert, gives them some bread and water, and abandons them there.

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. Gen. 21:14.

What follows in this story is devastating and moving—Hagar and Ishmael run out of water, and the boy’s cries are too heart-rending for her, so she sets him under a tree and moves far enough away so she doesn’t have to see to her son die:

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.’ Gen. 21: 15-16

What happens next is what we should expect but which still comes as a surprising relief: Hagar lifts up her voice and weeps; God hears and answers her prayers.

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. Gen  21:18-18.  

This part of the story of Ishmael ends with a hint at the future:

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.  Gen: 21:20-21

The fulfillment of God’s promise to Ishmael appears two times in Genesis. A genealogy of Ishmael descendants appears in Gen. 25:12-18.  And then later we find Ishmael stature rises so that a tribe of people are named after him—Ishmaelites.

The backstory of the visit of the three men and promise of Isaac includes chapters 15, 16, and 17 of Genesis.  And there is a lot of trouble between the promise of Chapter 18 and the fulfillment of Chapter 21.  

Genesis Chapter 15: The promise of a child is made long before the visit of the Lord at the Oaks of Mamre. It could be that Sarah’s laugh is less about her physical condition and the status of her relationship with Abraham than it is how absurd it seems for God to make such a promise after having failed to make good on the original promise of chapter 15. 

Notice that the promise made in Chapter 15 is given to Abram and Sarai. They have not received new names yet. To receive a new name is to transition to a new state of being, which happens often in the Old Testament (as with Jacob becoming Israel) and in the New Testament (as with Simon becoming Peter, and Saul becoming Paul).  

Genesis Chapter 16: Sarai has given up on having a child, given up on trusting the promise of God, and in fact blames God for failing her:  ‘You see that the Lord has prevented me from bearing children (Gen. 16:2b).  She then takes matters into her own hands by “giving” her Egyptian slave, Hagar, to Abram, so they will not remain childless. Jealousy and envy lead Sarai to abuse Hagar when she becomes pregnant. She goes to her husband to complain, but Abram makes no effort to involve himself in any way, simply telling Sarai to do whatever she wants to Hagar; thus Hagar runs away to escape Sara’s abuse.  

What then happens is a story we do not often tell.  

An angel visits Hagar and promises to make a multitude of people from her offspring, the same promise given to Abram and Sarai. 

Genesis Chapter 17: The covenant with Abram and Sarai so far has been of words only. In Chapter 17, God gives Abram and Sarai their new names–Abraham and Sarah–and gives them a sign to mark the covenant with them, and oh what a sign–circumcision!

All of the males, Abraham himself and all of the males in his household, including his 13 year old son, Ishmael, suffer circumcision.  We pass over this covenant without much curiosity, but what is it about circumcision that makes sense as a sign of God’s covenant with Abraham?  Is it somehow related to the nature of the covenant itself, having to do with procreation? 

And women are left out altogether. 

What kind of power and authority does Abraham have to be able to insist that all males be circumcised? 

In any case, circumcision as a sign surely dispels the idea that covenant with God is easy, requiring no change, no sacrifice.

The word genesis is rich with meaning–it marks the beginning not of random or chaotic happenings, but of a coherent story–a series of causally related events undertaken by characters in conflict.  Meaning arises from this conflict, how it is resolved or left unresolved, what the conflict itself reveals about the characters.. 

The book of Genesis is much more than merely the creation stories featuring Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel.  Genesis tells stories of the birth of faith through our first ancestors, beginning with the first family–Abraham and Sarah and Hagar, Ishmael and Isaac–and ending with Joseph forgiving his brothers, dying in in a Egypt, his last words promising that God will deliver them, and requesting his bones to be taken to the Promised Land (Gen. 50:24-26).

This summer is a good time to consider what Genesis means to us, how we find meaning and discern the ways God is at work in our lives and in the world.  

I invite you to join me in reading and studying Genesis through the summer.  We will read lectionary texts from Genesis every week, but these texts skip over stories that expose the characters in high moments we read on Sundays as they struggle through low times and behave less than admirably.  These low times sharpen and heighten the high moments, and help us better understand what it means for us to live faithfully when we ourselves struggle.  

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