The sure foundation
Sermon for the Fourth Sunday after Pentecost (June 25, 2023) at St. James’ Episcopal Church in Hyde Park, NY. A video of the entire worship service is available here.
What are we talking about? View the scripture readings and the Collect of the Day: Proper 7, Year A
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Jesus said, Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. And even the hairs of your head are all counted. So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows. Matthew 10:29-31
Edited Transcript
May only truth be spoken here and only truth be heard. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Please be seated.
Thank goodness we have this wonderful Collect of the Day this Sunday, to cheer us up after the readings: "Lord, make us have perpetual love and reverence for your holy name"—help us to remember that you matter the most!—"For you never fail to help and govern those whom you have set upon the sure foundation of your loving-kindness."
God is loving-kindness. Above all God is mercy. God's mercy and God's love are our surest foundation.
Resting on that foundation does not guarantee prosperity or a positive outcome. This is clear in our Gospel for today, as Jesus, sending out his discples, tells them all the hardships they can expect. God's loving-kindness doesn't guarantee us a happy ending. Instead, the promise is that in every circumstance—no matter what—God will help and govern us. God will help and guide us and be there for us as we face what we have to face.
The story of Hagar is a good reminder that being in relationship with God doesn't guarantee us a life of safety. It doesn't guarantee us a life of happiness. It doesn't guarantee us a life of prosperity. She doesn't experience any of these things.
But she does experience the help and the governance and the guidance of God.
To really understand Hagar's story which we read today, we have to go back to Genesis 16, where it begins. Hagar is an enslaved woman in the household of Abraham and Sarah. Part of what makes her life so challenging, I think, is that she's under the authority of people wh themselves have not completely trusted God to help and govern them.
Remember, God has promised Abraham and Sarah that they would have a child. But God's timeline isn't quick enough for them. And so they come up with some schemes to help God along. Unfortunately for Hagar, the scheme that Sarah comes up with, in Genesis 16, is, "Husband, you take my slave and you lie with her, and she will bear us a child to be our heir. We will take care of this for God."
Sarah thinks she has control over this situation: "God has promised and I will fulfill it!" So, Hagar does get pregnant, as Sarah had hoped. But like many of our schemes, when we take things into our own hands, it doesn't turn out well. Sarah is consumed with jealousy and hatred. She looks at this enslaved woman in her household, over whom she feels she has authority, and she sees that Hagar is pregnant as Sarah herself has not been. And she starts to treat Hagar cruelly.
So in Genesis 16, the pregnant Hagar runs out into the wilderness, because the wilderness is better than being under the authority of this household. And God meets her there, in the wilderness at a spring. And God says to Hagar, you've got to go back.
We don't know exactly why God sends her back. Maybe it's because, however bad things were for her in that household, it provided her with the basics that she needed for her living. Perhaps it was only in that household that she could safely bear and raise that child.
But the most important thing that happens in Genesis 16, I think, is that Hagar, after her encounter with God, gives God a new name. She says to God, "You are El Roi," which means, "he sees me." God sees me.
When Hagar was on her own in the wilderness with nothing left, still there was that sure foundation of God's loving kindness. Because God saw her.
Just as Jesus says: Two sparrows go for a penny, but you are of infinite value. Two sparrows go for a penny, but not one of them goes without God. And God—as the song goes, "His eye is on the sparrow." Even what seems of so little value to the world, is of infinite value to God. God sees the enslaved woman cast out of her own home and sees that she is of infinite value—even where nobody else saw it. And so God and God's loving kindness makes a way.
So we get to today's reading from Genesis. Now the boy Ishmael, Hagar's son, has grown up in this household. But Abraham and Sarah have finally received what they wanted, which was a son born out of Sarah's body: Isaac. We heard about that last week!
As soon as Isaac is eating solid food, they have a little celebration. And what should be a happy occasion instead becomes another occasion for Sarah to look back and say, now that we're good with this one, Isaac, let's get this other one, Ishmael, out of here once and for all! And so this time, instead of running away, Hagar is cast out.
All she gets for her labor is a little bit of water, which carries her just far enough to despair. So she lays down her son under a bush and she walks away because, "After everything I have given, let me not see him die."
But the God who sees also hears. Even though Hagar has given up completely! And this is really worth noting , because sometimes we think, God will get me through this situation if I just trust God and tell God that I have faith and tell God I believe... then God will take care of me. But Hagar is not sitting under a bush praying Psalm 86. She's not saying to God, "Surely you will save me." She's just crying under the bush. But God hears her cries: the cry of one who seems in the eyes of her household to be worth nothing; the cries of her child who's worth nothing. God even hears the cries of the child that we don't hear! Ishmael's cries aren't aren't in the text. But God says, "I have heard the cries of the boy." Because sometimes God hears what can't come out of our mouths and is only in our hearts.
God hears that too. God sees us. God hears us. So that even like a sparrow, when we fall, God is watching over us.
Nothing is ultimately lost when we are on that sure foundation of loving kindness. Which I'll tell you: that is what is underneath all of creation, is a sure foundation of loving kindness and mercy. Because a lot of us will fall, but we will never fail to be helped and guided as we fall.
And God will see us and God will hear us.
And God will not be apart from us, for nothing falls apart from God. Amen.