I love the stories of the Old Testament. The people we meet there seem entirely human and understandable. They are pictured, as Oliver Cromwell said he wanted to be painted, “warts and all.” Even the heroes and heroines are shown with feet of clay. The stories describing Abraham and Sarah are a particularly good example of this honesty. I’d like to tell you part of their story this morning.

To begin at the beginning, Abraham was a wealthy man living in a cosmopolitan city called Ur about seventeen hundred years before Christ. In middle age, he heard the voice of God calling him to leave home and kindred and become a pioneer in a far-off land. God promised Abraham that by doing this he would become the father of a great nation.

We don’t know as much about Sarah, Abraham’s wife, but what we do know suggests that she, too, had many admirable qualities. However, she did not have the one thing she wanted more than anything else: a son. That lack was a very painful thing for Sarah. In those days, it was taken as a sign she was less as a wife and a woman than she ought to be. Some people even went further and felt it indicated she might not be in favor with God. Let me pause here and say that great harm comes when we have rigid expectations of the roles that men and women are supposed to fulfill. It can make those who fail to meet those rigid expectations feel as though they are failures as persons.

Certainly, that was how Sarah began to feel. Hadn’t God promised Abraham that he would father a nation? Now she, Sarah, his wife, was failing him at the crucial point. In her desperation and depression, Sarah had a wild idea. She told Abraham she wanted him to take her Egyptian handmaiden, Hagar, to bed. Sarah’s idea – which she apparently didn’t think through very carefully – was that Hagar might bear Abraham a son whom she and Abraham could more or less adopt as their own child. Thus, Abraham would have his heir and Sarah would not feel like such a failure.

Up to a point, the plan worked beautifully. Hagar did conceive and bore Abraham a son named Ishmael. For a while, everything seemed to go well. Little Ishmael must have been a source of great joy to Sarah. Adopted children can be and should be as dear to us as natural children. Ishmael wasn’t quite an adopted child, but he was certainly far better than no child at all. Then, as it frequently happens when supposedly “childless” couples adopt, Sarah realized she was pregnant. She bore Abraham a son whom they named Isaac. Naturally, Abraham was thrilled. On the day that Isaac was weaned, Abraham gave a great feast. During dinner, while the adults were talking together, Sarah noticed that Isaac and Ishmael were playing together. That made Sarah furiously angry. Turning to Abraham, she said, “I don’t want that woman’s son to inherit anything that should go to my son.” Sarah was so angry that she didn’t even call Hagar by her name. She was simply “that woman – that Egyptian woman.”

We can be so close to someone, perhaps, even sharing the same home with them, and then, suddenly, a rift develops and we are so far apart! The person we used to love most now becomes the person we hate most. Sarah and Hagar must have been very close at one time. After all, Sarah had chosen Hagar to share her husband’s bed. Hagar’s son was to be Sarah’s son, too. But on the day she saw Ishmael playing with Isaac, all Sarah’s love turned to hate and she shouted at Abraham, “I will not have him here anymore! Get that woman and her son out of here!” For Sarah, Ishmael was no longer Abraham’s son either.

The story says that Abraham went along with what Sarah wanted very reluctantly. It was not one of the more admirable moments in his life. He was weak and cowardly. Giving Hagar and Ishmael some bread and water, he sent them out into the desert. It is an awesome thing to be alone in the Judean desert. I have been there and seen it. It is one of the most desolate places on the face of the earth. Some of you may recall that Bishop James Pike died there wandering about looking for help. Hagar was sure that she and her little boy would die. She took care of Ishmael as long as she could, but it soon became obvious that death was near for both of them. She could accept her own death, but she could not bear to watch her child die. So Hagar placed Ishmael under a bush and sat down some distance away – close enough to see him, but far enough away so that she would not see his death. But even that was too much and she turned her face away. As she did that, suddenly she saw a spring of water. I am sure that at first she thought it was a desert mirage, but the water was really there. She did what we would expect any parent to do: she rushed over, got water, and gave it to Ishmael. Then, she drank herself. Good parents always put their children ahead of themselves. Refreshed, Hagar and Ishmael travelled on to a place where they could live.

What a story! It sounds almost like a Dr. Phil show doesn’t it? Look at all the intrigue and human emotions. If we changed a few of the details, we might imagine ourselves in it today. Haven’t we laid plans we thought were perfect, only to have them blow up in our face later? Haven’t we felt hate where we once felt love? Here is the familiar story of human relationships – the jealousies, the intrigues, the suspicions. We cannot help but recognize ourselves here. We know how desperately we need one another, yet how fleeting that need can be. We can become more angry and cruel toward someone close to us than to a total stranger. We see that in Sarah’s changed feelings about Hagar and Ishmael. At the same time, we will help someone close to us in extraordinary ways, perhaps even to the cost of our own life. We feel bound to those we love. But that very closeness brings vulnerability. And that vulnerability brings the possibility of deep pain.

So it was with Sarah and Hagar. Hagar trusted Sarah, yet Sarah sent her away. No harm was intended by Hagar, but harm was done to her. And think of Sarah: after the initial flush of success in getting rid of a rival for her husband’s affection and hopes, how must she have felt about herself? How thoughtless and cruel we can sometimes be those who trust us.

This ancient story teaches us three lessons. First, no worthwhile human victory can ever be won at the cost of harming someone else. If you don’t believe me, try it sometime and you will know the truth of what I am saying. Go to Sarah’s tent and congratulate her because she got what she wanted. That is the saddest victory in the world. But haven’t we won similar victories? Haven’t we gotten what we wanted sometimes by destroying or undermining someone else? What kind of taste did that leave in our mouths afterwards? If we have a shred of conscience, we felt ashamed of ourselves.

One of the reasons Jesus is the Christ is that he never did that. Everyone mattered to him. He never built himself up by knocking someone else down. Of course, there are times when we compete with other people. We are struggling to win one prize, one victory, one position. In normal and healthy competition we win and they lose. That’s all right. They will have their chance another day. But to work at succeeding or achieving is very different than working to destroy another person’s character or humanity. There is no victory in destruction. That is as true with nations as with individuals. God meant for all human beings to live together in peace, justice, mutual love, and respect.

There is a second lesson that I gain from this story: help always comes. May I add very quickly that help does not always come exactly when or how we want it. Sometimes it takes a bit of effort on our part to recognize the help for what it is. But help always comes. In our story, we saw Hagar sitting in the desert with a small bottle of water and some bread. Soon the bread and water were gone. Ishmael was crying and it seemed to Hagar that she and her son were about to die. She turned her back in despair. It appeared to be the end of the story. But suddenly, unexpectedly, Hagar saw water and they drank. Help always come, though not always in the way we want or expect.

Suppose, for example, that there is someone in a hospital room, urgently praying for a sick family member or friend. We know that sick people do not always get well. Suppose the doctors and nurses do everything humanly possible and yet the person dies. For myself, I believe God’s love was still there. God was a caring, sustaining presence even then. For the dying person, God’s love is a source of unspeakable comfort. For the family and friends who mourn, God is a source of unmatchable hope. To be sure, our eyes may be so clouded with tears or anger that we cannot see God’s loving presence, but even then we are not abandoned by God.

Perhaps, there is someone here this morning who faces an intense personal problem – a marriage gone sour, a job full of frustrations, family problems, financial worries. Whatever it may be, you feel just about worn out. You have little hope and less patience. But wait! Hang on a little longer! God in Christ always brings us help. That is the testimony of the Bible. That is the testimony of Christian history. I believe we will also find it is true in our own lives. I know it has been true in mine. Perhaps, what we need to do at such a moment of discouragement is to talk with someone else. I as your pastor would be glad to speak with you. Perhaps, you could speak to a caring counselor or a wise friend, someone who could help you recognize God’s help when it comes, because it will come.

What a magnificent ending our story has. Many years passed and Abraham grew to be a very old man. His beloved son, Isaac, was with him when he died. Then the Biblical story records something in one verse that we could pass over quickly and miss. We are told that when Abraham died, Ishmael came back home. Together, Isaac and Ishmael buried their father. Doesn’t that tell us something about the kind of persons those two little boys grow up to be? Clearly, Isaac wanted Ishmael to share in this important family event. He must have sent Ishmael word of what had happened or how would he have known? Just as remarkable, if not more so, Ishmael responded. He could easily have said, “My father, Abraham, kicked my mother and me out of his home. He sent us out into the desert where we almost died. I’m not about to return for his funeral! Yet, Ishmael was able to find the strength to love and forgive his father. Perhaps, now a grown man himself, he could even understand why Abraham acted the way he did. Knowing his own moments of weakness, he could be more accepting of his father’s. No matter how Abraham had failed him, at this moment he knew he was his father’s on and the past did not seem to matter so much after all.

So, together, Ishmael and Isaac buried Abraham. In that moment, they knew they were both his sons. Not only does that tell us a lot about these two men, but it also reveals a great deal about their father, Abraham, and their mothers, Hagar and Sarah. It shows what these parents must have taught their sons. They taught them forgiveness. They taught them understanding. They taught them compassion. When these two half-brothers stood at their father’s grave, the past was buried with him. The passing years had brought about a miracle of reconciliation. They knew that they were “family.”

What a wonderful old story. What wonderful lessons it still can teach us! The greatest lesson is the one with which the story closes: in the end, God brings us all home. Whether we have gone away many miles from home like the Prodigal Son or, like his Prodigal Brother, we have been far from home even while we were living there God calls us all to come home. Have you heard that call? Lexy and Sam do you hear it now? I hope so, because this is now your home, now and always.