Today we
continue through our series on “Six Bible Stories You Thought
You Knew” with one of Noah’s many descendants, Abraham.
From ancient Babylonia and the City of Babel, we move south a bit,
to Ur, the first great city in the western world, where Abraham was
born sometime between 2100 and 1500 (or so) BCE. Today we will take
a new look at Abraham and Sarah and Hagar and their descendants and
discover their legacy for the challenges of our interreligious world.
For Abraham is the common father of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam
and his story spans the dramatic territory of the modern world, both
physical and spiritual.
If you look for Ur on a
modern map, you’ll find it just south, southeast of Baghdad,
ten miles west of the Euphrates River, not far from Kuwait and Iran
and the Persian Gulf. And if we were to go there now, we would see
the bomb craters and the bullet holes in its ancient walls. And we
would remember that the conflicts we’re playing out today find
their roots in this ancient desert land and in the drama of this story
staring Abraham and his wife, Sarah, and her maid, Hagar.
Again today we’re
going to discover a lot about this story that we thought we knew but
didn’t really know. We know some things about father Abraham.
I grew up singing that old camp song, “Rock a’ my soul
in the bosom of Abraham, oh, rock a’ my soul. So high you can’t
get over it, so wide you can’t get around it. So low you can’t
get under it. O, rock a’ my soul.”
I don’t think I ever
really understood what that song meant, but it was so fun to sing!
We did it as a round with all the hand motions and so forth and at
least I came away with the notion that Abraham was a rock of faith.
But once you start to unpack
old Abraham’s story, things get a bit questionable rather quickly.
Actually, it should come with a warning, or at least a PG-13 or so
rating. You know, whenever people start talking about family values
and going back to the good old book for family values I wonder what
book they’ve been reading?!? Because this Abraham story is a
lot more like “Big Love” than the family values I think
these folks are trying to promote.
So, be warned. If you’re
a little sensitive, just cover your ears for a moment while I recap.
Here we go. God picks Abraham to be the father of faith. An odd choice,
in some ways, but then, God is like that. Odd choice, because God
promises Abraham that he will have descendants more numerous than
the stars and that the covenant (remember that?) will be handed down
from generation to generation through them. Only one problem. Abraham
and his wife, Sarah, are really old, and they don’t have even
one son. And you can’t get to many if you don’t even have
one.
So, Sarah to the rescue.
As was the accepted custom, she gave Abraham her young servant girl,
Hagar, who was Egyptian, and they did their thing and a boy was soon
born and is named Ishmael. Now, again, according to custom, what’s
supposed to happen next is that the boy becomes Abraham and Sarah’s
and Hagar fades quietly into the background. But a miracle happens
and old Sarah herself becomes pregnant and bears a son and names him
Isaac. Ah, brothers, you say, these two little boys. Coulda’
been. Would have changed the course of history. But one day when Sarah
sees the two boys playing together as brothers do, she becomes jealous
and banishes Hagar and Ishmael to the wilderness where they wander
around for awhile, nearing death. God takes pity on them and makes
a spring from Hagar’s tears and they do not perish of hunger
and thirst in the desert. Ishmael grows into a man and Hagar finds
him an Egyptian wife. And God blesses both Isaac and Ishmael, and
the descendants of both become the blessed descendants of father Abraham.
Two large branches from one family tree. But at its roots, the possibility
of peace mixed with the seeds of bitterness and enmity.
Across the ages, the story
of Abraham has been told and retold by the three religions of the
Book: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam in scripture, story and legend.
Jews, of course, draw their lineage from Abraham's family tree through
his son Isaac, born of Sarah. And following this line, Matthew’s
Gospel makes Jesus a descendant of Abraham. And Muslims world draw
their lineage through Ishmael, Abraham's son born of his Egyptian
servant Hagar.
But overtime, as the three
religions try to elbow each other out for prominence and domination
in the region, each of the three gradually claims old Abraham as theirs
and theirs alone. As author Bruce Feiler has noted, the Jewish commentaries
start to depict Abraham as the reason God created the world, which
had of course occurred long before Abraham was born. And Abraham becomes
the reason for Passover, even though Moses lived a thousand years
after Abraham was dead. Abraham even keeps kosher, which wasn't invented
until 1500 years after Abraham died. They make Abraham into a Jew.
Later, the early Christians
like Paul, trying to claim their space, became interested in Abraham
as a universal figure. His blessing was not just for Jews, Paul said,
but also for Gentiles. But, over time, as Christianity grew more powerful
and Judaism began to diminish after the destruction of the second
temple, those early Christians begin to use Abraham as a figure to
include Gentiles--but to exclude Jews. They said: 'God didn't call
Abraham to go forth, Jesus called Abraham to go forth. God didn't
promise the land to descendants of Abraham, but to followers of Jesus.'
So in other words, in the way that Jews turned Abraham into a Jew
when he wasn't a Jew, Christians turned him into a Christian when
he wasn't a Christian either.
And you can see where this
story's going. In time, Islam does the exact same thing. In the early
years of Islam, Muhammad says, 'Abraham is a figure open not just
to Jews and Christians, but to Muslims.' But over time when Islam
grows more powerful, they begin to say, 'You know what? Abraham preferred
Ishmael to Isaac.' They make Ishmael, not Isaac, central to the story.
Some claim that Abraham sacrifices Ishmael, not Isaac and not in Jerusalem,
as Jews and Christians believe, but in Mecca. Then it’s Abraham
calling for the pilgrimage and building the Kabbah, the big black
house in the middle of Mecca, all, of course, long after he had died.
They turn Abraham into a Muslim when he wasn’t a Muslim either.
You see how we are, we
humans. We don’t change much over time, do we? In our insecurities
and in our scrambling for power and prestige, we think that the only
way up is to put everyone else down and in the end, no one is up and
everyone is down and we don’t even know one another any more.
And in our time when violence so predominates, our ignorance is more
dangerous than ever. A recent study shows that while 58% of Americans
say they know little or nothing about Islam's practices, even so fully
70% of Americans say that their religion is very different from Islam.
This is not a world in which we can afford to base our opinions and
views on ignorance and misunderstanding.
But there are alternatives available to us, alternative based on dialogue,
understanding and mutual respect. Right after 9/11, Bruce Feiler’s
book, Abraham: A Journey to the Heart of Three Faiths, became an instant
best-seller. It spawned a website and study guides. For in the midst
of everything else going on at that time, there emerged a deep longing
among many to rebuild bridges and relationships. Discussion groups
sprang up across the country, Christians, Muslims and Jews meeting
together in homes and schools and houses of worship to meet one another,
and share stories, and listen and learn. Just last week I had a call
from a member here at St. Monica’s who is starting just such
a group for women in Santa Monica called “Daughters of Abraham.”
Our panel discussion here
this afternoon at 2 o’clock comes out of this same impulse—to
meet and learn and listen and find--under all the recriminations and
fear and hostility--our common heritage and our shared values. And
to commit ourselves, all descendants of Abraham, to be those who step
out of the circles of violence to find the things that make for peace.
I want to close this morning
with a story Feiler tells and the direction it points to for us. He
tells of going to Hebron, one of the bloodiest cities on the planet,
the epicenter of Muslim-Jewish conflict. He said in an interview:
“I drove south on the sniper road where the Israelis and Palestinians
shoot at one another, before arriving at the Tomb of the Patriarchs.
It's this giant building that looks like a cross between a gymnasium
and a castle. The last time I had been there, there were 10,000 Jews
dancing in the festival. Today, it was empty, so dangerous that four
soldiers with helmets and machine guns had to escort me inside —
four.
And I go to this little
tiny room between Abraham and Sarah's tomb. All three faiths agree
this is where they're buried. [This is also a Muslim shrine. It's
been a Muslim shrine for hundreds of years.] There's a ramshackle
synagogue there now with a chandelier hanging down with half the bulbs
out, and it's there that Abraham, at 175, dies.”
“And in one of the
most haunting and overlooked passages in the Hebrew Bible, Genesis
25:9, his sons Ishmael and Isaac, rivals since before they were born,
estranged since childhood, leaders of opposing nations, come, stand
side by side, and bury their father. Abraham achieves in death what
he could never achieve in life, this moment of reconciliation. A hopeful
side-by-side flicker of possibility when they're not rivals or warriors;
Jews, Christians, or Muslims. They are brothers.”
Feiler goes on: “That's
a really important realization, that we do all come --Jews and Christians
and Muslims--from the same land, from the same family; that Abraham
is a figure that is central to Jews, Christians, and actually more
central to Muslims than arguably to the other two…and…that
we all share the same God. …we need to remember…[that
at the center of] this family feud…is one man, and I think he
contains the seeds of hope because I really, I really feel that the
story of Abraham is not Pollyannaish, and that's what's so great about
it. There's violence in it, as well as peace in it… Remember,
Abraham tried to kill each of them.,,, “
“But what's important
to me about that moment is that they stand side by side. It doesn't
say they hug, doesn't say they had dinner, doesn't say…they
said…'Let's forgive.' the text seems to understand — predict,
almost — where we're going to be so many thousands of years
later….the destination here is…is standing side by side
and respecting that coexistence.”
Friends, next week’s
Bible story will bring us to Joseph and his brothers, long estranged.
They do hug. They do reconcile. And that will provide us a springboard
of hope for World Communion Sunday.
But for today, let’s
simply stand at the tomb of Abraham at Hebron, on the West Bank where
violence reigns and stand here, in Santa Monica, where dialogue is
possible, even now. Let us stand side-by-side with our Jewish and
Muslim brothers, sisters, cousins, quietly remembering our common
family tree and our shared ancestors, Abraham, Sarah, Hagar, Ishmael
and Isaac. Cousins, all-too-distant now, yet still and always children
of the same ancestors and of the same God
And may the blessing of God to Abraham and all his descendants even
unto this day, reassure our hearts, open our minds, draw us together,
and fill us with courage and with hope.
Amen.
Notes:
Feiler, Bruce.
Abraham: A Journey to the Heart of Three Faiths. New York: Harper
Perennial, 2002.
Trible, Phyllis
and Letty M. Russell, eds. Hagar, Sarah, and Their Children: Jewish,
Christian and Muslim Perspectives. Louisville: Westminster John Knox
Press, 2006.
©Patricia
Farris, 2007. Permission is given for brief quotation with attribution.
All other rights reserved.
"Abraham:
The Father of Three Faiths"