Sunday, October 4, 2026 - Beginning for Hagar and Ishmael
October 4, 2026
Deborah Laforet
“A New Beginning for Hagar and Ishmael”
Let us pray. May the words from my lips and the meditations of my heart be guided by your
Spirit and be words of wisdom for this day. Amen.
What I like about the stories in the book of Genesis, the first book of our bible, is that the people
are far from perfect. Last week, we discussed how Abraham and Sarah left their homeland, following
God’s call. They left all they knew and were led to a whole new land, one with new people and different
traditions. We hear God tell them that their descendants will outnumber the stars in the sky and the
grains of sand in the desert.
Abraham and Sarah are the mother and father of the three Abrahamic religions - Judaism,
Christianity, and Islam. They are revered. We read their names throughout our bible, as icons and as
ancestors of the faith.
And they are far from perfect, along with many other characters in the book of Genesis. Adam
and Eve disobey. Noah gets drunk. Jacob swindles his brother, Esau. Joseph is arrogant and boastful
and Joseph’s brothers sell him into slavery and tell their father he was killed by wild animals. They are
very real stories of these very large and mythical biblical figures.
Today, is a good example. Remember, last week, when I talked about not shying away from
difficult stories in our bible. Here is another one. Abraham and Sarah have not had a child. They are
old. You heard last week that they were in their seventies. How are their descendants supposed to
outnumber the starts and grains of sand in the desert if they can’t have children? They decide that that
Abraham will have a child with the Egyptian slave-girl named Hagar. Sarah says, “it may be the I shall
obtain children through her.”
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This may have been acceptable during the time of Abraham and Sarah, but it still wasn’t right.
They did not ask Hagar if she wanted to be a part of this. She had no choice. In fact, the child Hagar
would soon have would not be own. As their slave, that child belonged to Abraham and Sarah. This is a
difficult story to read. Sarah treats Hagar harshly and Abraham doesn’t interfere. There are a lot of
interesting dynamics in this story, between Sarah, Abraham, and Hagar, and it culminates in the story we
heard today.
Sarah sees Hagar’s son, Ishmael, playing with Isaac, and just seems to snap. The details are
sparse, but Sarah seems fed up, and demands that Abraham cast out Hagar. Abraham is hesitant, but we
read that God tells Abraham to listen to his wife and that Hagar and Ishmael will be OK. It’s this part of
the story, the role of Abraham and Sarah in Hagar’s oppression that we often treat as unimportant and
that is often glossed over. Both Sarah and Abraham seem to be let off the hook for all that they have
done to this slave girl and her child.
Hagar and Ishmael are cast out into the wilderness, with very little, and eventually they run out
of water. Hagar, in her grief, puts Ishmael under a bush, and walks away so she doesn’t have to watch
her child die.
Now, there is a slight discrepancy in the story here. In the story, there is a celebration of Isaac
being weaned from his mother, which puts him at around three years old. We know that Ishmael was
fourteen years old when Isaac was born, so Ishmael would have been about seventeen years old at the
time of this story. We read though that Ishmael is put on Hagar’s shoulder and being put under a bush,
which is hard to do with a grown man. It’s possible that they wanted this story to focus on Hagar and on
the vulnerability of her child, and that’s possibly why he is portrayed as so much younger here, but
regardless, Hagar and Ishmael, without water, will not survive in this wilderness. We read that Hagar
“lifted up her voice and wept.”
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Then we read, “God heard the voice of the boy.” Now, this isn’t meant to disregard Hagar and
her voice, but is, instead, a recognition that Ishmael’s name means, ‘God hears.’ God hears Ishmael, and
his mother, Hagar, and tells her not to be afraid, to take hold of the boy’s hand, and know that God will
make a great nation of him. She opens her eyes and she sees a well of water. She fills her skin with
water and gives Ishmael a drink.
Of Ishmael, God will make a great nation. These words might sound familiar as they are similar
to words spoken to Abraham of his and Sarah’s son Isaac. If you grew up in the church, you would have
learned of the ancestors of our faith, Abraham and Sarah, who had Isaac. Isaac and Rebekah, who had
Jacob. Jacob, Leah, and Rachel, and the children who would form the twelve tribes of Israel, and then
the great nation of Israel.
But, of course, this was not the only great nation. On this day, World Wide Communion Sunday,
when we acknowledge and share in communion with many nations around the world, it’s important to
know that there was another great nation begun in our Bible, one promised by the same God that made
promises to Abraham and Sarah, through Isaac. (Show slide) In Judaism, Christianity, and Islam,
Abraham and Sarah are traditionally the father and mother of our faiths, but Isaac, the son of Sarah, is
the line of descendants followed for Jews and Christians, while Ishmael, the son of Hagar is the line of
descendants followed by Muslims.
Two brothers, separated because of conflict between their parents. Two different nations with
two different beginnings. Ishmael will find a wife in Egypt, his mother’s home. Isaac will find a wife
back in Haran, the home Abraham and Sarah left. These two lines will go in different directions,
crossing paths in the bible every now then, making their own way, sometimes encountering each other as
enemies.
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There is a small line in the bible that, if you blink, you will miss. Abraham and Sarah had cast
Hagar and Ishmael into the wilderness. These families went in different directions, but when Abraham
reached the ripe old age of a hundred and seventy-five years, we read, that, “Abraham breathed his last
and died at a good old age, an old man and full of years; and he was gathered to his people. 9 His sons
Isaac and Ishmael buried him...”(25:8-9). We don't know if they had seen each other before this, but
they must have known of each other, enough for Isaac to send word to his half-brother of their father's
death. As so often happens in families, when someone dies, members of that family are brought
together, sometimes from across large areas of geography, sometimes through the layers of family
conflict and struggle.
Today, we celebrate one communion with nations across the land. We all have our own stories of
beginnings, our own stories of faith, stories of how we came to be and from whence we came, but we are
all one human family, tied together by so much that we hold in common. As we celebrate at this table
today, we remember our siblings, our cousins, our aunties and uncles and elders from all around the
world, eating the bread, naan, tortilla, bannock, rice, challah, and so much more from all the different
grains that grow across this earth.
We also come together at this table, and we remember the vulnerable, those cast out, the
oppressed, those in war zones, those unable to afford even bread, or those who struggle for every morsel.
They surround us and are among us. On this world wide communion Sunday, may we offer this table to
any who need to be here, and may this table represent a space where we can all find belonging.