READING:
Genesis 21 v 8-21
Romans 6 v 1b-11

I wonder if you can recall a time when you have experienced jealousy in relation to another person ? And if so what was the impact of your resulting actions on the other person and on yourself ?

Those feelings are at the heart of our Old Testament reading this week. Abraham has been told by God that he is going to be the patriarch of a great nation with descendants greater then the number o stars in the sky. But this is not working out and his wife Sarah is now 100 years old and they are feeling that time is running out. So they decide to use Sarah’s slave girl who is called Hagar as a kind of surrogate and she gives birth to a son who is named Ishmael.

However not long after, Sarah herself does become pregnant and she too gives birth to a boy who is called Isaac. Not surprisingly this TV soap opera scenario does not end up going well. Although Sarah now has all that she thought she wanted and is assured that her son will be the fulfilment of God’s promise yet she cannot bear to share anything – not even happiness with another.

Apparently she still does not trust God and feels she has to take things into her own hands. She demands that Abraham should take Hagar and her son and abandon them in the wilderness. Neither she nor Abraham seem to think at all about how Isaac will feel as his brother and playfellow are taken away from him. Sarah’s jealousy and envy lead to disaster for all concerned.

In the past week in the UK we have seen a series of riots initially directed against refugees and asylum seekers but then growing into firebombing the homes of minority ethnic communities including those who have been born in the this country.

The prompt for these disturbances was the arrest of an asylum seeker on suspicion of a committing a knife attack. But it was clear that there was a deeper underlying issue about an unwillingness to share with people of a different colour. Given the millions of people who are migrating and on the move fleeing war and the effects of climate change there will be many areas across the world who are facing the impact of such tensions arising out of a failure to share our possessions with others. You may be living in such a place.

In Northern Ireland while rioters want on the rampage, others were coming together in solidarity affected by their destruction. Support groups guided  victims of house attacks to safety and crowd funder appeals have been raising funds to help businesses that were destroyed. And two days later at a mass gathering thousands chanted ‘Regugees are welcome here.’

In her wilderness Hagar is desperate as the water and the food that she was left with runs out and she places her son in the shade of a bush fearing the worst and crying out in a spirit of forsakeness. But at this lowest point she finds that God has not abandoned them. A pool of water appears and they  are saved. We are told that God was with the boy and he grew up in the wilderness And through Hagar’s faithfulness  God’s promise to raise up a nation through Ishmael would be fulfilled as well.

The story of God’s being with Hagar in the wilderness mirrors both the experience of the people of Israel when they are taken into exile having been taken away from their homeland. And also the experience of Jesus on the cross as he cries out my God why have you forsaken me.

In the New Testament reading for this week Paul writes that if Christians have been united with Jesus  in a death like his, we will certainly be united with Jesus in a resurrection like his.

Sam Wells speaks of our death as being like passing through a key hole. Death is the most isolating thing that can happen to us. Something we can only do on our own.  But  the God who has gone to such great lengths to create us is not going to end the conviction that God will be with us – even in our death. God will be there on the other side of the key hole.

When Paul speaks of  being united with Christ in  death like his  and resurrection like his then he is saying even more. The death of Jesus included the  agony of horrendous  pain and the agony even of being separated from God. So Paul is saying that God will be with us in the most desperate situation that can ever be –  even the worst possible death. We can find hope and joy even in the darkest of times because of God being with us.

And being united in a resurrection like his takes us back to those stories in the gospels that we heard and read about at Easter. The resurrected  Jesus is reconciled with those who deserted him and makes friends again with those who denied him.

That means that in sharing in the resurrection of Christ we are going to find reconciliation with those who have deserted us and those that we have left down. We are going to share in a life that is like the one that for example is portrayed in passages in John’s gospel. Such as the gathering of Jesus and his friends by the seashore for  breakfast. And the reconciliation and love that Peter discovers by the fire on the beach.

God’s being with us in the resurrection will be about relationship with one another and with the whole creation. So even a family as dysfunctional as the one we saw in the broken relationships between Abraham Hagar and Sarah can be at the heart of God’s action in the world. That is a consoling thought and can give us confidence and trust in the promises of God being with us at all times.

Image: Unsplash.com