Grace to you and Peace from God our Father and our Lord and
Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen
Family feuds are
by far the worst feuds.
We’ve all seen or
heard of them, even if we’ve been lucky enough to have personally avoided them. There seems to be no limit to what families
can fight about, nor any limit to the intensity of those fights.
Those feuds can
quickly escalate into conflicts that can turn violent, and if not violent,
virulent, that is venomous, vindictive, and vicious.
Often these feuds,
which may simmer for a lifetime, boil
over during times of grief, and especially when dealing with the estate and
inheritance.
Jealousy can fuel
the fire.
So can matters of
control.
Money and inheritance
often stoke the flames,
As does any sense
of a favored status.
And there is no
family that is immune from such conflicts.
It seems to be part of our DNA.
Or to put it differently, theologically, this is evidence of our bondage
to sin.
The Bible doesn’t
shy away from this issue.
It was jealousy
that caused Cain to murder his brother Able.
Jacob and Essau,
twins, spent much of their lives in conflict that steamed from their birth
order and the implications for that with regards to the inheritance, and also
because of a sense of favoritism, with their mother Rebekah favoring Jacob, and
Isaac favoring Essau. Trickery and
deceit were also part of the mix as Jacob and Rebekah teamed up to trick Isaac
into giving his blessing and the birthright to Jacob, instead of Essau.
Today’s first
reading from Genesis tells the story of yet another family feud, that between
Sarah and Hagar and their sons, Isaac and Ishmael.
4,000 years have
passed and that feud still rages all about us in the world today.
It began because
of a very simple problem.
Abraham and Sarah
were unable to conceive a child.
God had promised
Abraham that he would be the Father of a great nation, but he was now advancing
in years, and Sarah as well. They were
well beyond child bearing age.
Sarah,
desperately wanting a child for Abraham, and aware that she was unable to
conceive, sent her handmaiden Hagar into Abraham, as was often the custom of
that day. Immediately, Hagar conceived
and bore a son to Abraham, Ishmael.
But, as the story
unfolds, God’s promise was to Abraham AND Sarah. It was that Sarah herself would bear a son
for Abraham.
And in time she
did.
When Isaac was
born there was such great joy that Abraham and Sarah named him Isaac, which
means laughter.
But there were
more emotions than just laughter.
In spite of the
fact that sending Hagar into Abraham was Sarah’s idea in the first place, she
was resentful that Hagar had so easily conceived a son for Abraham.
Today, having a
child with someone other than your wife is considered adulterous, but that wasn’t
the issue in Abraham’s time. In that
patriarchal society men often had children with not only their wives (and yes
there were often more than one wife), but with their servants as well.
Jacob would have
children with two wives, and two servants.
That wasn’t the
biggest problem for Sarah.
Underlying her
resentment was that Ishmael was Abraham’s first born son, and that as such, he
normally would have been the recipient of the greater share of the
inheritance.
Add that together
with all the other emotions Sarah was feeling, and it finally became too much
to deal with.
Sarah demanded
that Abraham banish Hagar and Ishmael, sending them off into the wilderness,
likely to die.
This distressed Abraham.
Then in an
interesting turn of events a couple of things happened.
God told Abraham
to do as Sarah demanded.
But God also
promised Abraham that Ishmael would also become the father of a great nation.
Today, Muslims
claim Abraham as the Father of their faith as do the Jews and we
Christians.
The difference is
that Muslims understand themselves to be the heirs of Ishmael, not Isaac.
What is
remarkable is that 4,000 years have passed but the feud that started between
Sarah and Hagar, has not. It continues
to this day.
Family feuds are
the worst feuds, and they continue the longest.
Jews, Christians,
and Muslims all revere Abraham as the father of their faith.
And yet history
is full of the conflicts between these three great faiths.
As Christians, we
are well aware of the continuity between Judaism and Christianity. Jesus, after all, was born a Jew. And we cherish the Hebrew Bible as part of our
scripture.
Though it should
be noted that this did not prevent Christians and Jews from being in conflict over the
years. Jews persecuted Christians from
the start, and Christians were responsible in part for the holocaust, and the
death of millions of Jews at the hands of the Nazis.
We often don’t
want to claim responsibility for the holocaust, but we do bear some
responsibility.
Martin Luther,
you see, not only had a great impact on our understanding of the Gospel. In his later years, though, he also wrote
some scathing words about the Jews that sowed the seeds of anti-Semitism in Germany.
Family feuds are
the worst.
We are less
familiar with our relationship with Muslims.
We worship the
same God.
The Hebrews referred
to God as Elohim, Yahweh, and Adonai.
In Greek, the
word for God is Theos, or in Latin, Deus.
And in Arabic,
the word for God is Allah.
But these are not
different Gods. They are merely the
words used in different languages.
Arabic
Christians, for example, refer to God as Allah.
That’s how you say “God” in Arabic.
But it is the one
God of Abraham that Jews, Christians, and Muslims all worship.
A couple more
things you might not be aware of with respect to our Muslim brothers and
sisters.
Did you know that
within the Koran, both Christians and Jews are referred to as the people of the
Book?
That the Koran
references the scriptures of the Torah, the Psalms, and the Gospels?
That Jesus is
considered a prophet of Islam, and that there are numerous passages about Jesus
in the Koran?
And did you know that
the Koran speaks of the virgin birth of Jesus?
Surprising, isn’t
it?
Now having said
that, there are very profound differences.
In the Koran, it very specifically affirms that Jesus is a messenger of
Allah, but vehemently denies that he is in anyway Divine.
Like Judaism,
Islam is strictly a monotheistic religion and any notion that Jesus is God’s
son, and divine, is denied outright.
Let it suffice to
say that though we all worship the God of Abraham, we believe some very
different things about that God.
And we have
fought over those differing beliefs.
Family feuds are
the worst.
But there is
something that the Bible makes clear that we should also be aware of.
First, as is
evident from today’s lesson, Abraham loved both of his sons, Isaac and Ishmael.
And so also, God
loves all of his children.
God’s capacity to
love all of his children far exceeds our capacity to love our brothers and
sisters.
I repeat: God’s capacity to love all of his children
far exceeds our capacity to love our brothers and sisters.
One example of
this:
My daughter
related to me a comment that took place during a youth group meeting one day.
The husband of
our youth director said, like so many others: “The only good Muslim, is a dead
Muslim.”
This was
particularly hard for Brita to stomach, because at the time one of her close
friends was a Pakistani foreign exchange student, and yes, a Muslim.
We have a
struggle dealing with Muslims.
We allow the
actions of terrorists, a radicalized political group, that, oh by the way,
happen to be Muslim to shape our attitude toward all of the Muslims in the
world, most of whom are as peace loving as we are.
If Muslims really
were all that violent, with 1.6 Billion of them in the world there would be a hell
of a lot more conflict than there is.
It is simply
wrong to judge all the Muslims in the world on the basis of a few extremists,
just as it’s wrong to judge all Christians, or Jews, on the basis of the worst
examples.
Should Jews be labeled
“Jesus killers” for all time?
Should Christians
all be blamed for the holocaust?
One other thing
to note.
Muslim terrorists have killed far more Muslims than anybody else. They are not “Muslim” terrorists, they are
simply terrorists.
And God abhors
all such hatred.
God’s capacity to
love all his children far exceeds our capacity to love our brothers and
sisters.
Not only do we
find it difficult to love Muslims and Jews, we even find it difficult to love
other Christians.
But the point is,
God doesn’t. God loves us all.
And that’s what
matters the most.
Amen
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