Outcasts and forebears - Genesis 21:8-21 - Living by the Word - Column

Christian Century, June 5, 1996 by William L. Holladay

We rarely pay much attention to Ishmael and Hagar

Our eye is on Isaac, the son of Sarah, from whom Jacob and then the 12 tribes of Israel will be born. As far as we are concerned, Ishmael's 12 sons disappear into the Arabian desert. Indeed, if we remember the name "Ishmael" at all, it is as a reminder of the opening line of Melville's Moby-Dick.

But to hundreds of millions of people, Ishmael and Hagar are central figures. I refer, of course, to Muslims.

In the Qur'an, Ishmael is a prophet We read: "And make mention in the Scripture of Ishmael. Lo! he was a keeper of his promise, and he was a messenger [of Allah], a Prophet. He enjoined upon his people worship and almsgiving, and was acceptable in the sight of the Lord" (Qur'an 19:54-55).

Muslim pilgrims to Mecca have vivid associations with Ishmael and Hagar. Pilgrims walk seven times around the Ka`ba, that holiest shrine in Arabia, the cube-shaped structure that according to tradition was built by Adam and then rebuilt by Abraham when he paid a visit to Ishmael. Near the Ka`ba is the holy well Zamzam, whose waters miraculously appeared and saved ishmael's life. After pilgrims have circumambulated the Ka`ba, they trot, with shoulders shaking, seven times between two low hills in imitation of the frantic Hagar searching in despair for water for wailing little Ishmael.

These traditions of Ishmael and Hagar function in Islamic tradition the way narratives about vulnerable children - moses cast adrift in the bulrushes, Joseph and Mary carrying Jesus on the flight to Egypt - do in our biblical tradition. One might say that Muslims are looking over our shoulders when we read this passage. "Those people are our people," Muslims seem to say. "Be aware that we share these stories, even though we hear them differently than you do."

But when we try to pay close attention to the story of Ishmael and Hagar, we are baffled. If the narrative of God's call to Abraham appears to be from far away and long ago, the narrative of Abraham's sending a mother and child away from his household at Sarah's behest is the stuff of an Ann Landers column. True, concubinage is unfamiliar to us, but situations involving "the other woman" are not.

"The matter was very distressing to Abraham," as we can imagine. After all, Ishmael is his firstborn, and Hagar a bed partner, a bed partner that Sarah gave him in the first place (16:1-4). But now Isaac is born, and Sarah suddenly wants no more of Ishmael or Hagar. Poor Sarah! Poor Abraham - trying to honor his wife's wishes, erratic though they seem. Abraham is at least ambivalent, if not torn apart.

But it's God's word that baffles us: "Do not be distressed because of the boy and because of the slave woman; do as Sarah tells you." Then Abraham, Hagar and Ishmael - all seemingly paralyzed by the situation - obey the command without a word.

What kind of God is this, so fixated on legitimacy of descent as to take Sarah's side? Paul reinforces this view of the matter in his allegory of Hagar and Sarah (Gal. 4:21-31). In his reading, Hagar represents the covenant of the Sinaitic law, while Sarah represents the covenant of freedom in the Spirit.

The allegory is not to everyone's taste, and many of us wonder whether Jesus, concern for the last, the least and the lost - Jesus, story of the merciful Samaritan, Jesus' healing of a Roman officer's servant - do not take precedence over the old narrative in which God approves Sarah's expulsion of Ishmael and Hagar.

Yet Gods thoughts are not our thoughts (lsa. 55:8); moreover, we must not forget that God did save the two outcasts.

In 1964 I served on the staff of an archaeological dig at Shechem on the West Bank. During the tea break one midmorning, as I sat among the Palestinian workers, a young woman perhaps 20 years of age, her bedroll over her shoulder, ran sobbing through the crowd. Some of the workmen laughed at her, a few threw stones after her. She came and went in no more than ten seconds, and my Arabic was not good enough for me to learn the story. Was she a Bedu prostitute run out of the village long after sunup? Was she a daughter expelled from her household for some real or imagined sexual offense? I shall never forget my glimpse of Hagar that morning.

Whom have we cast out of our cultural households? Who are the "others" whom we keep at a distance? Muslims? Gays? The homeless? We know the list by now. If we are told that God took Sarah's side in casting out Hagar and Ishmael, at the same time we are told that Ishmael was to become a great nation, part of Gods world and ours.