Look What Your Prayers Can Do

(Genesis 21:8-21) – The child grew, and was weaned; and Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned. But Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, playing with her son Isaac. So she said to Abraham, "Cast out this slave woman with her son; for the son of this slave woman shall not inherit along with my son Isaac." The matter was very distressing to Abraham on account of his son. But God said to Abraham, "Do not be distressed because of the boy and because of your slave woman; whatever Sarah says to you, do as she tells you, for it is through Isaac that offspring shall be named for you. As for the son of the slave woman, I will make a nation of him also, because he is your offspring." So Abraham rose early in the morning, and took bread and a skin of water, and gave it to Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, along with the child, and sent her away. And she departed, and wandered about in the wilderness of Beer-sheba.

When the water in the skin was gone, she cast the child under one of the bushes. Then she went and sat down opposite him a good way off, about the distance of a bowshot; for she said, "Do not let me look on the death of the child." And as she sat opposite him, she lifted up her voice and wept. And God heard the voice of the boy; and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven, and said to her, "What troubles you, Hagar? Do not be afraid; for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. Come, lift up the boy and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make a great nation of him." Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. She went, and filled the skin with water, and gave the boy a drink. God was with the boy, and he grew up; he lived in the wilderness, and became an expert with the bow. He lived in the wilderness of Paran; and his mother got a wife for him from the land of Egypt.

Life is so difficult. Even when things seem to be going so well. Stuff happens. Last week we heard how the old barren couple Abraham and Sarah were given the unimaginable gift of a child, Isaac. His name means "laughter." They are so happy. But their joy is short-lived, marred by jealousy when Sarah sees Isaac playing with Abraham's other son Ishmael, the son of Hagar the slave woman. Jealousy and slavery -- personal sin and corporate sin -- a powerful tonic. Sarah insists on the others' banishment. Abraham, the great patriarch, seems impotent in the face of this demand.

I imagine that if God had God's way, God would have preferred for Ishmael to be raised with his father, with Sarah and Hagar cooperating lovingly in the nurture of these beloved children. But God has to work with the world as it is, and that wasn't going to happen. Maybe God tried to speak to Sarah to accept the others; maybe God whispered to Abraham to release these family members from bondage of slavery. But in that context, God's words couldn't be heard.

The story says that "the matter was very distressing to Abraham on account of his son." He loves his son. I imagine Abraham took his anguish to God in prayer, expressing his distress and his feeling of impotence. I can imagine Abraham releasing that painful prayer to God. And something happens. Somehow Abraham senses that God will take care of the child and make of Ishamel a great promise like he has sensed a promise for Isaac. How that might happen, he cannot imagine. But in faith he releases them into the wilderness.

How often it is that God uses the emptiness of the wilderness to bring blessing and empowerment. Sometimes when we are weakest we are most open to God's strength. In that wilderness, they quickly run out of water, and Hagar sits away, far enough away so that she cannot see or hear the pitiful death of her son. She weeps. She lifts up her voice. God hears her agony as prayer. And something happens. The grip of her fear is somehow released. She looks around at where she is, and she sees what she had not seen before. There is a well of water. They are saved.

I wonder what might have happened had Hagar buried her grief in blind anger. It would have been so easy to become enraged. Resentful toward Sarah and her injustice, toward Abraham and his failure to defend her, toward a world that allows people to be treated as property. She could have raged blindly at the evil of it all. And that is what rage does, it blinds us.

But instead, she poured out her emotions to God, releasing her anguish in tears. Tears are one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. She gave her tears to God. I would say that God needed her tears in order to bring the necessary comfort that opened her eyes to see through tears into water.

I think that's one of the ways prayer works. God is always present with us. God knows us deeply, knows our condition and our need. God touches us right where we are with a directive energy that flows into us at the core of our being -- deeper than sense, deeper than thought, deeper than consciousness, deeper than feeling. In our depths, God's energy mingles with our own being, and we experience something -- a mediated touch -- which we receive through the material energy of our being, maybe as a thought, a feeling, an urge, an intuition.

Then with whatever degree of freedom we may have in that moment, we respond to God's touch. Our freedom to respond is variable. Sometimes we are blocked from being able to respond or even to attend to God's energy within and among us. But at every moment God's directive energy is flowing into our deepest being, and at every moment we are choosing our becoming in relation to this divine energy. This interplay happens constantly. God's presence is so constant and subliminal, that we become habituated to it and often don't even notice. It's like not paying attention to air or to breathing because it is so constant and present.

Prayer helps shape this energy. Prayer is like paying attention to the breath. It helps us become more aware of the divine presence and energy, and the good that God intends for us. Then, prayer shapes the energy that God receives from us. It is our offering back to God, giving God the gift of ourselves. God uses whatever we give to God for the healing of the world, even our tears. In prayer, we can touch the whole world. God is omnipresent. With the sparrow that falls and the mother banished to the lonely wilderness. God takes whatever we release to God in prayer, as well as the resources of the divine nature, and brings everything that is possible to the circumstances of the world for its transformation.

I remember seeing Desmond Tutu for the first time. It was at the 1982 General Convention of the Episcopal Church in New Orleans. Apartheid was deeply entrenched in South Africa. It took the intervention of Episcopalian George H. W. Bush, then Vice President, to pressure the South African government to give Bishop Tutu a visa to travel to the U.S. where he and Vice President Bush were invited to speak to the Convention. At the last minute Tutu was released to travel.

The first impression of this diminutive man is his abundant energy and joy. What an infectious smile! He thanked the Convention for its prayers, which he said helped get him out of South Africa to be with us. He winked off stage toward the Vice President, adding -- "your prayers and the help of some good friends." Then he urged us to continue our prayers for South Africa and for the dismantlement of Apartheid. "We need your prayers," he said.

Then Bishop Tutu said something I'll never forget. "Pray for my brother P.W. Botha." Do you remember P.W. Botha? His nickname was "the big crocodile." He was the Prime Minister of South Africa and an authoritarian, almost dictatorial defender of the apartheid system. "Yes, he is my brother, and we are friends," cried Bishop Tutu. "And I ask you to pray for him, for he has lost, and he doesn't know it. He doesn't know it yet, but he is on the losing side. He cannot win, for he fights against angels and archangels and all the company of heaven. And your prayers are part of what heaven uses to bring down the evil of Apartheid." That was an impossible vision in 1982. In 1994 apartheid crumbled and Nelson Mandela was elected President of South Africa. That same year Desmond Tutu returned to the General Convention with an even more buoyant joy, opened his arms to a thankful assembly and cried, "Look what your prayers have done!"

If Desmond Tutu were here today, I would imagine he would tell us to pray for our brother Osama Bin Laden. Jesus calls us to pray for our enemies. Any act of injury creates a relationship. To pray for the well-being of the offender gives God more to work with for transforming the world. What good could be accomplished if Osama's heart could be healed. Sending him our thoughts of hatred only adds to the world's discord. Praying for his well-being gives God something God can work with. It is not easy, and pretending doesn't help. God knows our hearts; we can't fake it. One commentator reflecting on the petition "forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us," says her true prayer is more like "Oh God, I wish they would rot in hell, but I pray for their well-being anyway, and ask you to forgive my own evil wishes even though I prefer to keep on wishing them; God help us both. Amen." (Quoted from Marjorie Hewitt Suchocki's book "In God's Presence." Many of the ideas about prayer in this sermon are influenced by her fine book.)

I wonder how Sarah and Abraham managed in the days and years following Hagar's banishment. I imagine Abraham felt very bad, maybe very guilty. It would be easy for him to harbor resentment toward Sarah for pushing him into something so distasteful. He might even have projected his anger toward Isaac, whose birth seemed the cause of his losing his son Ishmael. Yet we see no signs of these pathologies in Abraham's story. Maybe instead he went to God in a the prayer of confession, releasing his anger and guilt, releasing himself to be husband and father to Sarah and Isaac.

Yet our sins have consequences. We tend to pass these things along through families. Isaac married Rebekah, a woman a bit like Sarah, who favored one son over another creating another tragic sibling rivalry between Jacob and Esau. Indeed one's foes often are members of one's own household, even in the households of the faithful.

Life is so difficult. But in every moment in every condition of life God is present, working at subtle and spiritual levels to transform all for good. God works with the world as it is in order to bring it to where it can be. And God invites us into this work. God shares power and freedom with us to cooperate with God in this healing work. Prayer is our openness to God and also God's openness to us. So we pray, not only for our sakes, but for God's sake as well. Our prayers increase the effectiveness of God work with the world. Who can imagine what God can do with the prayerful energy we release for God's use.

So, pray for poor Hagar's children throughout the world. Let your tears be part of God's work on behalf of the powerless and oppressed. Pray for our families. Let our love be part of God's healing of our intimate hurt and division. Pray for our enemies. Let our good will be part of what God uses to bring peace on earth. In all times and in all places, God is present to us, and we can be present to God. Prayer is the meeting point between God's good energy and our own. Listen and look what your prayers can do.

 

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