Today Pastor preached on the second half of the fourth chapter of Paul's letter to the Galatians. Paul is upset because people have been coming around telling his Gentile converts they have to keep the Jewish law in its entirety to be saved. Ever since his experience on the Damascus Road, Paul has done a 180 on the subject and the Law which he once rejoiced in as a Pharisee now brings only slavery and death.
All through the letter he has been using various arguments and now he comes to the story of Abraham, Sarah, Hagar, Ishmael and Isaac which is found in Genesis. According to Genesis God promised Abraham and Sarah a son even though they were both getting up there in years. Years go by, decades go by, Sarah goes through the change, and still no son. So Sarah decides to go in for a bit of assisted reproduction. They didn't have fertility clinics in those days, they didn't have in-vitro fertilization or artificial insemination but they did have surrogate mothers. Sarah tells Abraham, take my slave Hagar and have her bear a child for us. Hagar. being a slave, doesn't have any choice in the matter. So Abraham goes in and does the deed with Hagar; she gets pregnant right away and nine months later she has a son, Ishmael. He's considered the father of the Arab people so if you want to know why Arabs and Jews don't get along, now you know.
Pastor talked a lot about how Abraham and Sarah took things into their hands instead of relying on God in God's time and while Scripture doesn't come right out and say what they did was wrong it sure is implied. Paul in Galatians certainly didn't have any doubt about the matter. Ishmael, Hagar's child, is the child of slavery. Hagar stands for the Law given on Mount Sinai in Arabia which is also slavery. (Sorry, Jewish readers, this is what Paul says. The Torah of Moses is slavery.) Isaac, the promised miracle child, is the child of freedom. So whose side are you on? Then Paul throws in a little quotation from Isaiah about how childless women should rejoice because God will bless them with offspring (even if they aren't biological offspring). He finishes up with Sarah's command (though he doesn't say it came from her) to Abraham that Abraham throw Hagar and Ishmael out because the slave shouldn't inherit with the free.
Now I waited and waited to hear Pastor say something--anything--about assisted reproductive technology and whether it is against God's will to resort to such means (the Catholic Church has no doubt whatsoever about that) although he did make a mention about couples struggling with fertility issues. It seems to me that if you are going to base your philosophy on Scripture you could make a darn good case from both Genesis and Galatians that this is indeed against God's will. Even though legally according to the customs of Abraham's time Ishmael was the heir because he was first-born that wasn't good enough for God or Abraham and so Ishmael gets tossed out. As a consolation prize he and his heirs get Arabia. At that time the internal combustion engine hadn't been invented yet so the fact that Arabia was sitting on an ocean of oil and Israel, the Promised Land, didn't have one drop of the stuff, was a long way off in the future. I can see Ishmael now taunting Isaac--you thought you were getting the better deal, nah, nah, nah. Oh, yes, Ishmael's descendants, the ones that Scripture scorned, are doing quite well indeed.
But wait--there's more. Now Paul didn't mention it, and his Gentile audience probably didn't have their own personal Bibles so they couldn't look it up--but Abraham actually had MORE than 2 sons. He had--count them--EIGHT. EIGHT? Yes, EIGHT. Turn to Genesis Chapter 25. After Sarah died and Isaac and Rebecca got married, Abraham took another wife named Keturah and she bore him another six sons. But these sons don't fit into Paul's scheme of things and neither does Keturah.
Why did Abraham take another wife? After all, he already had the son of the promise. Or was he being like the British and wanted an heir and a spare as they say? Remember, not long after Hagar and Ishmael were banished God told Abraham to take Isaac up to a mountain and sacrifice him. God spared Isaac at the last moment but maybe this was always in the back of Abraham's mind that He could always change His mind. I have read commentaries that suggest that the reason Sarah died shortly after this incident was that it did something to her. And Isaac doesn't seem to share his father's enthusiasm for the Lord. He believes in Him but he doesn't go out of his way to seek a relationship with Him. Hmm, could having your father stand over you with a knife have something to do with that? "Son, I'm sorry, but God told me to." Remember, this is the family that is being held up as an example to the rest of us. This is the Founding Family of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. A real inspiring bunch. Kind of reminds me of the gods in Wagner's "Ring of the Nibelung". One of these days I am going to get around to finish up listening to that--the grand finale where everything goes up in flames.
All through the letter he has been using various arguments and now he comes to the story of Abraham, Sarah, Hagar, Ishmael and Isaac which is found in Genesis. According to Genesis God promised Abraham and Sarah a son even though they were both getting up there in years. Years go by, decades go by, Sarah goes through the change, and still no son. So Sarah decides to go in for a bit of assisted reproduction. They didn't have fertility clinics in those days, they didn't have in-vitro fertilization or artificial insemination but they did have surrogate mothers. Sarah tells Abraham, take my slave Hagar and have her bear a child for us. Hagar. being a slave, doesn't have any choice in the matter. So Abraham goes in and does the deed with Hagar; she gets pregnant right away and nine months later she has a son, Ishmael. He's considered the father of the Arab people so if you want to know why Arabs and Jews don't get along, now you know.
Pastor talked a lot about how Abraham and Sarah took things into their hands instead of relying on God in God's time and while Scripture doesn't come right out and say what they did was wrong it sure is implied. Paul in Galatians certainly didn't have any doubt about the matter. Ishmael, Hagar's child, is the child of slavery. Hagar stands for the Law given on Mount Sinai in Arabia which is also slavery. (Sorry, Jewish readers, this is what Paul says. The Torah of Moses is slavery.) Isaac, the promised miracle child, is the child of freedom. So whose side are you on? Then Paul throws in a little quotation from Isaiah about how childless women should rejoice because God will bless them with offspring (even if they aren't biological offspring). He finishes up with Sarah's command (though he doesn't say it came from her) to Abraham that Abraham throw Hagar and Ishmael out because the slave shouldn't inherit with the free.
Now I waited and waited to hear Pastor say something--anything--about assisted reproductive technology and whether it is against God's will to resort to such means (the Catholic Church has no doubt whatsoever about that) although he did make a mention about couples struggling with fertility issues. It seems to me that if you are going to base your philosophy on Scripture you could make a darn good case from both Genesis and Galatians that this is indeed against God's will. Even though legally according to the customs of Abraham's time Ishmael was the heir because he was first-born that wasn't good enough for God or Abraham and so Ishmael gets tossed out. As a consolation prize he and his heirs get Arabia. At that time the internal combustion engine hadn't been invented yet so the fact that Arabia was sitting on an ocean of oil and Israel, the Promised Land, didn't have one drop of the stuff, was a long way off in the future. I can see Ishmael now taunting Isaac--you thought you were getting the better deal, nah, nah, nah. Oh, yes, Ishmael's descendants, the ones that Scripture scorned, are doing quite well indeed.
But wait--there's more. Now Paul didn't mention it, and his Gentile audience probably didn't have their own personal Bibles so they couldn't look it up--but Abraham actually had MORE than 2 sons. He had--count them--EIGHT. EIGHT? Yes, EIGHT. Turn to Genesis Chapter 25. After Sarah died and Isaac and Rebecca got married, Abraham took another wife named Keturah and she bore him another six sons. But these sons don't fit into Paul's scheme of things and neither does Keturah.
Why did Abraham take another wife? After all, he already had the son of the promise. Or was he being like the British and wanted an heir and a spare as they say? Remember, not long after Hagar and Ishmael were banished God told Abraham to take Isaac up to a mountain and sacrifice him. God spared Isaac at the last moment but maybe this was always in the back of Abraham's mind that He could always change His mind. I have read commentaries that suggest that the reason Sarah died shortly after this incident was that it did something to her. And Isaac doesn't seem to share his father's enthusiasm for the Lord. He believes in Him but he doesn't go out of his way to seek a relationship with Him. Hmm, could having your father stand over you with a knife have something to do with that? "Son, I'm sorry, but God told me to." Remember, this is the family that is being held up as an example to the rest of us. This is the Founding Family of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. A real inspiring bunch. Kind of reminds me of the gods in Wagner's "Ring of the Nibelung". One of these days I am going to get around to finish up listening to that--the grand finale where everything goes up in flames.
