Two Mothers, Two Religions

Who’s Your Mother?

Sarah and Hagar

Fourth in Lent

Collect of the Day: Grant, we beseech thee, Almighty God, that we, who for our evil deeds do worthily deserve to be punished, by the comfort of thy grace may mercifully be relieved; through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.

Epistle: Galatians 4:21-31

21 Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law?

22 For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a freewoman.

23 But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the freewoman was by promise.

24 Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar.

25 For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children.

26 But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.

27 For it is written, Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not; break forth and cry, thou that travailest not: for the desolate hath many more children than she which hath an husband.

28 Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise.

29 But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now.

30 Nevertheless what saith the scripture? Cast out the bondwoman and her son: for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman.

31 So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free.

“Who’s your mother?” is a very important question in traditional Judaism. You can become a Jew by conversion, but you are irrevocably a Jew by being born to a Jewish mother. There can be doubts about paternity but never about maternity.

“Who’s your mother?” is also an important question for Christianity, though for different reasons.

1. The Women

If we want to get the main point of what St. Paul wrote in our Epistle lesson, we need to get the basic facts of the Old Testament story of Abraham and the two women in his life.

1.1 When Abraham was 75 years old, and his wife, Sarah, 65, the Lord called him to leave his homeland and go to a land which the Lord would show him. The Lord promised Abraham he would bless him, make his name great, and make a great nation come from him. At the time the Lord made his promise Abraham and Sarah were childless.

Abraham needed an heir in case he died, so, according to the custom of the day, he appointed his chief servant his heir. But the Lord told Abraham that this servant would not be his heir, but a son would be. He made the promise even more vivid by telling Abraham his descendants would be like the stars of the sky and sands of the seashore.

1.2 Ten years went by and Abraham and Sarah still did not have a child. They were faced with a dilemma. The Lord had made very big promises, but the fulfillment of the promises required at least one son. Abraham and Sarah were running out of time. If there were no son, nothing else God had promised would happen.

So Sarah made a proposal to Abraham: “I have a servant girl named Hagar. Why don’t I give her to you, and you have a child with her? Maybe she will have a son, and he will be the one God will use to fulfill all his other promises. The predictable happened. When Hagar got pregnant she began to scorn her mistress, and her mistress started to mistreat her. So Hagar ran away. But the Lord found her in the wilderness and told her to go back home and have her baby. She did, and had a son she named Ishmael. Abraham was 86 years old.

1.3 Thirteen years passed. When Abraham was 99 the Lord appeared to him and affirmed his covenant that he would be the God of Abraham and his descendants, that Abraham would be very fruitful, and nations and kings would come from him. The Lord also promised that He would give Abraham a son by Sarah. When Abraham heard that, he laughed and said, Shall a child be born to a man who is 100 years old? Shall Sarah who is 90 years old bear a son?” Not only was it impossible. Abraham loved the son he already had: “Oh that Ishmael might live before you.” He meant, “Oh that you might fulfill your promises through Ishmael.” But the Lord said, “No. I will bless Ishmael, but the promise will be fulfilled through a son who will be born to Sarah.”

A year later three angelic visitors in human form appeared to Abraham and said, “The time has come. A year from now, Sarah will bear you a son.” Sarah overheard this, and laughed in disbelief, not only because Abraham was an old man but because she was past menopause. What the angels said would happen was a physical impossibility.

1.4 But Sarah had the baby, and they named him Isaac which means “laughter.” Three or four years later Isaac was weaned, and, according to the custom, they had a party celebrating the milestone. But during the party the older half-brother Ishmael laughed and mocked his little brother. Sarah got very angry and said to Abraham, “Get rid of that slave woman and her son. Her son is not going to be an heir along with my son.” This greatly displeased Abraham who loved his older son, but the Lord told him to do what Sarah said, so he sent Hagar and Ishmael away.

The central character in his story, as in all Old Testament stories, is the Lord himself who is working out his purposes of salvation. The central human character is Abraham. But it’s clear that the story revolves around the two women: Hagar and Sarah.

2. Two Religions

1.1 There are two statements that represent two different religions, two different ways of salvation, two different ways of gaining God’s approval and acceptance. One is: “God helps those who help themselves.” The other is, “God helps those who cannot help themselves.”

The first statement is often repeated. Some people are absolutely certain it comes from the Bible. It seems intuitively correct. God will do his part. But you must do your part. Maybe God will do most of what it takes for you to be saved, but, while your contribution to your salvation is much smaller than God’s, you do have a part to do. God will meet you more than halfway, but you’ve got to walk part way toward him.

1.2 This is the way this view worked out in Galatia. Paul had preached to these Gentiles the Gospel of salvation by faith alone in Christ alone. “You can be right with God by what Jesus did for you. You receive what Jesus did for you by faith alone. When you trust in Christ, God counts you righteous in his sight, not because you are good, but because Christ died for your sins. He accepts you not because of who you are but because of what Christ is, not because of what you have done or will do, but because of what Christ did for you in his life, death, and resurrection. Paul left behind a church that believed this.

1.2 After Paul left, some Jewish teachers who believed in Jesus as Messiah came to Galatia. Their message was, “What Paul preached is true but incomplete. What you believe is good as far as it goes, but there is more you need to know and do.”

“God made a covenant with our forefathers. At Mt. Sinai he gave them his law. His law revealed his moral requirements summarized in the Ten Commandments. In the law God also gave rituals that marked us Jews as God’s special covenant people. One essential part of this law that marked us as God’s people was circumcision. He gave us also food laws. Some foods were clean and some unclean. The other nations of the world ate whatever they liked, but God told us to eat only clean foods. By eating only these foods we were set apart as God’s people.”

“Now you believe in Christ as do we. He is the promised Messiah. But you need to be part of the covenant God made with us. You need to become part of God’s people. To do this keep the law God revealed at Mt. Sinai. You Gentiles also need to submit to circumcision and to observe the food laws. Then you will be God’s people along with us. You and we believe in Jesus and accept him as Messiah, but you need to come into our covenant and keep our law to be God’s people.

2.3 Paul saw through this. It undermined and would destroy the Gospel of salvation by faith alone in Jesus alone. He said, “Think about this coming under the law so you understand what you’re getting into. When Sarah and Abraham decided to have a child by Hagar, they believed in the promise of God, but they believed that they could help out with the promise. Hagar was a woman of childbearing age. So Abraham had a child with her. However, God said, ‘I am not going to fulfill my promise through Ishmael.’”

So the Lord waited and did nothing. He waited until Abraham was an old man and until Sarah was past the physical ability to have a child. Now having a child was impossible. With Sarah beyond menopause there was nothing that Abraham and Sarah could do to produce an heir. If they were going to have a child, God would have to do for them what they could not do for themselves.

So Paul was saying, “If you want to be saved by combining what God will do for you and what you can do for yourself, if you want to be right with God by believing in Christ and being circumcised and eating kosher, then you are a descendant of Hagar, not Sarah; you are a sibling of Ishmael, not Isaac.

2.4 The two approaches to acceptance with God are irreconcilable. Isaac, the child given by God’s promise and grace, and Ishmael, the child of Abraham and Sarah’s planning and effort cannot live in the same household. It is not that Sarah and Isaac are good and deserve to stay while Hagar and Ishmael are bad and so must go. It is that God’s grace and power and human merit and ability are incompatible. The promise of salvation is not what God will do for people who do their part, but what God does for sinners who cannot do anything.

So Paul is telling the Galatians and us, “You cannot inherit God’s promises of salvation by your doing your part and God’s doing his. If you want to do it that way, then you are going to have to do it all by yourself because God does not work salvation by partnership. What God offers you is salvation by his grace not your merit, by his work for you not your cooperation with him, by faith not performance

When we come to this Table we are not saying, “Lord, I am trying to love you and my neighbor but I need your help to save me. We are saying, “Lord it is all your work for me. I am helpless to save myself. Here I hold out my empty hand to receive the bread of your sacrificed body and the wine of your shed blood. ‘Nothing in my hand I bring, simply to thy cross I cling, naked come to thee for dress, helpless cling to thee for grace.’”