“The god that the Muslim terrorists worship is not our God.” This is a statement I have heard many times since September of 2001. I just heard it said again when I was in Georgia with my friends. I have heard it said in Lynchburg, and some of you may have said the same thing or perhaps thought it. I think what people are trying to say is that the almighty God we worship would not demand that his people terrorize and kill others and themselves in His name and for his glory. So the terrorists must worship some other god. This is an understandable rationale…but we have to be careful and thoughtful about what we say about God.
There is only one God…How we humans of the world go about trying to define who God is and what God wants for us and how to worship God and still get our own way is where we get in trouble. Jews, Muslims, and Christians trace their ancestry back through Abraham. The bible tells the fascinating story in Genesis… We have been following the story of God’s promise to Abraham and Sarah that they would have a child in their very old age and their descendants would be numerous as the stars in the sky or the dust of the ground. Sarah got impatient…time passed and there was no baby on the way – so she decided to take matters into her own hands. In those ancient times it was not uncommon for there to be a surrogate mother…Sarah had a young Egyptian slave named Hagar. She took the girl to Abraham and told him to have a baby with Hagar. Apparently Abraham didn’t mind having a little fling and Hagar conceived.
Hmmm…it just doesn’t work does it? Two women…one old…one young and looking smug...an old man looking “smugger,” and the whole household dynamic changes. Sarah got so jealous that she threw Hagar out the house and sent her into the desert. The angel of the Lord found her there and told her to go back and submit herself to her mistress. The angel also promised that Hagar would have a son, and he would be named Ishmael, which means, “God saves,” and his descendants would form a great nation. Scripture says the angel told Hagar that her son would be “a wild ass of a man, with his hand against everyone, and everyone’s hand against him; and he shall live at odds with all his kin.” (16:12) However that might be interpreted, Abraham loved Ishmael and made him a part of his family.
More time passed…The Lord renewed his promise to Abraham and Sarah that they would have a child and be a great nation. You will remember from last week that Sarah thought it was all so funny and improbable that she laughed her head off. God has a way of having the last laugh and Sarah did get pregnant have a son named Isaac, which means, “laughter.”
When we join the story today the two boys are growing up in the same house and as brothers will they were playing together and having a good time. Instead of being happy about it Sarah was jealous and worried that her privileged son would have to share his inheritance with the illegitimate son in the slave quarters so once again Sarah decided to take God’s promise into her own hands and she told Abraham that Hagar and Ishmael would have to leave. Abraham was terribly upset, but the Lord knew what was going on and he told Abraham to let them go. So Abraham gave them food and water and sent them out into the desert.
It did not take long for their water to run out in the fierce heat and Hagar left Ishmael under the shade of a bush to die. She sat a distance and cried and so did the boy. God heard their crying and came to them and opened their eyes to see a well of water nearby. Again, God promised that the boy would be the father of a great nation. Ishmael became a hunter and lived in the wilderness of Paran. Eventually his mother found a wife for him in Egypt and Ishmael became the father of twelve great tribes of the middle east. God’s promises to Abraham were multiplied through Isaac and Ishmael.
There is but one God and his purposes for creation will eventually and in God’s time be worked out through all of us who are the privileged and the outcasts, the impatient, the violent and the arrogant and the faithful. There is one God who loves all that he created. The violence and terror and unspeakable things that happen in this world are not God’s doing but the result of humanity’s sinful and willful desire to be like God and call the shots. Or they are the result of a total tuning away from all that is good and giving God the glory for that too. When we read the paper and see on TV how violent people are and their cruelty to each other, are you like me? Do you ask what is God’s plan and how will it ever be realized?
God’s love for humanity and his desire that creation be healed and restored and forgiven was made very real for me in two books I have just finished. One is The Shack, a novel by William P. Young. It tells the story of a man trying to live with a great sadness – the brutal slaying of his little girl. It wrestles with the age-old question of “Where is God in a world so filled with unspeakable pain and how can I forgive?” The other book is titled, Left To Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust, by Immaculee Ilibagiza. It takes us to the tribal wars in 1994 in Rwanda in Africa. It is the true story of a woman who survived the massacres of her tribe and found the presence of God and an incredible ability to pray for herself and others and forgive her enemies. She is left to tell the story of how the world looked the other way while a million people were killed. In both books the desire for revenge is overcome by the love of God. I commend them to you for your summer reading.
There is but one God and Christians know the nature of God through Jesus Christ. God’s promise is multiplied through Jesus and we become sons and daughters of Abraham through faith in Jesus. He taught us to love others and pray for forgiveness of our sins and to pray that we may forgive those who sin against us. In the quiet time we have for healing prayer, I bid you open your heart and let our Lord see deep inside. Ask him fill your heart with love and forgiveness. Ask him to heal you and help you be all he wants you to be. The Kingdom of God will come – one heart at a time. Amen