Sermon:  Discernment in our lives

Texts: Genesis 21:8-21

Date: June 22, 2008

Rev. Emily Tanis-Likkel, Eagle Harbor Congregational Church

  Everything was going great at the party that Abraham and Sarah threw for their son Isaac's weaning, the son that Sarah bore as God had promised.  But then in the middle of the festivities, Sarah caught sight of fifteen-year-old Ishmael, her son born through her slave Hagar, playing with her three-year-old boy Isaac.  Something happened in her - great fear that Ishmael would come to overshadow Isaac - and she and Abraham cast Hagar and Ishmael out of their home.  Can you imagine the scene of Hagar and Ishmael exiled with a measly loaf of bread and a wine-skin of water.  What now?  She must have wondered.  What do I do now?  This was not the first time Hagar left the home of Abraham and Sarah and wandered in the wilderness.  Fourteen years prior, although her mistress Sarah had insisted that Abraham take Hagar as a wife, Sarah was jealous and treated her harshly after Hagar became pregnant.  God had told Abraham that he and his wife Sarah would become ancestors to many generations. Well into her menopausal years, Sarah had laughed at the thought.  She decided they'd better give God a hand in fulfilling the promise, by having a son through her slave.  Receiving the brunt of Sarah's jealousy, Hagar ran away.  Expecting a child, with no way to eat or have shelter, no way to survive - a runaway slave.  What now?  She must have asked herself desperately.  What do I do now?

  Seeing and hearing are strong images in the story of Hagar and Ishmael.  Seeing and hearing - it is discernment - it is noticing God at work within and around us.  Jane E. Vennard, who has done much teaching and writing on prayer, has said that discernment, can be like glimpsing a butterfly as it flies past your line of sight.  You see it, you apprehend it as it flits away, even if you don't fully comprehend all of the comings and goings of the butterfly.  We desire to see the desire that God has for our lives.  We wait to glimpse the Spirit, to let God speak into our hearts.  This takes us being open to receive whatever God offers.

  Hagar's story reminds me of the story told by Vennard of a man named David.  Recently divorced and soon to be eligible for early retirement, David was trying to decide what to do with the rest of his life.  He felt as if he were being faced with a real choice for the first time.  "In the past, I chose what was in front of me or what was expected of me," he said.  "In high school, I chose to run track because it was my father's sport.  I went to college at my mother's alma mater.  I married the woman I met in my first year of teaching.  When we discovered we were unable to have children, my wife did not want to adopt, so I am not a father.  Then a year ago she moved out, and our divorce was final last month."  He wanted to discern what God thought about what he should do next.  He said "I want to listen to God and be guided in my choices... above all, I want to be faithful." [1]  In discernment we open our minds and ears to listen faithfully to God.

  Hagar was receptive and open to seeing and hearing God.  When Hagar had fled from Sarah, pregnant with Abraham's heir, God found her by a spring of water in the wilderness.  God said, "Hagar, where have you come from and where are you going?"  God asked her to reflect.  We can read between the lines to see that God is asking her to really think about what paths she has taken, how it has made her who she is, and where she is called to go next.  When she said that she was running away, God told her to return to Sarah, and that she would receive the blessing of a multitude.  She was to name her son Ishmael, God hears.  She was amazed, saying, "Have I really seen God and remained alive after seeing him?"

  Years later, Hagar saw God after she fled from abuse.  She and Ishmael wandered about in the wilderness, and when their bread and water gave out, they resigned themselves to die.  Hagar placed her lethargic son under a bush, and went out of eyesight, not being able to bear to see his final breath.  She lifted up her voice and wept.  Ishmael cried out as well, and God heard them both.  "What troubles you Hagar?  Do not be afraid."  Hagar cried out, God heard, and God answered.  Then God gave her guidance:  "'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, filled the skin with water, and gave the boy a drink."

  In the early 1500's, St. Ignatius of Loyola developed what are known as the Ignatian exercises, a process of discernment.  He taught that God offers guidance to us in all of the important decisions, turning-points, and crises in our lives.  He taught a comprehensive way of listening for God's will: in our head, our heart, and our community.  Next week we will take a look at listening in community.  Think of something in your life where there is a question mark:  A decision about how you spend your time, a yearning to know how to support someone in your family, or knowing how to seek healing for an ailment.  You may have a general nagging feeling about a part of your life, something you want to change, but haven't formulated it yet.  With all of the questions you have right now about your life, which one presents itself as the one to focus on next?  Which has the most intensity for you in this moment?  Perhaps this is something for you to present to God in prayer.  God works in our minds.  God nudges when we list pros and cons, when we weigh possibilities and consider alternatives.  God guides us as we visualize the steps we may take, working in our imagination.

  God is with us in whatever choices we make.  Yet God wants us to choose well, to choose that which is grace-filled an life-affirming.  God wants us to experience peace and joy.  As we are using our minds to discern the will of God, we may notice some stirrings within our hearts.  St. Ignatius describes this as consolation and desolation.  When we are following God's will, God gives us a feeling of consolation - such as peace and joy.  When we are straying from what God knows to be a good decision, we have a feeling of desolation - such as confusion or despair.  One scholar describes this as allowing our thoughts and feelings to "echo down" into the depths of our beings.[2]  Ignatius taught that those of us who desire to participate in the work of God are to cultivate a passionate commitment to follow God, a detachment from our own personal wants, and a deep sensitivity to the way and being of God.  Our ears and our eyes are open to God's guidance when we are attuned to God's presence in our lives - prayer, Scripture meditation, worship, Sabbath-keeping, social justice, peace-making, and other spiritual exercises.  Perhaps God can speak to us through the incessant chatter of the television, but it is much easier to hear when we turn the noise off.

  Hagar is an example of what it means to discern.  This story, (coupled with the story of Abraham's near-sacrifice of Isaac that we will hear next week) shows how discernment can be a way of life.  There are methods for discernment to help us in this process, yet the most important piece is that God's role in our discerning is not that of an assistant.  A perfunctory prayer as part of a larger method is not what true discernment is about.  Instead, "God is at the heart of the decision-making process."  We open our eyes to catch sight of how God is at the center of our lives, our desires, our journey.  I don't think God's will for us is spelled out letter by letter in advance, but that God knows us better than we know ourselves, and desires what would be good and fulfilling in our lives.  God will not always give us a clear answer about what path to take.  Sometimes we catch sight of how God has guided us to a point after the fact.

  I often tell the story of how I came to the UCC because of an advertisement on a metro bus.  It depicted Plymouth Congregational Church in Seattle, with the slogan, "Feed your soul at lunchtime."  My soul needed feeding, and a jazz service at a downtown church sounded very intriguing to me.  Also, I had learned a bit about the UCC and it's openness, and I was interested in learning more about it.  But the main thing that attracted me to the advertisement is that one of the pastors depicted in the photo was a former college professor of mine who had a real impact on me.  But I needed to see the sign more than once.  I saw it again and again on my way to class, and finally I went through the front door of that UCC church, and wept - I was home.  Then several months later, as I was praying in church, desiring confirmation of my decision, I saw that God was not far away, observing what I was doing, but had accompanied me all those times on the bus, had been with me that first time and every time that I walked through the church doors.  We had made the decision together.  Originally I wasn't going to tell this story this morning, because last week I had decided against it, thought that many of you already had heard it.  But then I had a dream on Friday night that I showed my sermon to my mom, and she told me, the sermon is okay, but tell them one of your own stories.  So here it is.  And it is so very appropriate that it was my mom who embodied Wisdom in the dream.

  Hagar wandered about in the wilderness.  At times, we wander about in the wilderness.  Not sure which way to go, perhaps feeling like our way is leading to something bleak.  When we find ourselves wandering about, let us stop and listen to God.  Seek God first.  It's being too busy not to pray.  Too uncertain about God not to listen.

  Where have you come from?  Where are you going?  They are good questions to ponder.  When Hagar cried out to God, God answered: "What troubles you? Do not be afraid."  Often a word of comfort and peace comes when we truly listen, then comes the opening of the eyes, of the heart, and mind to see the mysterious grace.  This has been true in my own prayer life.  A message of calm coupled with instruction.

  God opened Hagar's eyes and she saw a well of water.  She saw a source of life, it would save her, her son, and enable God's promise of blessing her with a long family line.  Do you see the well in your own life?  Can you catch a glimpse of the grace in your life everyday?  Can you see Hagar hold up her son?  She used her last bit of strength and held up her gangly teenage boy, the person who was everything to her in the world, as we hold up our own lives before God.  She went and filled the skin with water, and gave her son a drink.  She went, she filled, and she gave.  May we see the well, the grace, that we may go and do the work that God calls us to that we may fill and be filled and give.

[1] Vennard, Jane E. Embracing the World: Praying for Justice and Peace,

p. 88

[2] Rogers, Frank Practicing our Faith, ed. Dorothy C. Bass. p. 108l