Call Me Ishmael
Genesis 21:8-21

June 19, 2005

Names are seldom ordinary. Either they describe a characteristic of the person or recall the life of a family member, ancestor, or famous person whom the parents hope that their child will imitate. Our children both have names of previous generations on both sides, as well as the name of beloved friends.

The names of the Genesis children are not family names: they always mean something specific about the parents and child. They are odd names, especially if one translates them into English. Ishmael means “God is hearing” - that is, God is hearing the prayers of Hagar the Egyptian, the abused maid servant of Sarai. Isaac is “laughing,” referring to Sarah’s laughter at the crazy idea that a 90-year-old woman will give birth. Jacob is “the heel,” because he was born grasping the heel of his twin brother Esau. It was not meant to be complimentary.

Of all these early names, Ishmael is perhaps the most genteel and appropriate name for a person saturated in the journey of God. Yet, no one else appeared to have a more difficult and persecuted life than Ishmael. He apparently drops out of the Biblical saga, but reemerges with a vengeance in the history of the People of the Book. Is his name Ishmael a sign or a mockery of faithfulness?

It says something that one of the greatest adventure tales in English literature begins with its narrator asking his readers to “call me Ishmael.” Extremely inadequate are the details about Ishmael’s life prior to Moby Dick. Considering that he found himself in dreary New Bedford, ready to indenture himself on any whaling ship heading out anywhere, he was not a man who possessed a resume worth something in the market. Herman Melville’s novel Moby Dick is incredibly deceptive in that it is perhaps the most Biblically-saturated novel in English literature. Melville did not need to tell us much about his narrator, Ishmael told the Biblically-literate reader an awful lot about this innocent, though victimized young man. And all Melville had to do was name his whaler captain Ahab and the reader would know what kind of spiritual being, earnest though obsessed and distracted, he had to be. We do know Ahab’s biography in the shape of his wooden leg, necessitated by a killer white whale.

The original Ishmael, like many a significant Biblical personality, never utters a recorded word. His mother Hagar is the focus of all the jealous retribution by her mistress Sarah and there is no real justice. God speaks to Hagar in a way God does not speak to the main characters. Ishmael, she is reassured, will be a singular human being, raised in the wilderness, and also the founder of a great nation. No more word of Ishmael in scripture, but when the nation of Islam arises out of the wilderness of Arabah Ishmael is never forgotten in the Qur’an. Muslims are called Ishmaelites from a very early period, a title that denotes a singular way of being human.

It is amazing and singular that we have retained this story in our Bible. There is little redemption here for our great ancestors. Sarah is consumed by jealousy of Hagar and her son Ishmael. She is Abraham’s favourite wife, but not blessed with being able to bear a child, a woman’s worst curse in those ancient of days. Feminist Biblical scholars bemoan that society had constructed such a restricted arena of legitimacy for women - women’s only real purpose is to bear children. Sarah’s jealousy forced her to hate another woman and an innocent child, in effect condemning them to death, although Sarah had suggested the arrangement in the first place. Abraham, through all of this, is not a pillar of justice and righteousness, capitulating to the powerful influence of Sarah. “The thing was very displeasing to him,” but God told him not to worry, and to do as his wife tells him. This is a passage of scripture that might be worth suppressing on this Father’s Day! Remember, listening to your wife almost got someone killed!

This is not a story about deserving and undeserving people. It is once again a story about God and how God acts in history with human beings. Hagar and Ishmael are banished into the wilderness as a result of jealousy, not of justice. Abraham is not doing anything honourable, but is reassured that Ishmael will be taken care of, and he is. Every bit of the original promise to Abram is about to be fulfilled in Ishmael. It would take much longer, according to Islamic tradition, yet God is involved in every step, though veiled from our Biblical vision. The silent Ishmael is forgotten about for now. Yet, there is more truth and light to come forth from God’s mighty word to be written outside our box.

Just to be clear and a little more accurate, this story of Ishmael is not necessarily the historical roots of the Islamic peoples. Real history is much more complex than this tale, but emotionally, theologically, it was understood as a founding legend that found a rightful and righteous place for the other part of God’s people. It is important to observe that the vast majority of the human race, including you and me, belong to the “other part of God’s people.” Call me Ishmael.

Abraham and Sarah were not always the holy righteous couple - Joseph and Mary most definitely not. They had just finished traveling through the kingdom of Gerar, and Abraham was afraid of the neighbourhood, that the tough guys would kill him to get at his beautiful wife. So they concocted the line that they were brother and sister. Somehow that worked better in those days. Abraham was wined and dined and Sarah was steered right into King Abimelech’s harem. Fortunately, before any dishonourable events took place, God warned Abimelech in a dream to keep hands off Sarah. Abraham, the keeper of the Promise, did not trust God to keep him safe. He was saved by a god-less king to whom God preferred to talk.

God has had a pernicious habit, witnessed throughout the Bible, of blessing people that human beings refuse to bless. Sure, God really likes holiness and righteousness and social conscience and the signs of human respect for all people among God’s people. The problem is you will be hard put to find many examples of such righteous holiness in the Bible. Instead, what we read about are people caught up in sex, violence, murder, racial and ethnic prejudice, prevarication, and jealousy - for starters. And these are the people God sticks with for the journey.

That hits you and me with a double divine whammy. First, if in your honesty and humility you believe you have failed to reach the moral standards to do God’s ministry, you probably haven’t been listening to what God has been whispering and yelling into the ears of your soul. You have been called to do some of God’s work, even when you don’t want to think you are qualified.

Second, there are a lot of fallen saints and standing sinners who deserve our love and understanding, and our recognition that God often chooses them first to do the things of God despite their obvious prodigality and lack of moral qualifications.

That does not mean you are free to go out using Paul’s famous phrase, “sin boldly so that grace may abound.” Please, don’t go out and try to get rid of your husband’s concubine and semi-legitimate child. At least not on Father’s Day. Call you Ishmael.

Preached by Robert Kitchen
Knox-Metropolitan United Church
Regina, Saskatchewan