SUNDAY SERMON: Sibling Rivalry
By Stephen Baldwin
OT: Genesis 21.8-21
NT: Romans 6.9-11
Sibling Rivalry
At breakfast this past week, our family was talking about the lengths to which siblings will go to pick on each other. It’s a tale as old as time.
Then I leaned over to mom, as I was sitting beside my sister, and said with a wink and a grin, “Aren’t you glad you didn’t have to deal with that from us when we were growing up?”
“Excuse me,” she said. “You don’t remember the fights in the backseat or the time you put marshmallow cream in her hair and she put peanut butter in yours?”
She then proceeded to tell us about the time her sister brought her a sandwich when she was lifeguarding at the Ronceverte Pool in high school. “It was so kind of her to bring me a hamburger,” she recalled. She opened it up, took a big bite of what she thought was a hamburger, only to discover her sister had put wet dog food between the bun and wrapped it in foil for her.
It’s the age-old tale of sibling rivalry. I would love to hear your stories from your youth! What one has, the other wants. What one wants, the other has. And so forth. Those of you with siblings or who have multiple children know. As long as siblings have existed, so have rivalries.
Cain and Abel. The Smothers Brothers. Bobbie and Rosalie. Venus and Serena Williams. Hatfield & McCoy. Today, we’ll begin the story of an ancient sibling rivalry, that of Ishmael and Isaac from the book of Genesis, which continues today after thousands of years.
Early in the book of Genesis, God promises Abraham that he will be the father of many nations. Sounds great…but the problem is that Abraham and Sarah can’t have children. She is barren. They want to have children si badly that they take matters in their own hands, and she convinces him to have a child by their slave Hagar. She gives birth to Ishmael, Abraham’s first son. As is usually the case with love triangles, it became complicated…quickly. Sarah regretted telling Abraham to conceive by another woman. She looked with contempt on Hagar, so Hagar took her son and ran away.
An angel appeared to her in the desert and convinced Hagar that she must return for her son would die in the desert and be unable to perform his place in history. So she returned, but life with Sarah remained awkward. Eventually, Sarah became pregnant by Abraham in old age, and they named the child “Isaac.” In Hebrew, “yitsak” means “laughter,” for Sarah laughed uncontrollably when she found out that she had conceived despite being an elderly woman.
That is how the sibling rivalry was born. One day, Sarah became upset with Ishmael. The story does not say why. She sees Ishmael playing with her son and asks Abraham to kick them out of the house.
Abraham is torn. Should he listen to his wife? Or should he protect his first-born? It’s like being scheduled to pick up your in-laws from the airport at the same time you’re scheduled for a colonoscopy. No matter what you do, it’s going to hurt.
Abraham decides to ask God for help making the decision, and God tells him to let Hagar and Ishmael go. Sometimes splitting up is the best thing. God promises that both Ishmael and Isaac will father nations, so Abraham packs their bags and provides them food for the journey.
You may be wondering, “Where’s the sibling rivalry? I thought Ishmael and Isaac didn’t get along?” As is often the case, the rivalry came not from the boys themselves, who apparently played together and enjoyed each other’s company, but from outside people taking sides with either Hagar or Sarah. And that mantle has been taken up and expanded for thousands of years now.
It’s why there is no peace in the Middle East. Jews claim Isaac. Muslims claim Ishmael. Christians claim both. It may seem silly to us, but that is the root of the problem, and we know all too well how powerful sibling or cultural rivalries can be. Hatfields and McCoys. Ronceverte and Lewisburg. WVU and Marshall. Appalachia and the rest of America.
It persists today as war rages in Lebanon and Israel and Iran and Palestine. Earlier this week, it looked like a peace deal was agreed to. As of this morning, they are back to the negotiating table.
Will it ever end? Will conflict which began as a sibling rivalry haunt us forever? Or is there hope for a better way?
Amy Jill Levine, a Biblical Studies scholar and a Jew who often teaches Christians, is very cognizant of the fact that conflict between religious groups goes back to this story. And she reminds us that when Abraham dies, Ishmael and Isaac come together to bury their father. They move past suspicions and rumors and tall tales about their mother’s rivalry to peacefully honor what they have in common, Abraham.
On Father’s Day, that is a message of hope we all need to hear. My prayer for us is that we might remember that God loved both Ishmael and Isaac, Hagar and Sarah. God sees their struggles, celebrates their joys, and mourns their loss. And they all are beloved. All are redeemed.
As the old hymn reminds us, “There’s a wideness in God’s mercy like the wideness of the sea.” Amen? Amen.
