The following is the transcript of a sermon that was delivered via Zoom for the East Jerusalem International Church on Saturday, June 20, 2020 by Rev. Lauren Whitfield.

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Greeting and Gratitude

Well, good evening, or good morning, depending on where you are; good afternoon. I am so thankful to be here. Honestly, I’m deeply humbled just to even have this opportunity to share with you and be in your presence. Thank you to my family and friends who have joined.

Introduction: Recognizing Our Bias as We Read Scripture

Today’s text is the lectionary text for this week: Genesis 21:8–21 (NRSV). In our brief time together today, I would like to propose this focus from the reading of our text: God is with the castaway woman. Again, God is with the castaway woman. Let us pray:

Most gracious God, we thank You for Your presence, we thank You for Your word. I ask that You would speak to us this morning, this evening; Lord, that You would anoint our ears to hear and my lips to speak Your word. It’s in Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

Walter Lippman, in his classic work, “Public Opinion,” published in 1921, wrote the famous header, “The World Outside and the Pictures in Our Heads.” In this work, he went on to coin a term that most of us, we’re probably familiar with, which is the term “stereotype.” Well, we all come to the text with a “picture in our heads.” I know I did. I was very surprised this week when in prayer, and reading the text, that there are so many parts of the story I had missed! Nuances I didn’t remember, words I hadn’t caught. And that’s my prayer for all of us today. That God would take things old and new from this story, and share them with us, God’s treasures.

Biblical Foundation

So here in this particular pericope, we find a young Ishmael “playing” or “laughing” w/Isaac, whose very name means laughter. The Hebrew word here for playing is tsä·khak' (sa-hack), playing/laughing or possibly mocking. This text had started so warmly: right before this story is the birth of Isaac; Isaac is here laughing. Sarah also is happy. “Who would have ever thought that a baby would nurse from Sarah.” Then the passage portrays a celebration. The child has just been weaned, and there’s going to be a great feast!

This warm story doesn’t last long; when Sarah sees Ishmael laughing with her son, something about it just doesn’t sit right with her. She goes to Abraham and demands, “Cast out this slave woman, with her son, for he won’t inherit with my son.”