Guest Preacher Rev. Shalom Agtarap - July 18th, 2021

A Sermon for Foundry United Methodist Church by Rev. Shalom Agtarap

July 18th, 2021

Genesis 21:14

Focus Statement: When systems are not made for us, god gives us blessing, shows us  compassion, revives us with life-giving water — to go our own way! 

Opening Prayer —  

I am the daughter of Filipino immigrants, hard-working, intelligent, spirit-filled people  who migrated to California. While I am a cradle United Methodist, my sisters and I were  often the only kids of color in a sea of white churches that my father was appointed to.  In ministry, I am a brown woman, ordained in an institution that never sought to ordain  women, much more Southeast Asian women. And my job is to reflect on scripture  compiled without a Hagar in mind. It’s as though I am a plant, whose roots are watered  in another garden. They had to be! If I were to be of any help to the Filipino immigrant  local church that sent me to seminary, I would have to divest from white ways of  knowing, storytelling and preaching. If I were to honor the elders who stuffed $20 bills in  my pocket as they pulled me in for a hug, blessing me in prayer and pocket money, I  would have to learn to bring the gospel to life in ways that honored indigenous ways of  being. The quickest way to dishonor them, would be to hide the parts of myself they  knew and loved and celebrated, in the pursuit of bringing the gospel fully alive. 

A garden opened up in my time at Wesley Seminary, just up the road from Foundry, I  soaked up the water that flowed from womanist, mujerista and other liberation  theologies. But I didn’t know how to hold the tension of being a second-gen Filipino  woman learning theology in a predominantly black and white context.  God-talk facilitated and imagined by people who have lived experience of  marginalization and resilience makes all the difference to our collective liberation but I  still needed to fill in the gaps. I found myself at crossroads many times. Socialized as an  Asian American, I’m taught to not rock the boat and fit in wherever I can. To always  excel, but to do so with great humility. What are you? Where are you from? Where are  you really from? Are questions I’ve been asked all my life and it has only accelerated  since I began serving as a pastor in predominantly white denomination. Instead of  seeing my identities as a curse, however, the gifts of womanist theologies remind me I  come from a place that I can be curious about. That I come from a people. That I come  from a culture. None of these can be erased and all of them are integral to how I  experience the world, to how I understand God at work. 

Womanist theology, I have learned, is a gift of intersections. And a central character who  helps inform this theology is the witness of Hagar in Genesis. 

As Delores Williams wrote in Sisters in the Wilderness, a seminal work in womanist  theology, “there are striking similarities between Hagar’s story and the story of African  American women. Hagar’s heritage was African, from Egypt, scripture says. Hagar was 

enslaved. Black American women had emerged from a slaved heritage and still lived in  its long shadow. Hagar was brutalized by her slave owner the woman named Sarah.  The narratives of enslaved women in the United States and even narratives of modern  day workers tell of brutal or cruel treatment from the wives of slave owners and from  contemporary white female employers.”1 

Hagar continues to speak to us today. Dr. Wil Gafney comments Hagar’s story has a  little something for everyone from enslavement on this continent and elsewhere — to all  the resistance and revolutionary spirit that has ever risen up against oppressive forces.  “Hagar is the mother of Harriet Tubman and the women who freed themselves..I see  God’s return of Hagar to her servitude as the tendency of some religious communities to  side with the abuser at the expense of abused women and their children. Ultimately  Hagar escapes her slaveholders and abusers and receives her inheritance from God,  and God fulfills all of God’s promises to her.” 

To the white folks at church today, who is Hagar for you? Who is Hagar for me? Though  I’ve been invited into Black church communities, though I am deeply accompanied by  African American friends, I cannot appropriate these historical and cultural stories as my  own. It is my responsibility, and all those who love and celebrate black women, to  extend Hagar’s story beyond the black and white paradigm that is so often the  framework for race and class in the United States. 

For me, to invoke the name of Hagar is to invoke the woman who exists at  intersections. And beyond those who identify as women; Hagar to me, is the patron  saint of those who dwell in multiple layers of identity. She receives the prayers of those  who are enslaved and yet hold great power. People who are frontline workers that in  this pandemic have quickly become disposable. Sex workers who are celebrated during  Pride events and yet are killed at high rates because of the color of their skin, and for  how they break gender norms, all in one body. 

What I know, as a clergywoman of color in a mainline denomination is what those who  have come before me have long experienced: that we are set within what bell hooks  calls interlocking systems of domination: white supremacy, capitalism, and patriarchy.  Our church is set within these interlocking systems, our schools, our homes, and even  our relationships.  

While historical record clearly states the 1956 General Conference voted to grant  women full rights just as any pastor in good standing, it was only in the last few years  

1 Delores Williams, Sisters in the Wilderness, pg 3

we’ve celebrated more black clergywomen’s election as bishops and our first openly  queer bishop in the west.  

We must read history clearly: that as we celebrated 65 years of full ordination rights to  women, that many women — immigrant women, women of color, and transgender  women — still lack access to all levels of leadership in our church. Beloveds, we have  so much further to go! 

Which brings us back to Sister Hagar. She’s got a ways to go before she gets free...she  is Othered because of her ethnic background. She is treated like property when Sarah  seizes her for her productivity to produce an heir. She is a problem to be solved, not a  human being with dignity. Yes, we’re talking about Hagar but can we just talk about  Sarah for a minute? She’s got some issues! What prevents a sisterhood from forming,  what blocks solidarity from building is that Sarah is consumed by the patriarchy and  believes she is entitled to more access and privilege than any other woman in that  camp. 

The event that ultimately expels Hagar from the community, leaving her and her child  vulnerable, is that Sarah heard something. She heard kids at play. In Chapter 21:9 The  Common English says she heard laughter. 

This woman who holds power, heard joy, mirth, lightheartedness and it triggered in her  frustration, resentment, anger.  

We need not stretch our imaginations very far to come up with modern day examples of  when women in power were threatened by others enjoying life. Whether it’s Amy  Cooper calling out a birdwatcher in Central Park, or BBQ Becky at the local picnic or  countless white women who called the police on black people over trivial or nonexistent  offenses. We have a problem that predates our current struggle with white supremacy—  I submit to you that when Sarah heard laughter, she heard life! And the life of Ishmael,  was a perceived threat to the life of her son, Isaac — another vestige of patriarchy and  who is the rightful heir. Sarah is reminded, with each breath that Ishmael draws, that her  own security is at risk and she must protect it at all costs. Why else do so many feel the  need to police joy? 

To white women, and those who experience the benefits of whiteness, who feel threatened, who  feel like their security, or reputation, or way of life is at risk because of the full-throated, belly filling laughter of others — may I offer a word. The God who sees Hagar also sees you. God sees  your effort. God sees the ways you’ve been shut down and left behind. God has heard your silent  cries. And God will not leave you barren — without joy, without hope. 

To beloved ones who exist at intersections, the helpless and harassed who are, in audre  Lorde’s words “triple oppression” , the hear the good news: just as Sarah and Abraham  were promised provision, so too are Hagar and Ishmael. “Don’t be afraid. God has  heard the boy’s cries over there. Get up, pick up the boy, and take him by the hand  because I will make of him a great nation.”  

Would Hagar have lived in the 20th century, I’m certain she would have picked up some  audre lorde.  

"A Litany for Survival": audre lorde 

when we speak we are afraid  

our words will not be heard  

or welcomed  

but when we are silent  

we are still afraid.  

So it is better to speak  

remembering  

we were never meant to survive. 

I invoke the life and witness of audre lorde in sharing her poem, a litany for survival, as  we think about the witness of Hagar. Audre lorde was speaking to other black lesbians  like herself but the message resonates through the lens of Hagar. There were forces in  

life that never meant for Hagar and Ishmael’s survival and yet, Hagar has a relationship  with the divine. She is the only one to name God in all of scripture. In Chapter 16, Hagar  says to the Holy One “You are El Ro’i, the God who sees.” This relationship allows  Hagar to be seen and heard in return. In the midst of exhaustion and desperation,  having been kicked out, sent away, expelled, deported, Hagar cries out to God and  weeps. The water spent in salty tears returns to sustain her. 

After an encounter with the Divine, water is given to Hagar and Ishmael. I do not believe  the messenger of God intended for them to build up the energy to make it back to  Abraham and Sarah’s camp! Life giving water is given so they continue moving in  parched places. There is someone listening today who’s been saved from, given  distance, broken out of, walked away from a place where love no longer lives. The best  way to honor that gift of water is to not return to the place of death. To break free of the  status quo and the ways that white supremacy and capitalism tell us to make do with  the scraps we’re given. The good news is that when we follow a different path, away  from hierarchies that demean, toward round tables where more varieties of God’s  creation can gather — God will go with us and sustain our very breath.

The beauty of reading this story in modern times is that we know the rest of the story!  We know God fulfills ALL of God’s promises to Hagar, Ishmael and all of his  descendants.  

If I may offer a word of encouragement to you today, in the off chance, you are  discerning next steps, whether it’s a job, ending a relationship, the grueling task of  healing from trauma, or beginning or even harder, continuing the work of anti-racism, —  the God who sees, is present to us now in the form of Christ who offers life-sustaining  water. And this liberating presence will accompany you in parched places — Christ will  not do the work for you, but with the help of the Holy Spirit, will give you compassion  and confidence as you make your own way.  

Pray: You are the God who sees…

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