Thomas J Parlette
“The Hard Way”
Gen. 21: 8-21, Jer. 20: 7-13
6/21/26
Maybe I’m alone in this sentiment – but I actually kinda enjoy commercials. Commercials can be a real art form, 20 – 30 seconds spots that lay out a premise, tell a quick story and deliver a punchline, all organized around a certain product. There’s nothing quite like a well-constructed, well-executed commercial – they can be a real pleasure to watch. That’s why we make such a big deal about the Super Bowl commercials each year.
But I must admit, there is one series of commercials that I just can’t watch – the one’s that encourage us to support the ASPCA, the organization that rescues abused and mistreated animals. It’s not that I don’t support their work – I do. I appreciate those people who rescue dogs and cats and horses from deplorable living conditions, sometimes starving to death in the cold. But I just can’t watch the commercials. Every time they come on, Juliet and lunge for the remote to pause it, or change channels as quickly as we can. We both love dogs – but we can’t watch the suffering animals on screen.
I feel the same way about this Genesis passage we have before us today. It’s a tough one to hear, and even tougher if you let your mind picture the action described. Abraham sends his mistress Hagar away with their illegitimate son Ishmael, because it appears Sarah has become jealous now that she has a child of her own to care for. God speaks to Abraham and assures him that he will make a great nation of Ishmael as well. He gives them a bit of food and water and sends them on their way.
Together they wander in the desert until the water gives out. Hagar knows her son will not last long in the desert heat. So she casts him under a bush, settles herself a long ways off, and waits for him to die. It’s a heart-breaking story – one that’s almost impossible to watch.
But God intervenes. God assures Hagar that her son is destined for great things. He will grow up the hard way – but a great nation will come from him because he too is Abraham’s son – and that was my promise.
Our passage from Jeremiah isn’t much better. It’s almost as if we are walking past Jeremiah’s bedroom at night and we over hear his heartfelt prayer to God. The life of a prophet was hard. Jeremiah notes that God has overpowered him with the need to speak – but he has become a laughingstock, “everyone mocks me”, he says. “Terror is all around me and they say denounce him, denounce him. All my close friends are watching for me to stumble.”
But then, after what I imagine is a long pause, Jeremiah takes a deep breath, and comes to his senses. “But the Lord is with me like a dread warrior; therefore, my persecutors will not prevail… Sing to the Lord; praise the Lord, for he has delivered the life of the needy from the hands of evildoers.”
Both of these stories are about living the hard way. Hagar and Ishmael live the hard way as outcasts. Jeremiah lives the hard way as a prophet wo nobody wants to listen to. Yet God is still there, even in the midst of their difficulties, still working to keep the Divine promises.
These are hard stories to hear, especially the Genesis story. But the good news is that God is still present in these stories, God hears the cries of the people who are living the hard way. Almost everyone knows that Isaac – Abraham and Sarah’s legitimate son – his name means “laughter,” signifying the joy that his birth brings. But Hagar’s son by Abraham, although illegitimate, also has a meaningful name. Ishmael means “God Hears” – which God actually says in the passage – “Do not be afraid, Hagar, for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is.”
That’s the insight that I think we can take from this disturbing story. Don’t change the channel until you hear that – God hears the voice of the outcast, where they are.” That means that whatever you are going through, whatever difficult circumstance you are faced with, God hears you. God hears you where you are. And God will act. For Hagar and Ishmael, God provided life-giving water in the desert. For Jeremiah, God gave him the strength he needed to keep speaking truth to power, as a prophet of the Lord. For all those faced with living life the hard way, God hears your cries – and God will act.
For some, God’s actions come in a kind of rebirth experience. Sometimes you have to die to one way of living in order to move into the new life God promises.
For instance, the French philosopher, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, when he was a young man, he was knocked unconscious by a dog. When he came to, Rousseau found himself free of all worldly concerns. He felt able, for the first time, to see the big picture. Later in life, he observed how ironic it was that he never truly came to his senses until after he’d been knocked senseless.
Or, at the age of 36, Count Leo Tolstoy was thrown from his horse while hunting. When he came around, a thought entered his mind that he couldn’t get rid of. “I am a writer,” he told himself. Soon after, Tolstoy began writing, and eventually he wrote Anna Karenina and War and Peace.
Harriet Tubman’s name is famous in American history. Once a slave on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, she escaped to the North, but returned again and again to lead other slaves to freedom. Harriet’s life as a liberator began one day in her teenage years, when she stepped between her master and another slave being savagely beaten. Harriet was struck in the head. She fell to the ground, her skull fractured. She was in a coma for weeks, but finally recovered. She would suffer epileptic fits for the rest of her life because of that injury.
Yet that injury was also Tubman’s liberation. “The blow that cracked Tubman’s skull,” a biographer wrote, “struck off her psychic chains. She had already died once; she had nothing to lose.” (1)
So it was for the prophet Jeremiah – hated, scorned and ridiculed for bringing God’s word to the people.
So it was for Hagar and Ishmael – cast out to wander in the desert.
They had nothing else to lose. And that’s just the right time for God to step in and act. When we are at the end of our rope – God hears, and God acts. As the old saying goes – “When God closes a door, God opens a window.”
So it was for a young man whom you all know. In 1920, this young man felt like he was on top of the world. He had landed his dream job as a cartoonist for The Kansas City Star. But then one day the editor called him into his office and fired him. The reason: he “lacked imagination.”
This young man had recently become fascinated by a new artistic form – animated films. He set up a little company in Kansas City that he christened Laugh-O-Gram Studios. Three years later, the company failed, and he declared bankruptcy.
He moved to California with what little money he had left. He started out in animation work again. Movie theaters were clamoring for short cartoons they could show before the main feature. So he developed a cartoon character, “Oswald the Lucky Rabbit”, that became an overnight success. This seemed like his big break. But then his distributor – in a shrewd legal maneuver – essentially stole the copyright for the Oswald character. Not only that, the distributor poached most of the animators who had been working on the project.
So this man, no longer so young, started over yet again. He developed a new cartoon character he called “Mickey Mouse.” (2)
The rest is history. Walt Disney would never have become the world’s most famous animator if he hadn’t learned by growing up the hard way that when one door closes, God opens a window. Sometimes you have to die to one life in order to experience the new life that God has in store.
Both these stories are hard to hear – especially the story about Hagar and Ishmael cast out into the desert to die. It’s tempting to change the channel and skip these stories.
But even though they are difficult, there is value in them. Remember what Ishmael’s name means – “God hears.” God heard their cries. And God stepped in to take action.
Even though we are sometimes called to live life the hard way, God never abandons us. God is always there in our time of need. Sometimes we have to die to the life we know in order to move into the new life that God has in mind for us.
And for that, May God be praised. Amen.
1. Homileticsonline, retrieved 6/4/26.
2. Ibid…
