Sermon 21 June

Saint Margaret’s Anglican Church Budapest, Hungary Genesis 21:8-21; Psalm 69; Romans 6:1-11; Matthew 10:24-39 His mother got a wife for him from the land of Egypt. Yesterday, June 20th, was not only the last full day of the spring season, but also World Refugee Day, as designated years ago by the United Nations and other international bodies; a day in other words to honour those who, for whatever reason, have been forced to flee their homes and homeland, sometimes because of the effects of natural phenomena such as storms and earthquakes, to be sure, but also all too often because of violence, war, injustice, and poverty at home. Some would say that the world of today is experiencing the worst refugee crisis, the worst displacement of people across the globe, since World War Two. And that is saying something. This year 2026 by chance also marks the seventy-fifth anniversary of the signing of the so-called Convention on the Status of Refugees, the first international agreement in history which has sought to recognise and safeguard the rights and welfare of those displaced by persecution and violence in their homelands. And the world has come to know in the intervening years the magnitude of the problem, with well over one hundred million people, refugees, nowadays in all parts of the globe, managing in all sorts of conditions, even here in Central Europe, as we know all too well. Sociologists and psychologists have scrambled to research and understand the problems faced by refugees and migrants, if not exactly solve them. They speak for instance of the sense of loss which refugees often experience, the sense that their world and all they know, sometimes even including their very language, their thoughts and words, has been left behind or stolen from them. For some, this has led to a feeling of alienation and culture shock. For others, it has even led to despair and deep depression; and as in the case of the great exiled twentieth-century Hungarian writer and novelist, Sándor Márai, even suicide. Some sociologists call this whole phenomenon unhomeliness, about as apt a one-word description as I can think of. Unhomeliness. Un-homed. Without home and all it means; and, in the eyes of those among whom they now find themselves residing, strange, weird, alien, or in that most prosaic of English words, homely. The plight of refugees everywhere is unhomeliness indeed, unhomeliness personified. Thank God so many migrants and refugees nevertheless have the pluck and perseverance to pick up the pieces of their broken lives and move on, as difficult as it may be. The Bible itself is full of refugees of various sorts. Eve and Adam are famously the first in Scripture to have their residency permits and visas revoked as they are summarily deported from the Kingdom of Paradise. We, their descendants, have ever since been trying to get back in, to get our passports back, so far without a great deal of success. But Adam and Eve were most certainly not the last in Scripture to experience exile and its hardships. And Hagar, at the centre of today’s reading from Genesis, is, I think, the only person, certainly the only woman, in Scripture to be banished, twice no less, in such a seemingly uncaring and callous fashion. She remains forever a figure of particular pathos. An Egyptian slave woman serving Abraham and his wife Sarai, Hagar is forced into relations with Abraham and to bear him a son. How demeaning could that be…? Sarai, apparently from a sense of resentment or spite, demands that Hagar and her son be cast away from the only home they apparently have ever known; and Abraham complies with her wish, seemingly encouraged even by God. Still, the thought that any father should send mother and son packing into the unforgiving wilderness must surely shake us to the core. Hagar and her son wander as refugees without refuge in the wasteland, Hagar at the point of despair. The Angel of God, the first time in Scripture a messenger of the Almighty is ever so named, intervenes in the story of Hagar and her expulsion and saves the day; what the Greeks might have called a deus ex-machina. “Do not be afraid,” says the angel, “for, God has heard the voice of the boy.” “Do not be afraid,” arguably the most common admonishment in all of Scripture. We also find it by the way in our passage today from the Gospel of Matthew. In any case, well water is suddenly provided; and the boy, who curiously remains unnamed in this account, is to become, in the words of the Angel, the progenitor of a great nation, which is also unnamed. Still, this is more than a happy ending, more than biblical melodrama. The story of Hagar and her son is replete with emotion and drama; making the two of them almost prototypes or progenitors of the exiles and refugees of our own day, so many of whom are, as we know, women and small children. It is, it seems to me, also a potent reminder of the power of hope; and a reminder of God’s unwavering love for his people, all his people, no matter the circumstances of their birth, their origin, their sex or sexuality, their skin colour, language, legal status, or religion. A lesson, needless to say, which the world still needs to learn; as refugees, not unlike Hagar and her son, desperate for peace and security, seek sanctuary and asylum where it can be found. The story of Hagar and her expulsion must surely haunt us. It raises profound questions of just who is who; of who belongs and who does not; of who is in and who is out, who is us; and who is the other. And where is God in all this. Questions which remain as pressing today as they were in the time of Hagar and her hapless son. Speaking of whom, “His mother,” we are told, “got a wife for him from the land of Egypt.” A curious way to end the narrative, I am tempted to think. But then, life must go on. And Hagar is nothing if not resourceful, in spite of her unhomeliness. And I suppose as far as Hagar would have been concerned, the wife could as easily have come from Britain or Hungary as from her homeland Egypt; for the message is surely that in the eyes of God we are all one people, all one nation, citizens of one homeland, that paradise lost. Exile and hardship may be part of the human condition, but thankfully so are hope and regeneration. Just ask Hagar. Or the boy. Or his Egyptian wife. Amen. The Revd Canon Dr Frank Hegedűs