Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
Sunday August 6, 2023
Scripture Reading: Genesis 16:1-16
(Our scripture reader at the first service said, before reading, that if this reading was a TV show it would probably have to come with a "Mature Audiences" rating.)
So this week, in our exploration of the stories of women in the bible, we have
Hagar. We don’t hear her story very
often. When we talk about our ancient
ancestors in faith in Genesis, we talk about Abraham and Sarah, we talk about
Isaac and Rebekah, we talk about Jacob and Leah and Rachel, we talk about
Joseph and his brothers, after whom the 12 tribes of Israel are descended.
But we have more ancestors in faith who
aren’t named in this genealogy; and sometimes we don’t name them and don’t talk
about them because their stories make us feel uncomfortable. Joseph and his brothers weren’t all the
children of Jacob’s wives, Leah and Rachel – a third of them were born to Leah
and Rachel’s slaves, Bilhah and Zilpah, who were given to Jacob for the purpose
of bearing children. They also had a
sister, Dinah, whose story isn’t told very often… probably because it is a
story that involves deception and rape and the sons of Jacob don’t come across
in a very positive light. We did read
the story of Tamar last year during Advent – she was Judah’s daughter-in-law,
the granddaughter-in-law of Jacob; and many people were shocked at her story
that involved seducing her father-in-law when he didn’t fulfill his obligations
towards her when her husband died.
And today we have another story that is
often left out of the genealogy of Genesis – the story of Hagar. This is another story that has elements that
make me uncomfortable… both in how the humans act in the story, and also in how
God is shown to act.
Hagar’s story in the bible begins with
Abraham and Sarah, as she was Sarah’s slave – we don’t know anything about her
life before this, beyond the fact that they acquired her in Egypt. We don’t
know who Hagar’s parents were, where she was born (in Egypt or elsewhere),
whether she was born into slavery or born free and sold into slavery. We don’t even know what her name was, since
Hagar literally means “The Foreigner.”
But we meet her as the slave of Sarah, who was the wife of Abraham.
Now Sarah and Abraham – we do know a
good bit about their backstory, and part of their story was a promise from God
– a ridiculous promise that they would have descendants more numerous than the
stars in the night sky; and what makes this promise ridiculous is that they had
had no children and were past the age when children should have been
possible. How can we have descendants
more numerous than the stars in the night sky when we don’t have a single
child?
This is where our story today
begins. The end of Chapter 16 tells us
that Abraham was 86 years old, and from elsewhere we know that Sarah is 10
years younger than he is. And
76-year-old Sarah doesn’t trust God’s promise for her… possibly for good
reason… and so she gives her slave Hagar to her husband for the purpose of
giving him children.
This is a pattern that has been
repeated again and again in places that practice slavery. Best-known would probably be in the American
south where enslaved women with no autonomy over their bodies or their lives
were raped by their owners, and often children resulted. But this story isn’t unique to that time and
that place.
In the story we are reading today,
Sarah and Abraham have control over Hagar’s life and over Hagar’s body. Sarah gives her to Abraham, Abraham rapes
her, and Hagar becomes pregnant. The
only sliver of power that Hagar might have is the power of her fertility, and
even this tiny amount of power makes Sarah afraid of her. Hagar has done what Sarah has been unable to
do, and Sarah is afraid that she might lose her position in the house. And so Sarah “treats her harshly” – the same
word is used here as will be used later when the Ancient Israelites are slaves
in Egypt and the Egyptians treat them harshly.
Sarah abuses Hagar until Hagar runs away into the desert.
This is the story that we heard this
morning. Hagar, newly pregnant, having
run away from an abusive situation, encounters a messenger from God; and this
messenger from God tells her to go back to Sarah and Abraham’s tents for she is
going to have a son, and she is going to be the mother of a great nation.
This is the problem I have with God in
this story – God is telling Hagar to go back to an abusive situation, to submit
to Sarah and put up with her harsh treatment.
I find myself angry with a God who would tell a woman (or
any vulnerable person) to do this.
Hagar’s story doesn’t end here – we
have to flip ahead to Chapter 21 to find out what happens next. Fourteen years later, when Abraham was 100
and Sarah was 90, Sarah gives birth to Isaac, whose name means “laughter.” Sarah said, “God has given me laughter –
everyone who hears about it will laugh with me!” But one day she sees Ishmael,
the son of Hagar, laughing, and she becomes jealous. She doesn’t want her son, her beloved Isaac,
playing second fiddle to the son of her slave who is technically Abraham’s
first-born son. Not only does she see
Ishmael taking over her son’s inheritance, but now she sees Ishmael taking over
her son’s identity, the identity of laughter.
And she tells her husband Abraham to get rid of Hagar and Ishmael.
Abraham sends Hagar and her son out
into the desert with a meager portion of bread and a flask of water. These resources are quickly exhausted, and
she leaves her son under a shrub and goes a distance away from him so that she
doesn’t need to witness her son dying of thirst. She sits there, in the desert, and cries out
her grief.
But for a second time, God sees her and
sends a messenger to her, this time not to send her back to the abuse of Sarah
and Abraham, but instead to show her a nearby well. Hagar and Ishmael live, Ishmael grows up,
Hagar finds him a wife in Egypt, and she does become the mother of a great
nation, as Ishmael is the ancestor of Arabian people and the Islamic faith.
Hagar’s is a troubling story,
notwithstanding the happy ending. It is
a story of slavery and abuse and rape and grief. It is the story of a God who sees her, and
who keeps her alive, but it is also the story of a God who sends her back to an
abusive situation.
At our Wednesday morning bible study
(on summer break at the moment!), we are reading through the Old Testament, in
part so that we have an opportunity to wrestle with stories like this one – to
wrestle with stories that challenge our faith, and our trust in the bible.
One of the questions that I like to ask
the group when we come across a story like this one is: If you had to preach about this story, what
would you say? If you had to stand here
where I’m standing, and you had no choice about what the bible reading was –
what is the good news that you would pull out of the story.
Despite the eventual happy ending,
Hagar’s story is a very difficult story. There are challenges on so many layers in this
story. And one of the challenges with
preaching about it is that I don’t want to gloss over all of the horrors in
this story – I wouldn’t be authentic if I stood here and preached about her
happily-ever-after, ignoring everything that came before. I can’t stand here and pretend that these
horrors don’t exist. Author and theologian Phyllis Trible
names stories like this, “Texts of Terror.”
But in the midst of the terror, I do
see a glimmer of good news. I see the
good news here in God’s presence with Hagar.
Even in the midst of her lowest points, God was with her. When she ran away into the desert to flee the
abuse she was experiencing, God was with her.
When Abraham and Sarah banished her from their household back into the
desert after the birth of Isaac, God was with her. Hagar names God “El-roi,” “God-who-Sees.” God saw Hagar in her distress, and God was
present with her.
I’m going to have to put that question
about why God sent Hagar back into an abusive situation on my list of questions
to ask God when I have a chance to do so face-to-face; but for now, what I will
take away from this story is the reassurance of God’s presence. When I am in
the pit of grief, when I am anxious about the future, when I face any sort of
struggles, I know that the God-who-Sees, that the God who saw Hagar sees me
too, and that God is with me just as God was with Hagar in the desert.
And God sees you too; and God is with
you too.
Always.
And forever.
Amen.
Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar
Unknown Artist
Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons
Thank you, Kate.
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