Faith in Action: Hagar

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When last we left our intrepid couple, Abram and Sarai, they were this perfect picture of Faith in Action. They were going to a place where God would show them! They were taking their family into a new adventure. Everything was great. But from there through most of the story, everything was not great:

• Abraham and Sarah and their nephew Lot separate, and Lot settles in this great place called Sodom…I’m sure that will go well.

• Not once, but twice, Abraham passes his wife off as his sister, believing that neighboring kings will kill him and take his wife if he doesn’t lie.

• God keeps assuring both Abraham and Sarah that they will bear a child and they generally don’t believe a word of it…because, to be fair, it has been a long time since that promise, and they are both well past the age of conceiving a child.

• Which brings us to another somewhat dystopian part of the story: their relationship with a woman named Hagar.

Hagar was from Egypt, and was a slave in the household of Abraham and Sarah. It is possible that she was acquired explicitly in order to bear a child for Abraham, under the assumption that Sarah was simply not going to be able to have children. From the beginning, she was not treated well in this family. In fact, even her name demonstrates this. “Hagar” is not an Egyptian name, but a Hebrew word meaning “foreign thing,” and can be a derogatory slur for a foreigner or outsider. She is an outsider by her nationality, her class, and her sex: three times disempowered. Back in Chapter 16, when she first became pregnant, Sarah treated her poorly enough for her to run away into the desert, where she had to be convinced by God to return to the family and endure her abuse.

Finally, by the time we arrive at chapter 21, Hagar has delivered a son and he is called Ishmael. And Sarah’s prayers have been answered and she has delivered a baby. Isaac! The child of promise has arrived! There is a great celebration when the infant Isaac is weaned from his mother, and the entire household celebrates. In a quiet moment after the celebration, older Ishmael was playing with his half-brother, Isaac. And his mother Sarah sees it, and a switch flips. She feels threatened by the familiarity that Ishmael has with his half-brother. She is overwhelmed by envy and fear that Ishmael may steal the inheritance due to her son Isaac. And she is unsure what to do with these feelings.

I think that there is something near-universal about this experience. Even today, in the United States, we see something similar with proponents of what is sometimes called the “Great Replacement Theory.” The idea is that Europeans are the rightfully empowered in the US, and that those of other races or nationalities are coming to take away that power. Take away our jobs. Take away our political power. Take away our money. White Europeans own the rightful inheritance of the US, and we cannot let “those people” replace us. It has led to some pretty ugly white nationalist rhetoric, and political violence, and fear-mongering by political talking heads. “They” are out to get us…whether they are Latinos, or black Americans, or LGBTQ folks, or any and all immigrants.

And it is Sarah all over again. At some point, you can understand Sarah’s fear, can’t you? She has been so desperate to have this child, and secure this promise, and has been at the heart of what must have felt like year after year after year of failure. She got to the point that she could not even believe God’s promise that she was valuable and that she would be a mother. And now, once she finally is able to give birth and raise the child, her fear overwhelms her: what if another child steals what she desires for her son? What if there is not enough blessing to go around? Sarah had forgotten the call of God from the beginning: “you are blessed so that you might be a blessing to others.” She had forgotten the call of faith in action. Her fear paralyzed her, so she went to Abraham and told her husband, “You tell that Egyptian slave that she and her boy are not welcome here anymore.” Words we hear echoed in social media posts, and cable news venom, and face-to-face insults and assaults.

So Abraham becomes complicit, as well, and sends Hagar and her son—his son—out into the wilderness again. The voice of fear wins the day. And Hagar and Ishmael are sent out, early in the morning, a mother abused and rejected and confused why after she did everything that was demanded of her, she is now condemned to die. And after hushing her hungry and thirsty child, and watching the light begin to fade from his eyes, places him beneath a bush, so that she will not have to see him take his last breath, and sobs in the silence.

It feels like there are not a lot of good guys in this story. Sarah the fearful and violent. Abraham the complicit and cowardly. Even Hagar does not have the strength to watch her child die. Some might even ask “where is God when violence wins the day? Where is God when fear wins the day? Where is God when bigotry wins the day? When injustice and racism and nationalism and sexism and authoritarianism and fascism seem to win at every turn? Where are you, God? Why do you turn your face on those turned out into the cold?”

And just about then, God shows up.

17 And God heard the voice of the boy, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, “What troubles you, Hagar? Do not be afraid, for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. 18 Come, lift up the boy and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make a great nation of him.” 19 Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. She went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink. 20 God was with the boy, and he grew up; he lived in the wilderness and became an expert with the bow. 21 He lived in the wilderness of Paran, and his mother got a wife for him from the land of Egypt.

We didn’t dig deeply into the passage in Chapter 16, but the two are parallel. In both cases, Hagar is unwelcome in her own household. In both cases, she escapes to the wilderness in her desperation. And in both cases, God shows up when she needs it most. In Chapter 16, Hagar actually names God: “the God who sees.” When no one else would see her, God showed up in her vulnerability and saw her for who she was.

But in both stories, God is the one who sees. But in this second story, now the seeing God helps Hagar to see. The well that she could not see in her trauma and helplessness, God now shows her, and she and her son are nourished. The purpose that she could not see for her son, she now sees him as one who will be a hunter, a bowman, a wilderness survivor. Her identity was that of a woman worthless and rejected, but she now sees herself as the mother of multitude. Because God saw her, now she sees.

Now, it is important to notice here that God does not fix everything. There is no reconciliation between Abraham and Ishmael…between Sarah and Hagar. There is no restoration of this slave who was used and abused and rejected. There is no reversal of the injustice that was created and caused here. God does not fix everything, but God sides with the vulnerable. God sits in the wilderness with the one who is rejected and left in the dust. We might want God to reverse the structures that cause injustice, and upend the thrones of those who destroy the vulnerable, and end the injustice and violence and fear-mongering of the childish bullies in our world today. And perhaps the lesson that we hear most clearly from Hagar is that God does not always fix everything. But God always sees.

And God always chooses to see and side with the vulnerable. Scholar Phyllis Trible says that Hagar has for generations been the symbol of the one who feels unseen:

…as a symbol of the oppressed, Hagar becomes many things to many people. Most especially, all sorts of rejected women find their stories in her. She is the faithful maid exploited, the black woman used by the male and abused by the female of the ruling class, the surrogate mother, the resident alien without legal recourse, the other woman, the runaway youth, the religious fleeing from affliction, the pregnant young woman alone, the expelled wife, the divorced mother with child, the shopping bag lady carrying bread and water, the homeless woman, the indigent relying upon handouts from the power structures, the welfare mother, and the self-effacing female whose identity shrinks in service to others.

Today, let me suggest that  this is what Faith in Action looks like. Action isn’t always fixing everything. Sometimes, the acting seems pretty inactive. But to stand beside those that the world marginalizes, and deports, and destroys…that is an active faith. When we see those that the world refuses to see, we are rejecting the fearful violence of Sarah and the complicity of Abraham. When we, like God, hear the cries of the children left alone, then we are on the side of El-roi…the God who sees.

I wonder who you identify with in the story today.

• Perhaps you feel largely unseen, like Hagar and Ishmael. If so, I pray that you know that there is a God who sees and loves and values you, and you choose the way of faith, even when your back is against the wall.

• Perhaps you feel like Sarah, afraid of the world around you, or like Abraham, complicit in that fearful violence, and recognizing how hard you are pushing to keep those people out of  your life—the woke libs, the MAGA Trumpers, the (fill in the blank). If so, I pray that you know that there is enough blessing to go around, and all of God’s children are welcome in the kingdom.

• Perhaps you feel like you are ready to identify with the God who sees…

Ray Schellenger is one of your American Baptist missionaries. But unlike many of your missionaries who spends their whole time in one place, or at least one country, Ray is tasked with caring for the needs of South and Central American immigrants and refugees, up and down the 1,000 mile route from South America to the US border. His stories are heartbreaking.

• There is Louise, waiting at the infamous Darian Gap, a jungle between Colombia and Panama. She and her sister Camile were separated in the jungle, and Ray waited with Louise, both knowing that she was probably not coming. God sees Louise, and Ray is there.

• There is Cecelia, who was torn from her bed by violent gang members in her home. After they assaulted her, and killed her husband, she grabbed her three young children and fled, only to face gridlock and dehumanizing treatment by US officials. God sees Cecelia, and Ray is there.

• There are Mexican Baptists who go into their sanctuaries and push all of their pews to the sides, so that refugees can roll out blankets and sleep as they wait. These are not drug cartel members, but families. Children with their mothers. Elderly. Desperate farmers who were forced by their homes by violence or drought. God sees them all.