Today’s reading squares us up to an important question: What do you do with a Bible story that lends divine sanction to domestic abuse? After all, here “the Lord’s messenger” tells Hagar to go home, shut up, and take it. Are you kidding me?
To make matters worse, the backstory behind the abuse is troubling on many levels. First, there’s the mildly amusing “Plan B” Sarai proposes to help get God out of a bind. God has promised Abram progeny; Sarai’s infertile; so she sets up a tryst between her husband and her slave. Now that sounds like a good idea, don’t you think?
But rather than solving a problem, the ensuing pregnancy complicates things. Imagine that. Sarai now deems her servant “disrespectful,” but we might infer that Sarai herself is, um, just a bit touchy as she watches the swelling belly of her now-competitor. So first she blames Abram—a rather passive figure in this intrigue—and then she shows Hagar who’s boss.
Things go from bad to worse for this reader, though, when God gets involved and, rather than taking the side of the abused, seems to take the side of the abuser. What are we to do with such a “scriptural” story? Besides setting it aside as a vestige of tribalism (a completely legitimate option, in my view), I find a couple of faint traces of hope here.
First, God’s command to Hagar to return home is in her reality a vote for her life and the life of her child. Out in the desert, lacking resources or support, she would surely have died. But God has other plans. Second, careful readers of Genesis might step back to appreciate this reminder that Isaac, father of Israel, was not Abram’s firstborn son. It was Ishmael, symbolic father of the “other” whom Abram first cradled. Hmmm.
- When have you proposed a family “solution” that ends up complicating matters? Where did you find God in the solution or the problem?
- When have you been more like Sarai (the powerful, resentful one)? When have you been more like Hagar (the pawn who becomes prey)?
- What other details did you notice in today’s reading?
Prayer: Our families are sometimes full of power plays, dear Lord. Show us shreds of hope when things get messy. Keep our eyes and hearts open to the Hagars and Ishmaels around us. Amen.
Breath Prayer: I will give you // many children.
