Scripture: Genesis 16 and 21 (selections).
I am very aware of being a male this morning. Gender is an issue in these stories. I chose these stories because gender is an issue in them, and I think it’s important for all of us, especially males, to confront the issues of gender that are presented to us here. Still, I am a little uneasy speaking about these stories as a male. I hope the reason I say this will come out as I go along this morning.
First though I think I have to spend a few moments filling in some blanks in the book of Genesis, because we’ve skipped over some material here. We left off our summertime travels through Genesis last week in chapter four, and today we pick up in chapter 16. Here’s what’s in between.
In chapter five there is one of those lists of begats, which tells us who fathered whom over a number of generations. It does not tell us who mothered whom. And when it lists children, it lists a few male children by name and then says that so-and-so also fathered other sons and daughters.
Then there is the story of Noah in chapters 6 through 9. We actually began our Genesis journeys with Noah back in June when we initiated the Heifer Project in worship.
Chapter 10 has more begats. There are some names where gender is not identified and I certainly don’t know whether the name is male or female, since I can’t even pronounce most of them much less tell whether they’re male or female names. But I’m presuming male—that was the pattern.
Chapter 11 is the story of the tower of Babel. I’ll come back to that at some other time. I’ll just ignore it for today. And then there are some more male begats.
Chapter 12 begins a series of stories where the main character is Abraham, and since these stories are the context for today’s reading, I need to talk about them for just a minute. Here’s how the story goes.
Abraham was minding his own business in a city called Ur out somewhere in what would now be Iraq, when one day God appeared to him and told him to get his family and his stuff together because God had plans for him. What God had in mind, it turns out, was something like that game where you are given a clue that leads you to someplace where you get another clue that leads you someplace else, and so forth. Abraham did agree to go where God would lead him. He got up and left Ur, taking along his people and possessions, among them his wife Sarai.
They went first to a place in what is now Syria, stayed there for a while, after several years moved on to a land called Canaan, where God had another meeting with Abraham and promised that this land would one day belong to his descendants. However, it wouldn’t belong to them just yet because Abram didn’t have any legitimate descendants. Not only that. The land wasn’t fit to live in. There was such a severe famine in the land that not even Abram could live there, much less thousands of descendants.
So off they all went again—to Egypt. Abram was a little insecure about this Egypt business, and one way it affected him was that he was afraid that his beautiful wife, Sarai, would prove to be so attractive that someone would kill him so they could take Sarai for themselves. So Abram dreamed up this wonderful, ingenious plan where he would pass off Sarai as his sister, get Pharaoh to take her as one of his wives, and that way Abram would not only be protected but would actually benefit by being the brother of one of Pharaoh’s most beautiful wives. This plan actually worked for a while.
Until Pharaoh began having bad things happen to him, plagues of some sort, and discovered that the reason for it was that the person he thought was his wife actually belonged to Abram. Though he was angry at Abram, he didn’t kill him but instead bought him off, showered gifts on him and sent him back to Canaan. Back in Canaan, Abram finds a place to settle down, makes a home, maybe a small empire, for himself, wins some battles and goes on with his life.
Except there is a heartache at the center of Abram’s life. There are still no children. No children to carry on Abram’s family. No children to fulfill what God had promised. Sarai, whose duty it was to provide Abram with children, came up with a plan that people think was fairly common at that time in that culture. And that’s the story we heard today.
Sarai’s idea is that Abram would father a child with the slave girl, Hagar, but since Hagar was Sarah’s property, the child would also belong to Sarah. Hagar would in effect be a surrogate mother for Abram and Sarai. Hagar’s child would be their child. The first part worked o.k. Hagar got pregnant, but instead of being a good slave girl about all this, Hagar began to forget that she was enslaved and she “looked with contempt” on Sarai. Sarai didn’t care for this. She complained to Abram, told him it was his fault even. Abram said this isn’t between you and me. It’s between you and Hagar, and you’re in charge. Do what you want with her.
Sarai mistreated Hagar. Hagar ran away. God came to Hagar and told her to go back, which she did. And she stayed, how happily we don’t know, for some years after the son, Ishmael, was born. She stayed until the time Sarah actually had a son of her own, Isaac. But when Isaac was born, Sarai didn’t want Ishmael around stealing Abram’s attention from her own son, or maybe stealing the whole inheritance, so this time she just plain kicked Hagar out. Or rather Abraham did, and with the assurance from God that they would not die, he left Hagar and Ishmael in the wilderness with just some bread and water. In the wilderness, it looks like they are about to die, when God in fact does hear their cry and intervenes to save them. That’s the end of this story line as far as the Bible is concerned. I will simply mention that in the Koran, Ishmael goes on to play an important role in the history of Islam, the way Abraham’s other son Isaac does in the history of Judaism.
Now what is there to say about all this? As usual with these Genesis stories, there is a whole lot to say. Someone has said that reading these stories sets your mind going in about ten directions at once, and I identify with that. There are all kinds of comments that could be made here, but I need to start by telling you my main reaction to these stories about Sarah and Hagar.
When I thought about preaching on Genesis this summer, I went through some of the stories in my mind and when I came to Sarah and Hagar, I had a definite thought which caused me to choose to focus on them. As I reflected on this passage more and more my initial reaction became even stronger. What I am struck with here, and as I say struck more and more the longer I think about it and live with it—what I am struck with here is, for lack of a better word, the oppression of women.
I did look for a different word to use. Oppression is a word that I frankly sometimes think is overused. We talk about oppression in broad terms and apply it to all kinds of situations and I have sometimes felt that when we do that we cheapen not only the meaning of the word but the experience of people who really have been oppressed. Furthermore, sometimes when I hear people begin to talk about oppression, I figure I’m going to hear some political or ideological harangue and not too many thoughtful ideas. I looked for a different word to use. But then I thought, wait. In this case, oppression is just what I mean. That is the way I felt this story, as being oppressive to women, and profoundly disturbing to me. There is another word though. The story is about the dehumanization of women.
As I was summarizing the chapters of Genesis I skipped over, I think I made clear that there was a male bias in this story. It is pretty much the story of men. When I got to Abram I tried to tell the story in sort of a standard version, where it really is the story of Abraham. The original call comes to Abraham and when Abram agrees to respond to God’s invitation to go off to an unknown land, Sarai goes along as part of Abram’s household, part of the people and possessions that he takes with him, and (I say cynically), it was not entirely clear which she was.
Then there is that cute little incident in Egypt where Abram sort of shoves his wife into Pharaoh’s bed in order to guarantee his own safety. Finally, we get to the point in the story where women not only have a name but actually have a few lines of their own to say. And how are women presented at this point in the story? First, as though the only thing that would give worth to their lives is child-bearing. And second they are presented as fighting with each other, jealous, mean-spirited, and in Sarai’s case even abusive, to another woman.
I wish all this were different. I am embarrassed as a male by how male oriented the scriptures are. I wish women played a larger role in the Biblical stories. I wish women had a more prominent voice in the scriptures. I wish the story had been told from Sarah’s point of view. And of course it’s not just a matter of the way the Bible is written. It’s a matter of the way society was at the time. And it’s a matter of the way society has continued to be, so that through most of Jewish and Christian history rabbis and preachers have been men, so that the story has been read, retold, and interpreted almost exclusively through male eyes, with few people to stand up and say, let’s tell this story as though it were Sarah’s story…or Hagar’s.
The stories of women in the Bible are largely untold stories—thus the title of the sermon. And so when Sarai and Hagar do take center stage and are presented the way they are presented, I have double difficulty. When the women are finally given the chance in the story, I want them to show us the way. I want them to relate to each other as sisters, not as owner and slave, not as Hebrew and Egyptian, not as women competing for a man, not as women jealous or resentful because of the issue of being pregnant, but somehow overcoming all of that to be able to relate to each other as sisters, and just as human beings, even though others do not treat them that way. I want them to rebel at the roles they have been assigned, say sorry we’re not playing that game, and to at least treat each other as the human beings they are. That would to me be an inspiring story. But at least at this point that is also an untold story.
So I had trouble with the reading for this week—again—as it seems I have had pretty often as I have been having my conversation with the book of Genesis these last few weeks. I have been trying to let it speak to me, and it has. But you may have noticed that I have also been willing to talk back to the scriptures when I think I need to. This is my way of honoring the scriptures, not to look for those verses that have something nice to say about God or about us and sort of conveniently shove all the rest to the side, but to take the rest of the scriptures too and stay engaged with them, even if it’s not easy or comfortable to do that. In fact, I know that I am sort of drawn to parts of the Bible where I know I have some issues, as I do here. One thing about Genesis is that it doesn’t sugarcoat things. It doesn’t present some idealized view of the world. In fact, as I have pointed out in previous weeks, it doesn’t even present an idealized view of God, sometimes not even a very flattering one. Not every image of God we have in the bible is a true one. But there are some true ones, some very powerful, true images of God in the book of Genesis. I have spoken of some in previous weeks and I need to speak of one here, because while I have some troubles with this passage, I also find here words that lay hold on my heart.
I actually see two images of God in these stories. The dominant image I am going to call the God of success. This is the God who comes to Abraham and promises him that the land as far as the eye can see will belong to him and his descendants, and that his descendants will be as numerous as the grains of sand or the dust of the earth. The future will belong to Abraham, God says. I have chosen you, and I will stay near you, and when I am near to people what happens is that all sorts of good things happen and they are blessed with overflowing abundance and prosperity. This image of God promises that being people of faith will bring whatever kind of success we may be praying for: happiness, health, peace of mind, a large and loving family, lots of friends and a few really good friends, meaningful work—all these things are the results of being good, godly people. God answers prayers, helps those who help themselves, walks with those who set out to walk with God, and insures the success of worthwhile ventures by being present within them. And if God is not present the house will not stand and the project will not succeed. I cannot say there is not truth in this image of God. In fact I think there is some truth here, though I sense it is a complicated truth.
But this God of success is not the image of God that is real for me. The success God is not the God who has claimed my heart. The God I have met along the way, the God I continue to seek, but who I know is at the same time always present, the God who finds his way into this story and who has found her way into my life, is the God who comes to Hagar in the wilderness. This image of God is not a God of success but a God who seeks us out in the places where we are vulnerable and chooses to dwell there, who resides not so much in the midst of triumphant crowds but who chooses to come to be with a lonely woman who finds herself down to her last bit of food and her last ounce of hope. This is an image of a God not so much who answers prayer exactly but who hears the cries, and the moans and the inner longings of people even if they don’t have the words by which to say a prayer. This is an image of a God not so much who will provide descendants as numerous as the grains of sand but who will for a precious mother and her son, cause a well to spring up in the dessert. This God is not the dominant one of this story, or at least has not usually been seen that way. And this God is not the dominant one in our culture. The god of success is by far the more popular of the two gods, and we do place a high value on success. A god who can make us successful will go far in this world.
But there is this other God who is definitely present in this story. This is the God of Abraham, yes, and of Sarah too. But we should be exceedingly clear that this God is also, and more especially, the God of Hagar—a woman, an Egyptian, a slave girl—a person who had no standing to anyone in this story, except God. Someday maybe we will realize that Hagar is our sister, that none of us has any standing except what we have in the eyes and heart of God, and that we are most likely to meet God when we find ourselves in the wilderness and confess ourselves to be as vulnerable as she was. Someday maybe we will know that Hagar is our sister, and we will write hymns to her. I’m working on it—working on seeing Hagar as my sister, or rather I should say I’m working on seeing myself as her brother, and I’m working on trying to be some kind of a decent brother to her, and I’m working on my relationship not so much frankly to Abraham’s god, but to Hagar’s. Someday maybe we will learn to praise the God of Abraham and of Sarah and of Hagar and come to recognize that her story and our story are in some fundamental way the same. Amen.
Jim Bundy
July 30, 2000