Whose Terror is it, Anyway? I

“Hagar’s Terror”

Genesis 16:1-16; 21:9-21

A sermon preached by the Rev. Douglas M. Donley

LENT I

February 10, 2008

University Baptist Church

Minneapolis, MN

 

We continue the question of this program year,“Whose Faith is it Anyway?” by asking the Lenten question, “Whose Terror is it Anyway?”  God knows we have seen enough terror this week in Kirkland Missouri, in LA, in Iraq.  It does no good to ignore it, because terror is a part of our lives.  It’s also a part of the Biblical record.

Phyllis Trible, my Hebrew Bible professor in seminary, wrote book a number of years ago entitled “Texts of Terror: Literary-Feminist Readings of Biblical Narratives”.  In the book, she examines four stories that we often overlook.  These scriptures don’t appear in the common lectionary.  They are not among the greatest hits we are so used to on Sunday mornings.  Isn’t it easier for us to skip over those scriptures that trouble us?  Isn’t it easier for us to ignore or minimize the things that make us uncomfortable?  But these stories are part of our experience. 

In fact our ignoring of these stories might well provide the fodder for policies and perspectives that continue to ignore or minimize terrifying things in our world.  Whose terror is it?  It might well be ours. 

In these stories of pain, these stories of injustice, these stories of abuse, these stories of rape and betrayal, we see ourselves and our world.  We must look at them.  We must read them.  We must internalize them so that we might not again make the same mistakes made by our fore bearers in the Biblical record.

            We must read these stories and through them we must become new people, filled with hope that God has not forgotten us and that God is right here in the struggle, especially right here in the struggle.           

            On this second Sunday in African American history month, we look at an African woman who was a slave, a mother, an obedient servant, and as soon as she had fulfilled her usefulness, was thrown onto the ash heap with Job and many other suffering servants before and after her.

            This is a sad story.  Sad stories do not have happy endings.  I am not going to try to make one up.  That would not be fair to you.  It would not be fair to the Bible. And it would not be fair to Hagar.

            Some positive things do happen in the story, which I will get to in a moment.  Hagar was no slouch.  She is certainly a central figure in our faith.  Look at how many people seem to move against her, Sarah, Abraham, even God.

            Phyllis Trible tells the stories of Hagar, Tamar, the unnamed concubine from Bethlehem recounted in Judges and the also unnamed daughter of Jepthah.  We’ll look at these women today and the next three Sundays.  Trible speaks of entering this journey in her introduction:

“To tell and hear tales of terror is to wrestle demons in the night, without a compassionate God to save us.  In combat we wonder about the names of the demons.  Our own names, however, we all too frighteningly recognize.  We struggle mightily, only to be wounded.  But yet we hold on, seeking a blessing: the healing of wounds and the restoration of health.  If the blessing comes—and we dare not claim assurance—it does not come on our terms.  Indeed, as we leave the land of terror, we limp.” (Trible, 1984:4-5)

            Please let me expound upon the terrifying story of Hagar who limped away to found through her son Ishmael, the whole Arab people.  We first encounter Hagar in Genesis 16.  Part of Genesis 21 also tells her story, but it seems to be much more interested in Ishmael by that time.  At the outset, we need to remember that the Bible is written from the perspective of the winners.  Hagar and Ishmael are the losers in the Biblical stories.  Our information, therefore, is sketchy at best.

            In Genesis, Abraham is promised to be the father of a whole nation.  His descendants, says God, will be so great that they will not even be able to be numbered—like the sands of the sea or the stars in the sky.  But Abraham was 86 years old and his wife Sarah was not much younger.  They still had no children and they feared that they would die childless. 

            So Sarah came up with a plan.  She said to Abraham, “Behold, YHWH has prevented me from bearing children.  Go into my maid.  It may be that I shall obtain children by her.”(16:2)  Hagar was Sarah’s Egyptian maid, her slave, her property.  Now she would become her surrogate.  As soon as she has a child, Sarah will call it hers.  Sarah doesn’t even mention Hagar’s name.  Hagar has no identity in her eyes.  She’s an object, not a person.  She is what Sarah isn’t:  Hagar is single, poor, a slave, but also young and fertile.

            Abraham agrees and takes Hagar as his wife.  Tell that to the advocates of “Biblical marriage.”  Sure enough, Hagar conceived. 

            As soon as she conceived, Hagar realized for the first time that she had some power.  She recognized that perhaps she was the mother of a whole new nation prophesied by God.  Perhaps now, people might treat her with respect instead of as a slave and an instrument to be used.  But Sarah did not like the power which Hagar was feeling.  She did not like the threat which Hagar posed to her place in Abraham’s house and in God’s plan.  So, she did what anyone would do.  She blamed Abraham.

            She said, “May the wrong done to me be on you!  I gave my maid to your embrace, and when she saw that she conceived, she looked on me with contempt.  (the nerve!)  May YHWH judge between you and me!” (16:6)

            Abraham was really passive in this story, not the usual stature for a ruler of nations.  He passed the buck back to Sarah, “Behold, your maid is in your power; do to her as you please.” (16:6)

            Do you notice that Abraham doesn’t mention Hagar’s name either?  If you can keep a person nameless, you can continue to judge and abuse them.

            It used to be that we heard on talk shows and in the mouths of politicians about welfare mothers bilking the system.  Now welfare mothers have been replaced by immigrants—people of a different color, a different language.  People who threaten the way the dominant class views the world.  The immigrants, the welfare mothers are modern-day Hagars.  But many of these leaders have never met a welfare mother or an immigrant.  Most of those people have never volunteered at Loaves and Fishes.  If they had, then maybe those nameless welfare mothers and immigrants would have names, faces, stories and perhaps dignity in their eyes.  But it’s easier to judge a class, a race, or a category of people than it is to judge one person with a name.   

            My first church was in Hartford, CT.  It was largely first generation Jamaican and West Indian.  Many of them felt the sting of racism.  It was during the first Gulf War and several of the families had members serving in the military.  They weren’t necessarily true believers in the cause as much as they were people who realized that a military life was a great avenue out of poverty.   They inspired me as I walked alongside them in their struggles against the twin challenges of poverty and racism.

            Abraham gave Sarah the go ahead and Sarah abused Hagar so much that she ran away.  Really, she ran for her life.  Many people on state assistance have also fled from their abusers.  Many did so to save their lives.  Hagar’s story is their story, too.

            But when Hagar fled to the wilderness, YHWH found her.  And YHWH called her by name.  YHWH said, “Hagar, maid of Sarah, where are you coming from and where are you going?”  Hagar replied, “I am fleeing from my mistress, Sarah.”  The angel of YHWH said to her, “Return to your mistress, and submit to her.” (16:8, 9)

            God is usually on the side of the outcast, but now God tells Hagar to go back to Sarah and take the abuse.  The God who led the people out of the hand of Pharaoh is now the God who tells Hagar to submit to Pharaoh, personified in her tormentor, Sarah.

            From Hagar’s perspective, YHWH is not a God of hope.  Her suffering undercuts her hope.  But God does recognize who Hagar is and gives some credit to her.  God offers something to Hagar that no other woman in the Bible receives.  YHWH gives Hagar a word of blessing to go along with God’s word of curse.  YHWH says, “I will so greatly multiply your descendants that they cannot be numbered for the multitude.” (16:10) All of the patriarchs received this word from God, but Hagar is the only woman.

            YHWH tells her that she shall bear a son and name him Ishmael, which means “God hears” since God has heard her affliction.  God says that Ishmael will be a wanderer, a loner, and in strife even with his own people.  It sounds like he might well have been a spirited child.

            Hagar then spoke to YHWH in a manner which is not repeated in the Bible.  Elsewhere in the Bible, people call upon the name of YHWH.  But here, Hagar, showing her power, her insight, and her uniqueness called and described YHWH.  She said, “Thou art a God of Seeing.  For I have seen God and have remained alive.” (16:13)  She proclaimed who God was.  No one else, save Jesus, proclaimed who God was.  And after this encounter with God, Hagar does go back, submits to her abuse and bears her son, Ishmael. 

            Hagar remains obedient.  Hagar knows God sees.  As she names Ishmael, she affirms that God hears.  And yet Hagar knows that God has not dealt fairly with her.  If she is to be the mother of a multitude of nations, she should not remain slave.  But here she stands, like Job a righteous woman who is abused by life.

            When Ishmael was 14, Sarah was finally able to have a child.  In her old age she bore a son named Isaac.  Like the prodigal, he was showered with blessings and feasts, while the older son, Ishmael, the true heir was shunned.  Isaac and Ishmael got along in spite of their mothers’ strife.  I bet Ishmael took care of Isaac simply because he could keep up with him better than old and feeble Sarah.

            Children have to be taught to hate.  They will play with another child no matter what color or race they are.  Jesus said, “Whoever does not receive the reign of God like a child shall not enter it.” (Mark 10:15)

            But Sarah did not take kindly to this.  Sarah was not about to let Ishmael be the heir to Abraham’s greatness.  She said, “Cast out this slave woman with her son; for the son of this slave woman shall not be heir with my son Isaac.”(21:10)  Sarah still cannot refer to Hagar and Ishmael by name.  Now, Abraham loved Ishmael and it hurt him to hear Sarah say these words. 

            But then God gave Abraham the go-ahead, saying in so many worlds, “I want Isaac to be your true descendant.  I want Isaac to be the line of genealogy to be remembered for all time.”

            So Abraham sent Ishmael and Hagar away.  Ishmael went on to Egypt where he founded the Arab people.  This is the last we hear of Hagar.

            Abraham, Isaac and Sarah go down as the winners in this battle.  A few chapters later, Abraham will almost sacrifice Isaac on Mount Moriah, but at the last minute, a ram will be provided by God to take Isaac’s place on the altar.  And so continues the story of the people of Israel.  But what about Hagar and Ishmael?  They too create a great nation.  In fact, the Koran states that it is not Isaac whom Abraham is about to sacrifice on Mount Moriah, but Ishmael!  Ishmael through Hagar become the ancestor of the people who would later found the nation of Islam. 

            And still today, the fighting continues between Hagar and Sarah, as is evidenced in Israel and the Palestinian territories, as the US continues to couch its Middle East wars as against Islam: children of Sarah against children of Hagar. 

            The God we follow is the God of both Sarah and Hagar, of Isaac and Ishmael.  Hagar’s story is one an innocent servant suffering in a sin-sick world.  She is part of our story.

            Phyllis Trible says that many people especially women can find their stories in the story of Hagar.  “She is the faithful maid exploited by the male and abused by the female of the ruling class,” says Trible.  She is also, “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 the handouts from power structures, the welfare mother, and the self-effacing female whose own identity shrinks in service to others.”  (Trible, 1984:28)

            Friends, Hagar’s story is part of the fabric of society.  Inasmuch as we are sisters and brothers of everyone, Hagar’s story is our story.  We must address Hagar’s terror if we are to be followers of Abraham and Sarah.  If we choose not to remember Hagar and her abuse, then our faith is at best shallow and at worst false. 

            Many of us are Hagar.  Many of us have consciously or unconsciously created the conditions for people to be made into Hagars.  And we here as a church and as a biblical people have been put here to see that no more Hagar-experiences happen in this world. 

We have been put here to lift up the voice of the loser in the story so that we can see the way to Christ.  We should take our cues from Jesus Christ who taught us that those whom the world and especially organized religion have rejected, God claims as the chosen ones. 

            We must deal with our own temptation toward indifference and replace that with caring, love and justice if we are to be true Christians.

            And we must hear their stories of suffering, painful as they may be.  Thank God for Hagar, whom we claim as a suffering servant.  For she has taught us something about God, and about ourselves.

            Hagar reminds us that God sees.

            God sees the abuse.

            God sees the trauma.

            God sees the terror.

            God sees those who come to the rescue and those who stand idly by.

            Maybe we can even be better than the image of God depicted in this story.

            God sees Hagar and God sees us.  How we respond to Hagar stories among us makes all the difference in the world.