I. Why was Hagar in Exile?
·
Hagar was a slave and a foreign outsider among God’s
special people. (Genesis 16:1)
Hagar enters our story as a side character, an object in the
household of Abraham and Sarah. Genesis 16 begins:
Now Sarai, Abram’s wife,
had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian slave named Hagar.
(Genesis 16:1 NIV)
We don’t know anything else
about Hagar. We don’t know how she came to be a slave. We don’t know how she
came to be Sarah’s slave (although it’s likely she was one of the slaves given
to Abraham and Sarah by Pharaoh in Genesis 12:16). All we know is that she was an Egyptian, she was a slave, and she
was with Abraham and Sarah in Canaan. Now, this would be enough to make her an exile—she
is enslaved and taken far from home, just like Joseph was. But there is another
aspect to her exile that is very important. Remember what we said last week
about the plot of Genesis: in chapter 12, and later in 15, God promises to make
Abraham’s family into a great people, and he will bless the whole world through
Abraham. God’s plan to restore the world depends on building his family—his legitimate
family—and keeping them distinct from the peoples around them. (This is why
Abraham’s son and grandson, Isaac and Jacob, go back to their family to find
wives instead of among the Canaanites). So if Abraham’s legitimate family is
God’s chosen people, what does that make Hagar? She is an outsider. She is less
than them. Not only do her owners treat
her as if she is an object in their stories—based on what God is doing, it
seems like she actually is an object in
someone else’s story. And that is a very real, and very common, form of exile:
to be cut off from your own story, your own value as a person. So many people
are treated by others as objects, and many eventually internalize that
perspective and begin to think of themselves as objects in the stories of
other, more important, people.
·
Hagar was treated as an object by her owners.
(16:2-4)
In the story of Hagar, however, this sense of being an
object in someone else’s story becomes even stronger because of Abraham and
Sarah’s actions:
[Sarai] said to Abram, “The Lord has kept me from having children. Go, sleep
with my slave; perhaps I can build a family through her.” Abram agreed to what
Sarai said. So after Abram had been living in Canaan ten
years, Sarai his wife took her Egyptian slave Hagar and gave her to her husband
to be his wife. He slept with Hagar, and she conceived. (Genesis
16:2-4, NIV)
This part of the story may seem crazy to us, but it was
normal practice in the ancient world—it was an early form of surrogacy. If a
woman couldn’t bear children for her husband, she could provide a slavegirl for
her husband, and the resulting child would be considered the mistress’s child.
Of course, the fact that it was normal practice does not make it any less
objectifying to Hagar, who is essentially being treated as human cattle in this
story. Now even her body and her most intimate moments belong to Abraham and
Sarah. Hagar is in exile in her own body and her own marriage bed.
·
When Hagar did what she was told, she was
abandoned by her husband[1]
and abused by her mistress. (16:4-6)
Hagar complied with Abraham and Sarah’s plan—not that she
had a choice!—and became pregnant, just as she was expected to do. She did
exactly what she was supposed to do. And now, finally, when she succeeds at her
job, Hagar begins to find personal value in the only terms available to her:
through her womb. But even that is not enough. The story continues:
When [Hagar] knew she was pregnant, she began to despise
her mistress. Then
Sarai said to Abram, “You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering. I put
my slave in your arms, and now that she knows she is pregnant, she despises me.
May the Lord judge
between you and me.” “Your
slave is in your hands,” Abram said. “Do with her whatever you think best.”
Then Sarai mistreated Hagar; so she fled from her. (Genesis 16:4-6, NIV)
Here we see family conflict at its most heartbreaking; no
one is happy in this moment. Sarah is deeply hurt because Hagar’s pregnancy has
not brought her the joy and satisfaction she expected: instead, it has only
emphasized her own barrenness. Abraham is now caught in the middle, because
Sarah lashes out at him and calls on him to fix the situation. Unfortunately
Abraham passes the buck, and basically tells Sarah to take out her frustration
on the mother of his unborn child. And so Hagar takes the full force of Sarah’s
anguish with no protection from her husband, so she does the only thing she
can: she runs away. This is rock bottom for Hagar’s exile: a slave, taken away
from her family and home, forced to carry someone else’s child, persecuted for
doing so, and now a fugitive on the run.
II. What was God doing during her exile?
It is at this point in the story, when Hagar is at rock
bottom, that God intervenes, and suddenly this domestic tragedy becomes one of
the most surprising and compelling stories in scripture.
·
God found Hagar when she ran from her exile.
(16:7)
In verse 7 it says, “The angel of the Lord found Hagar
near a spring in the desert; it was the spring that is beside the
road to Shur.” (NIV) If you
are a seasoned scripture reader, then you are used to God showing up in
unexpected places. But if not, then this is an incredible twist in the story.
That someone should find Hagar to bring her back is not surprising. We would
hope it would be her husband, Abraham, who has come to his senses and chosen to
protect the mother of his child. We wouldn’t be surprised if slave-catchers
found her, captured her, and dragged her back to her mistress. But instead it
is God, the creator of the universe, who found her at the well. That word “found” doesn’t mean that he lost
her and then found her. What it means is that he came to her. He physically joined her at the well. Hagar was a
woman; not just a woman, but a Gentile woman; not just a gentile woman, but an enslaved
Gentile woman; not just an enslaved Gentile woman, but an escaped, fugitive,
enslaved, Gentile woman—and God came for her. It can be hard for us to grasp
just how amazing this turn of events is, because we don’t have the same cultural
assumptions. Our culture (due to centuries of Christian, Biblical influence)
believes that all people have value. But Hagar would have had no such
expectations. There is a reason why Hagar spends the rest of the encounter
speechless.
·
God treated Hagar
as a person of immense value and importance. (Genesis 16:7-8)
This is where Hagar’s story becomes really incredible, but
it can be hard for us to see it unless we make some comparisons. Here’s the
next part of the story:
The angel of the Lord found
Hagar near a spring in the desert; it was the spring that is beside the
road to Shur. And
he said, “Hagar, slave of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are
you going?” “I’m running away from my mistress Sarai,” she answered. (Genesis
16:7-8, NIV)
In these two verses, God
showers Hagar with special treatment to an almost absurd degree. Let’s count
the ways:
o
This is the first appearance of the “Angel of the Lord” in the Bible. In the Old Testament, there is an angel referred to
as “The Angel of the Lord” who
serves as God’s special representative. In fact, whenever this angel appears,
the Bible treats him as if he was God. At some point during the story, it stops
saying “The Angel said…” and switches to, “The Lord
said…” Because of this, many Christians believe that the Angel of the Lord is actually “Reincarnate Christ”—the
Son of God before he was born in Bethlehem. Whoever the Angel of the Lord is, he’s a big deal, and God sent
him to speak to lowly, insignificant Hagar.
o
This is the first appearance of any angel in the
Bible. Not only is this the first
time God sent the Angel of the Lord to speak to someone—it’s the first time he
ever sent an angel to speak to someone. Now, keep in mind that “angel” is a job,
not a species—it means messenger. There have been other spiritual beings in the
story do far: God sent cherubim to guard Eden (Gen. 3:24) and the “Sons of God”
in Genesis 6 might be spiritual beings.
But as far as the Bible is concerned, the first time God sent a messenger to
Earth, it was to meet with Hagar at the well.
o
God is the first to call Hagar by name. The first word the Angel says is “Hagar.” If you
look over the story again, you will notice that this is the first time anyone
has called her by name. Neither Sarah, her owner, nor Abraham, her husband,
call Hagar by her name. They only call her “my/your slave.” But God knows her
name and calls her by name.
o
Hagar is the only woman in the Old Testament whom God
addresses by name. Hagar is not only
given special treatment among slaves, she is also given special treatment among
women. In all of the Old Testament, she is the only woman that God addresses
using her own name. Not even the woman who owns her, the mother of the child of
promise, is called by name. In fact, according to commentaries, she is the only
woman who is addressed by name by a god in all ancient near east
literature. That means we have no record of any
god calling a woman by name in all the writings of Babylon, Canaan, or Egypt.
Only Hagar gets this special treatment. It is worth noting that Jesus continues
this practice. One of the most powerful moments in the Easter story is when
Jesus reveals himself to Mary Magdalene simply by saying her name. (John 20:16)
What do we make of all these unique aspects of Hagar’s
story? One thing is for certain: God is
not treating Hagar as an object in Abraham’s story. God is lavishing
attention on this slavegirl. He is treating her as the most important person in
the world in that moment. God knows Hagar, God cares about Hagar, and he go to
great lengths to make sure that she knows
that God cares about her deeply.
·
God sent her back—to take her place in his
promise. (16:8-12; 12:1-3)
As encouraging as all this sounds, as we continue the story
God says something that may seem to undercut everything he just did to make her
special: he tells her to go back.
Then the angel of the Lord told her, “Go back to your mistress and submit to
her.” The angel added, “I will increase your descendants so much that they will
be too numerous to count.” The angel of the Lord also said to her: “You are now pregnant and you
will give birth to a son. You shall name him Ishmael, for the Lord has heard of your misery. He
will be a wild donkey of a man; his hand will be against everyone and
everyone’s hand against him, and he will live in hostility toward all his
brothers.” (Genesis 16:8-12, NIV)
After everything Hagar has been through, how can God call
her to go back into exile? How can he send her back to her abusive mistress and
neglectful husband? After all that special treatment from God, is she really
nothing more than a slavegirl? Is that all she’s ever going to be?
It is important here to notice why God sends her back to Sarah. First of all, God does not send her back for Abraham or Sarah’s sake. God does
not treat Sarah as the main character whom Hagar is obliged to serve. Notice
that he doesn’t even refer to her by name: he calls Sarah “your mistress.” God
is not telling Hagar that she belongs with her abuser. God is sending her back because Hagar has a role to play in God’s
promises. He sends her back because
he has a plan for here: “I will increase your descendants so much that they
will be too numerous to count.” God is going to make Hagar’s descendants into a
whole nation. Hagar has her own place in God’s plan.
As I researched this sermon, I thought that I was going to
say that Hagar had a place in God’s promises through Abraham. After all, God
promised to make Abraham the father of many nations. But that’s not exactly how
this all happened. Here’s the order of God’s promises:
o
“I will make [Abraham] into a great nation.” (Genesis 12:2)
o
“I will increase [Hagar’s] descendants so much
that they will be too numerous to count.” (Genesis 16:10)
o
“As for me, this is my covenant with [Abraham]: You will be
the father of many nations.” (Genesis 17:4, NIV)
Notice that God does not promise to make Abraham into many
nations until after he promises to
make Hagar into a nation all her own. Hagar is not just a vehicle to fulfilling
God’s promises to Abraham. Hagar has her own promise that God is fulfilling in
her, and Abraham becomes the “Father of Many Nations”—which is what Abraham
means—because he shares in God’s promise to Hagar.
So when God sends Hagar back to Abraham and Sarah, it is not
for the sake of Abraham’s story, or Sarah’s story. He sends her there for the
sake of her own story, her own promise, her own mission. Hagar is no one’s side
character. She is a carrier of the promise of God in her own right.
III. What did Hagar do in her exile?
So far Hagar has been completely silent and—except for
running away—she has been completely passive. But now, once she encounters God
and receives his promise, Hagar begins to act.
·
Hagar named God—so she could remember and
worship him. (Genesis 16:13-14)
In response to God’s unprecedented actions toward her, Hagar
does something equally unprecedented: she names
God.
She gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her: “You are
the God who sees me,” for she said, “I have now seen the One who sees me.” That is why the well was called Beer Lahai Roi; it is
still there, between Kadesh and Bered. (Genesis 16:13-14, NIV)
In all of scripture, Hagar is the only person to name God.
There are times that God reveals his name to human beings—in the first verse of
the next chapter, God reveals to Abraham the name “El Shaddai”—but Hagar gives
God a name: El-Roi, the God who Sees
Me. Now, why did Hagar name God? The simplest reason is: because she didn’t
know his name! Hagar was an Egyptian slavegirl, raised among other gods and
almost certainly illiterate. She had no way of knowing who this God was who
spoke to her, since he never revealed his name to her. So she gave him a name.
But why did she need to give him a name? In the ancient near east, names were
an important, essential part of worship. There were so many gods that you
couldn’t just call one of them “God,” like we do today. That would be like
saying to a crowd of people, “Hey, you with the face!” She gives him a name so
she can remember him and worship him specifically. And she names him after the
most meaningful thing about him: out of all the gods—and all the people she
knew, as well—this is the God who sees her. For the rest of her life, she would
pray to the God who sees her and worship him because he sees her. That name would serve as a reminder for the
rest of her life, no matter what happens to her, that there is a God who sees
her. After all, she’s going right back into slavery and broken relationships.
But there is still a God who sees her.
·
Hagar faced the problems in her life, with a new
sense of purpose. (Genesis 16:15-16)
After she named the God who came to her at the well, Hagar
did what God told her to do:
So Hagar bore Abram a son, and
Abram gave the name Ishmael to the son she had borne. Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore him Ishmael.
(Genesis 16:15-16, NIV)
We should not assume that this was easy for her. Scripture
does not tell us that God spoke to Sarah or Abraham and told them to treat her
better. We know for a fact that the tension between Hagar and Sarah continued
to smolder. But Hagar did the hard work of returning to the very situation she
was fleeing from and facing it head on. I don’t know about you, but I would
always rather run away from hard situations like these. But Hagar went back—and,
tension aside, it seems that Hagar found a way to life at relative peace with
Abraham and Sarah. The question is, what was different?
The difference simply this: Hagar returned with a new sense
of purpose and value. When Hagar left she was nothing but a slave, an unwilling
surrogate mother for a mistress who hated her. When she came back, she was
still in slavery, and her mistress still hated her, but those factors did not
define her. She was a woman of promise, a woman with purpose. She knew who she
was and she knew that God saw her and had a plan for her life. She was no
longer a side character in Abraham’s story.
At the same time—and I think this is important—she did not
become the main character in her own story. This is the American fallacy: we
are taught to think of ourselves as the main character in the world—and this is
the attitude that got Hagar in trouble in verse 4. Rather, what Hagar learned—and
what she teaches us—is that we are all supporting characters in God’s story. It is God’s promise and
God’s plan that give Hagar purpose. She is not the center of the universe, but
neither are Abraham or Sarah. They are all, shoulder to shoulder, supporting
characters in God’s story. This is why Hagar can face the challenges of life
with Abraham and Sarah with new purpose. If this was Hagar’s story, then surely
Sarah would be humiliated and shoved to the side. But it’s God’s story, in
which both Sarah and Hagar have roles to play. And Hagar shows us how to play
that role faithfully.
·
Hagar followed God through the ups and downs to
come—and God took care of her. (Genesis
21:8-21)
Today’s passage is only half of Hagar’s story. The other
half is told in Genesis 21, when the birth of Sarah’s son Isaac blows the whole
situation wide open again. We’re not going to cover that story today, but I
think it’s helpful to know that the story is coming. Why? Because in our lives,
we rarely see tidy, Hollywood endings. Our conflicts rarely end with a clean, “And
they lived happily ever after.” More often, our problems linger near the
surface. Something happens to shake them loose again. Dad’s “things are going
to change around here” speech may get the kids to shape up for a while, but it’s
very likely that at some point old habits will return and have to be dealt with
again. The same happens with Hagar. God did not “fix” all of her problems at
the well. He did not may everything better for the rest of her life. Rather, he
showed her that he was watching. He showed her that she was important. He
showed her that there was a plan. And in showing her these things, he equipped
her for the challenges that would continue to come.
Hagar faithfully took on the challenge God had put before
her. She lived with a difficult family situation for another 13 years, all the
while raising her child of promise. And when she was sent away after the birth
of Isaac, she faced that new challenge as well. And through it all, God watched
over her and provided. Hagar stepped out in faith just like Abraham, and God
came through for them both. This is what times of exile are supposed to look
like: we step out into the wilderness, not knowing where the next few steps
will lead us—and certainly not enjoying the challenge—but knowing for certain
that God is watching us, leading us, and protecting us according to his good
will.
As you hear this story, you may be thinking: this is all
well and good for Hagar, but what about me? What if God never appears to me and
makes me a promise? What if I never get the special treatment? To that I say:
it has already happened. The days of the Angel of the Lord calling us one at a
time are past, because when Jesus Christ came to earth he came to call every
one of us into the promise of God. 2000 years before you were even born, Jesus
Christ came to this Earth to deal with all of the pain and destruction we have
caused in our relationships, and to make a place for every one of us within the
promises of God. The Apostle John wrote this of Jesus:
The true light that gives light to everyone was coming
into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him,
the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own
did not receive him. Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in
his name, he gave the right to become children of God. (John 1:9-12, NIV)
God sees you. He knows your journey and your struggles. He
offers you a place as a character in his story, where you were always supposed
to be. And if you have given him your life, then your place in his story is
assured. You have the right to be a child of God. No matter what you are
facing, no matter what you will face, God is with you and he is faithful to
fulfill his promise.
Stay healthy, stay hopeful. Go in peace to love and serve
the Lord!
[1]
When Sarah gave Hagar to Abraham, Hagar became his concubine. She wasn’t
exactly his wife—she didn’t have the rights and privileges that Sarah had—but Abraham
was her husband: he had sole right to
her and sole responsibility for her.
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