#genesis 16

The Story about Hagar and Ishmael

1-3 Abram and Sarai lived in that Canaan country, and after they were there for 10 years, they still had no kids. Sarai had a woman from Egypt working for her, called Hagar. She was Sarai’s slave. That means Sarai owned Hagar, and Hagar had to do everything that Sarai told her to do.

Sarai was sad because she had no kids, but she got an idea about how to get a baby for herself. So she said to Abram, “God has stopped me from having my own kids. But listen. I want you to sleep with Hagar, like she is your wife. You see, she belongs to me, so if she has a baby, that baby will really belong to me.” So Abram did that, just like Sarai said.

4 He slept with Hagar like she was his wife. Then Hagar found out that she was going to have a baby, so she started rubbishing Sarai all the time, because Sarai didn’t have any kids. 5 So Sarai said to Abram, “I blame you for this trouble. I gave Hagar to you, and now she is going to have a baby, and she is rubbishing me all the time. I reckon God knows that I am right, and you are wrong.”

6 But Abram said to Sarai, “Hagar belongs to you. You are her boss, so do whatever you want with her.” Then Sarai started to treat Hagar in a really bad way. So Hagar left Abram and Sarai’s camp and ran away.

7 Hagar started walking through the desert, along the road that went to a town called Shur, near Egypt. She sat down next to a water-hole there in the desert. God’s angel messenger went to her there. 8 He said, “Hagar, you belong to Sarai, so why are you sitting out here in the desert? Where are you going?”

Hagar said, “I’m running away from my boss, Sarai. She is too hard on me.”

9 God’s angel messenger said to her, “Don’t do that. Go back to your boss, and do what she says.” 10 And the angel also said, “God is going to give you a really big family. You will have a son, and later on lots of people will be born into his family, and they will be a real big family, so that nobody will be able to count all those people.” 11 The angel said, “You are going to have a baby boy, and you will name him Ishmael, because that name means God listens. You see, God listened to you. He heard about your trouble, and he will help you. 12 And Ishmael, your son, he will live like a wild donkey. He will go anywhere he wants to, and he will fight against everybody, and everybody will fight against him. He will not live close to his relatives.”

13 Then Hagar said to herself, “I have seen the God that sees me, and he looks after me.” So she gave God a name, she called him the God that sees me. 14 So that’s why people call that water-hole the water-hole that belongs to the one that is alive and sees me. That water-hole is between a place called Kadesh and a place called Bered.

15 Soon after that, Hagar had a baby boy, and Abram named him Ishmael. 16 Abram was 86 years old at the time when Ishmael was born. — Genesis 16 | Plain English Version (PEV) Plain English Version Bible © 2021 Wycliffe Bible Translators Australia. Cross References: Genesis 3:9; Genesis 11:30; Genesis 12:4; Genesis 12:16; Genesis 13:16; Genesis 14:7; Genesis 17:20; Genesis 17:25; Genesis 19:31; Genesis 20:1; Genesis 21:9; Genesis 21:17; Genesis 21:19; Genesis 25:12; Genesis 25:18; Genesis 29:32; Genesis 30:3-4; Genesis 31:53; Genesis 32:30; Genesis 37:25; Exodus 5:21; Exodus 24:11; Joshua 9:25; 1 Kings 19:9; Galatians 4:22

A short reflection on this Sunday's lectionary text, Genesis 21:8-21

Name changes occur throughout scripture, but there is only one instance in which a human being directly names God!

That person is Hagar — the woman enslaved and then cast off by God’s own chosen people, yet who recognizes God's solidarity with her in a way that resonates with many marginalized folk, including queer & trans people of faith.

Back in Genesis 16, Hagar is forced to conceive a child with Abraham — her bodily autonomy denied — and then suffers abuse at Sarah's hand so painful that she prefers almost-certain death in the wilderness. While waiting to die, God comes to her, nourishes her, encourages her with the promise of a better future. For a time, Hagar must return to her oppressors.

This is a hard message, but It may resonate with queer and trans people who make the hard choice to find what safety they can while in the closet, or who choose to remain in relationship with family or faith communities that have caused them harm.

It also isn't the end of Hagar’s story: when the time is right, God leads her out — as told in this week’s text in Genesis 21.

Sarah continues to abuse Hagar, with Abraham as a passive bystander and enabler. In a society where only one of Abraham's sons can inherit his wealth and blessing, Sarah sees Hagar's son Ishmael as a threat to her son Isaac, simply by existing! In our own day and age, this myth of scarcity persists, causing us to hoard resources and compete needlessly.

Sarah cannot stand to see Hagar's child playing with her own son — as if they were equals! As if a slave boy should be having a moment of fun! She reads something sinister into the play — not unlike how some people today read sinister things into queer play, into drag queens and gender expansive youth.

Having convinced herself that Hagar and her son are a threat, Sarah gets Abraham to cast them out.

But again, God is with the outcast; God comes again to Hagar, who in Genesis 16 had given God the name El Roi — "God sees me.” This God is the god of her oppressors, yet Hagar recognizes that this god is her God as well! This god is a God who sees the suffering of the lowest of society, and responds.

God sees queer and trans people, too. God is our God, too — those who hate us do not have a monopoly on the Divine!

And God walks with us through every struggle, fueling us to fight the good fight and promising blessings to come.

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Questions for reflection:

When have you witnessed God coming to the Hagars in our midst?

When has your community behaved like Abraham & Sarah, hoarding God's love as if there were not blessing enough to go around?

Can you imagine a world in which Sarah, Abraham, and Hagar meet again? What would Hagar need to feel safe to meet with her former abusers? What would Sarah & Abraham need to do to make things right?

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Further Reading

Queer-specific resources:

Article: Out in Scripture's commentary for Proper 7 of year A, "Claiming God's Promise in the Midst of Exile" — connecting Hagar to supportive parents of LGBT children

Podcast episode: "Hagar and the Caravan" — connecting Hagar's story to that of Latin American trans women se"eking asylum

Essay: "Intersex Foremother and Forefather" — ancient texts suggesting that Abraham and Sarah were intersex

Other resources:

Sermon: "No Good Patriarchs: Solidarity with Hagar" — Exploring the messiness of how one person can embody both oppressor & oppressed, and how "good" people buy into unjust systems

Article: "Jesus and Hagar: the Form of a Slave" — Wil Gafney's connection between Hagar and Mary the mother of Jesus, through a womanist lens

Affirmation of Faith: "God of Hagar, Ishmael, Sarah, Abraham — God of oppressor and oppressed"

Essay: "Hagar and Sarah: Was Reconciliation Ever a Possibility?" — Exploring various writers' visions of what a meeting between these two women could look like

Video: Teaching children the story of Hagar, with an interfaith focus

The angel of the LORD found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, the spring on the way to Shur. And he said, “Hagar, slave-girl of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going?” She said, “I am running away from my mistress Sarai.” 

The angel of the LORD said to her, “Return to your mistress, and submit to her.” The angel of the LORD also said to her, “I will so greatly multiply your offspring that they cannot be counted for multitude.” And the angel of the LORD said to her, “Now you have conceived and shall bear a son; you shall call him Ishmael, for the LORD has given heed to your affliction.” 

Episode 24 of Blessed Are the Binary Breakers is up! 

​Avery brings the story of Hagar - a figure shared by the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim traditions - into conversation with the story of Charlotte and other trans women who were part of a caravan of asylum seekers in 2018.

​This episode continues the theme of solidarity from June's earlier bonus episode. It highlights the urgency of recognizing how intersections of gender and race impact trans persons of color. It’s a reminder for all who experience some form of marginalization that we must not allow our shared enemies to divide and conquer us -- that we must stop oppressing one another in the hopes of advancing a little bit ourselves. It explores the stories we share, the struggles we share, the goals we share.

Sarah inflicts horrific abuse on Hagar (see Genesis 16 and 21): enslavement, rape and forced impregnation, beatings, and finally, banishment into the desert. It seems impossible that their story could ever have ended with renewed relationship and solidarity. As Jewish Cuban-American anthropologist Ruth Behar puts it in “Sarah and Hagar: The Heel-prints upon Their Faces,”

“The story of Sarah and Hagar is a story about women wronging women. It is a story so sad, so shameful, so sorrowful, that to own up to it is to admit that feminism has its origins in terrible violence and terrible lack of compassion between women.”

And yet, people across centuries have imagined what reconciliation between these two women could have been like. I’m compiling some of those visions here.

Many of them rely upon Sarah recognizing that she and Hagar share much suffering: Sarah too is used as property by men in their patriarchal world; Sarah too may have experienced rape when Pharaoh takes her from Abram in Egypt (see Wil Gafney’s Womanist Midrash); Sarah and Hagar alike are valued for their fertility and little else. If only Sarah had realized that patriarchy is what sets her above and against her fellow woman! If only she could have seen Hagar as a sister in solidarity, rather than a slave to abuse and cast away!

“Only at the end, When I witnessed my young son screaming under his father's knife, Only then Did I realize our common suffering.”

- Lynn Gottlieb

[image description: a painting of two women with curly brown hair and brown skin embracing; the one being held has a blue shawl with “Sarah and Hagar” written in Hebrew on it, while the one embracing her has a bright blue dress. A dove with an olive branch hovers behind them.]

“Sarah and Hagar” by Jewish artist Hilary Sylvester, who says: “Sarah the mother of the Jewish People and Hagar the mother of the Arab people finally find reconciliation through Mashiach.”

[image description: two yellow squares. The first has two photos: one is a painting of Hagar and Ishmael, the other a photo of a woman with brown skin and curly hair. Text reads "Hagar & the Caravan: the Abrahamic God sides with the oppressed" and "Blessed Are the Binary Breakers, a multifaith podcast of trans stories." Next square has this quote, “A good four thousand years, not to mention an entire ocean, separate these women – Hagar the Egyptian in a foreign land, fleeing enslavement and abuse. Latina trans women fleeing the violence of poverty and transmisogyny. But their pain and struggle, hope and faith are a cord stretching between their stories that all the miles and all the millennia cannot sever.” / end id]

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HAGAR AND THE CARAVAN

Episode 24 of Blessed Are the Binary Breakers is up! If you heard/read my sermon from the other week about Hagar, you may recognize some of the content -- but while my sermon brought Hagar's story in conversation with today's movement for Black lives, this podcast episode brings her story into conversation with Latina trans women.

See here for the episode transcript as well as links to where you can listen: blessedarethebinarybreakers.com/podcast-archive

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​Avery brings the story of Hagar - a figure shared by the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim traditions - into conversation with the story of Charlotte and other trans women who were part of a caravan of asylum seekers in 2018.