Genesis 16

This is the part of the story where our covenant couple (Abram & Sarai) go off-script and the results are not at all what they thought they would be. It's not all bad, though, because the LORD proves himself to be faithful even when his people behave... like people.

If you're someone who feels cast aside, overlooked, or just plain used while someone else takes center stage, this is especially for you.  Today we get to meet "The God who sees".

Transcript

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What happens inside your head when you read scripture, or any book for that matter? I tend to see it. Sometimes like an observer watching the scene unfold all around me, and at other times more like a camera operator, with the director, which is the text, letting me know when I should maybe zoom in on one particular character or to come back out and take in the fullness of the scene. All the while, doing my best to present this story with richness and truth to myself. Hey, welcome to Meet Me in the Word. I am so glad that you've joined in with us today. We're in Genesis chapter 16, and it's one of the parts of the story where things tend to go off script. Turn there so you can follow along. And while you're doing that, I'd like to invite you to become a regular listener or viewer to Meet Me in the Word. It's a better experience for all of us when we do this together. We're going to jump into this story, but first let's pray. Jesus, thank you that you are paying attention to us. God, thank you that nothing goes beyond your notice, that you are aware and that you do care. God help us to receive all that you intend for us as we read this chapter of Scripture. We ask this in your name. Amen. Alright. Genesis chapter sixteen. Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children, but she had an Egyptian slave named Hagar. So she 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. When she 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. 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. 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. 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 Bir La Hiroi. It is still there between Kadesh and Bared. So Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram gave him the name Ishmael to the son she had borne. Abram was eighty six years old when Hagar bore him Ishmael. Let's go ahead and pause and listen to the Lord. You can pause this podcast for a moment if you'd like, and then we'll carry on. Alright, before we jump in, I want to ask you a question for you to mull over while we go through the rest of our time together. Aside from God, who is this story primarily about? Think about that. Alright, let's move into some observation. And we see, I see, I guess, uh really four movements uh that happen in this part of the story, and we're starting with what I'm calling the unnecessary intervention. We could also use unwelcome, unprovoked, unfulfilling. Uh, none of this goes particularly well, and we see that in verses one through four. And we see how uh there's this promise that God has made to Abram and to Sarai, but they together really decide to take matters into their own hands. And you know, on the one hand, uh this just feels like people being crazy, right? Trying to fulfill God's promises on their own, which is really futility defined. But on the other hand, this whole business of Sarai saying, hey, go go sleep with Hagar and and everybody kind of being, I guess, okay with this question mark. Um on the other hand, we would be fooling ourselves, right, if we didn't put ourselves into their shoes. Sarai's in particular, no doubt at this point, she was still carrying the shame of being barren. That's how we met her. Remember, we go all the way back to Genesis 11 at the very end, and it's just it's how she's described. That would have been sitting with her quite strongly, and then add to that, she's now quite a bit older than she was when we first met her, and the promise of God has yet to be fulfilled. I kind of understand why she was kind of taking desperate measures and and her faith. Well, we can look at her lack of faith or her unwillingness to believe that God would do the thing that he said he would do. There's just there's just a lot going on. So I'm I'm just doing my best here to to remind us that these were humans, right? They're people, they were living life, and we can certainly, certainly relate to moments where we we basically make the wrong choice. Also, while the idea of asking her husband to take Hagar as his second wife and to sleep with her, like that's the worst compromise in a marriage. There are all kinds of like weirdness going on with that, and and it's just, you know, some things that we don't really comprehend or understand in in our society, and it just seems like morally wrong, even just on its surface. But don't forget that Abram had done that very thing to her when they were in Egypt. And he said that she was his sister. He put her in that compromising uh situation. So all of this to me, again, is that unnecessary intervention. It's that that thing where where people try to do for God what God has already promised that he would do. Well, we move then into the second part of verse four through to verse six, and we find the unbearable consequences. The thing works. Hagar conceives. And and then it seems like Hagar helped herself to some like sassy attitude about the whole bit. We just see a little snippet of it. It just says when she knew she was pregnant, this is the last part of verse four, she began to despise her mistress, which is Sarai. And then Sarai's like, Abram, like this is your fault. You're responsible for the wrong I am suffering. I put my slave in your arms, and now that she's pregnant, she despises me. May the Lord uh judge between you and me. Uh the the mood around the dinner table got a little uh a little tense, it seems, and um, it's just kind of this craziness, right? Like we took matters into our own hands, and then we didn't calculate out, right, what would happen if our actions produced what we wanted our actions to produce. Uh and then we see, and I'm just gonna call it a smidgen of wisdom, because I don't know that it's fully wisdom here, but Abram kind of says, Well, uh, Sarai, like she's your slave, you do with her as you see fit. And so he he certainly sides with his wife, with his first wife, I guess we could say that. And Hagar is sent away. By the way, I don't know that that part was necessarily wisdom. And we just look at this and we see that our covenant couple isn't doing so hot at this part in the story. Like the narrative here really has gone off script. And if we kind of go back to that whole idea of like observing what's happening, like for us, the readers of this of this passage of this story, uh we we just notice that there's a shift that happens in the scene, and we take our eyes off of Abram and Sarah, and it it moves uh over to Hagar. And we read that part in verses 7 through 12. So we have uh these different uns that are happening uh along along the way. So we have the unnecessary intervention, the unbearable consequence, and then the undeterred presence, which is a reference here to God. That's who I'm saying is undeterred in his presence. The angel of the Lord seeks Hagar out, and he finds her, he finds her by that spring in the desert, and he encourages her to go back, and he gives her his own promise or her own, like it's a promise directly between the Lord and uh and Hagar. Her descendants would also become, quote, too numerous to count. You know, Abram and Sarai treated uh Hagar badly, like they really did. When you think about this, like it's pretty brutal. She is essentially used, right, by the two of them. You know, uh Sarai offers her to Abram, Abram sleeps with her, all to use her body essentially to give Sarai a family. Like that, there's no part of that that feels right or good because it isn't right or good, right? There's just, and there are some cultural things that I recognize that are there that don't make sense to us, but on no level does any of this seem fair. And then, again, when everything works out, they still treat her badly, they cast her away, and Sarai in particular is the active one in that, sends her away, and and and so all of that is happening. But you know what? The Lord sees. The Lord sees exactly what's going on, and he doesn't leave Hagar just to be out there on her own, to just remain in misery. He goes and meets with her and gives her a promise that is encouraging and also a little bit interesting, talking about how Ishmael would be a donkey of a man, kind of wild and his hand against everybody else. But nonetheless, he brings that assurance and and that sense of not being abandoned, of her having the Lord with her through this experience, and that's had to have been a really special moment for her. And then finally, in verses 13 through 16, we have the unabandoned woman, right? Again, just building off that idea that the Lord sought her out and he didn't withdraw from her, but then we see that she is unabandoned. Hagar recognizes that the Lord sees her and cares for her. And it's interesting, you know, we we see that little phrase there, which I think is super cool. Um, she says in verse 13, You are the God who sees me, for she said, I have now seen the one who sees me. What an incredible like bit of wisdom that that she gives us. I've seen the one who sees me. To be seen, to be known, to be cared for, to be understood, all of that is profound in our lives. And then certainly it was it was for her. And I noticed that this is happening there by this spring that's in the desert. This place where physical refreshment and renewal are offered. Like when you're moving through a desert and you come across uh come across a fresh water spring, like how joyous are you when you see that, when it's not like an illusion, it's not the figment of your imagination, but it's actually genuinely there. There's there's fresh water, and your body can be rehydrated and you can make sense of your life again, and all of that is there. So it's this oasis of renewal and refreshment there in the midst of the desert. And in the midst of her, probably what felt like spiritual dryness, emotional, you know, just being completely drained, being cast out, all of those things, Hagar receives hope, real hope, spiritual hope, all because God sought her and restored her. All right, you may have come to a different conclusion, and your conclusion is totally valid if you think differently, but I would say that this story, including the beginning, is really about Hagar. And uh and while Abram and Sarai, you know, are are kind of our main protagonists through this part of Genesis, uh, this part of the story I think really does feature her, and uh, and she is somebody who is really kind of overlooked and used and abused um by by the people that God chose to uh to give his promise to, and yet God sees her to she matters, and she is cherished by him. I wanted to reflect just specifically on two things. The first one is just kind of an observation, I guess, as well, but God does see the ones that are overlooked and cast aside. And no matter what the world tells you or me, none of us are problems to God. We're people. And even when others treat us as less than in some way, or they kind of just maybe look over the top of us or don't value our words or our presence or those kinds of things, God does. He looks out for us, and we see that actually not just in this story, but in so many times throughout the the course of scripture, God looking out for those that society generally overlooks. I just wanted you to know that. And then a question for you Who are the people in your life that need someone to remind them that they are seen as well? Think about them. God's thinking about them, so let's join him in that. Let's pray. Jesus, thank you for today. God thank you that you do see us and know us. God help us to to be like you in that. Help us to look out for the ones who tend to get overlooked. Help us to have courage and help us to have compassion. We ask this in your name. Amen.