Praying Towards Sunday
Our Old Testament lesson this coming Sunday is from Genesis (21:8-21). It’s the ancient story of Hagar, the Egyptian “slave-girl” of Sarah (Sarai), who becomes the mother of Abraham’s first son when Sarah was—for a long time—unable to bear a child with her husband. Hagar is one of the most “overlooked and underappreciated women of the Hebrew Bible,” says author Lindsay Hardin Freeman in her extraordinary book, Bible Women: All Their Words and Why They Matter.
Hagar was directed by Sarah to have a child with and for Abraham, to give him an heir. While it would have been an honor to bear the child of the tribe’s leader, the sex with the most powerful man in the tribe was likely not consensual, Freeman notes. Hagar taunts Sarah, so when years later Sarah is able to bear a son, Isaac, she tells Abraham she wants Hagar and her son, Ishmael gone, banished. Sent packing with only a little bread and “a skin of water” to the desert wilderness.
A different author, Fay Rowland, writing on the Reflectionary blog, says, if we are honest, there are times we can all find ourselves “doing a Sarah”—acting out of fear, insecurity and other pretty unflattering motivations. Likewise, she writes, perhaps you find yourself “in a ‘Hagar place.’” You’re being treated unjustly, through no fault of your own, and feeling excluded and abandoned.
The remarkable thing is whether you are in a Hagar place or a “Sarah
place”—struggling to cope with the consequences of your own actions and causing hurt to others—the Good News is God can find you when you call his name. And so, we pray:
“Heavenly Father, when we wander in desert of despair, when our resources run dry and we feel overwhelmed, open our eyes to the wells of provision that You place right in front of us. Hear the cries of our hearts and those we love, and provide comfort when the way seems dark. Grant us the courage to trust Your promises.
In Jesus' name, Amen.”
Blessings,
Father Tom
