March 14: Genesis 16

Today's reading.

Hagar had a rough life. She was a slave in the house of a wealthy family. Not only was she a slave, but she was far from home; she was from Egypt (16:3) but lived now in Canaan with her masters. Not only did she not have a choice when it came to her job, but as a slave she did not even get to exert her will when it came to her own body. She was forced by Sarai to sleep with 80-something Abram. Hagar was so poor, so oppressed, so dehumanized that she was used for her sex organs and then tossed away when no longer needed. Hagar had a rough life.

Two things strike me when I reflect on this passage. The first is that her oppressors are Christian. The second is that God cares even for those whom Christians treat shamefully.

No one forced Sarai to give Hagar to her husband. It was her idea. And Abram went right along with it. The one who "believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness" (15:6), shrugs his shoulders at his wife's suggestion and invites Hagar into his tent. Hagar suffers gross injustice at the hands of God's nascent church. That fact makes me take a step back and wonder where my own blind spots are. How am I tempted to treat those outside the church with contempt? Where am I committing injustice? Abraham—the father of our faith, the one that Scripture says is counted as father to both the church and to Christ himself—forced a slave girl to have sex with him and bear his child! That sounds bad to us; is there anything in our lives that we take for granted that other generations would look upon in shock and horror?

Even in the midst of the worst sins of his church, God comes to the aid of the oppressed and afflicted. He comes to Hagar after she's been thrown out like garbage, meets her in the midst of her darkest hour, and saves her. And even in spite of the sin of God's people, Hagar comes to faith: "she called the name of the LORD who spoke to her, 'You are a God of seeing,' for she said, 'Truly here I have seen him who looks after me'" (16:13).

God is able to take the worst of our sin, injustice and oppression and make it work together for good (Rom. 8:28). God used humanity's worst sin, the unjust murder of his own Son, to redeem us from that very sin! He takes Abram and Sarai's worst sin and uses it to reveal himself to their victim. God gives life where death reigned. That is the beauty of the gospel.