The Difficult Story of Hagar...

Praying Statue, a photo by paynehollow on Flickr.

...and the difficult stories of sexual exploitation/oppression.

We have a friend who is a minister in Morocco and she preached at our church two Sundays ago. I've excerpted bits of the sermon here, and you can read the whole thing at my church blog. In the sermon, she compares the difficult biblical story of Hagar (Abram's concubine/sex slave) and compares it with those who are forced into prostitution in Africa. It's a painful, challenging sermon if you're inclined to give it a try.

Hagar’s story is one of many poignant and painful stories of women in Hebrew scripture. It’s a tale in which we see how flawed our forebears in the faith could be (and believe me I'm grateful for that, because it reminds us how real they are). But the story is hard...

And though the Genesis story is ultimately redemptive, in Christian tradition Hagar’s legacy is tainted by Paul’s disparaging metaphorical use of her story in Galatians – we are children of the free woman and not children of the slave woman. Ugh. Why did he have to say that? The stigma of slavery sticks to her as if she were to blame for the injustice of her lot in life.

But Muslims don’t have that baggage. Hagar is a faith hero in Islam, even if, interestingly enough, her name, her story doesn’t show up in the Qur’an...

Hagar didn’t have to try to remember that she needed God. Hagar, as a female slave, was sexually (and every other way) exploited, a foreigner in the service of a nomadic family, themselves strangers in a strange land; she was the lowliest of the low. Muslim tradition says she was given to Sarah by Egypt’s pharaoh while Sarah was kept in his harem. Hagar lived completely at the mercy of those who possessed her; she had no one to turn to when she was in need or distress.

So when she can take Sarah’s harsh treatment no longer, Hagar reaches out to … no one; she simply runs away. It is the angel of the Lord who reaches out to her, who seeks Hagar and finds her beside a spring in the wilderness. There God’s angel calls her by name, encourages her, and blesses her...

Over the past nine months, I have met a lot of women who could be called Hagar. Though more often than not, they are called Blessing, Precious, Praise, Grace, Gift, Glory, Beauty, Esther. They are sub-Saharan African women, mostly Nigerian, whose experience resonates with that of Hagar.

While they are not officially slaves, they are all caught up in a human trafficking network that has forced them into prostitution (explicitly so or de facto) in Morocco...

And then we got up and danced and sang praises to God. Blessing (one of four women bearing that name) led us in a praise song that recalled how Jesus had walked with them through every trial. We sang verse after verse in Nigerian pidgin English with different hardships noted. Jesus walked with them they sang and they were right.

But bad things still happened to them. All the time. In the workshop, they made a banner representing their experience in Morocco; it is covered with human figures who are, let’s just say, explicitly anatomically correct and clearly male. Sexual exploitation is at the center of their existence. But, still, you can look at their faces when they sing and know it’s not everything. It’s not the whole of who they are...

And it's particular hard for us to let ourselves see people in need, obviously in trouble... We don’t want to see too much because we might understand too much, feel too connected, feel called to get involved and we are already doing so much. We might even be pushed to see more than we bargained for – connections between our lifestyles and their misery. And what do we do with that? What do we do with them? Do we squeeze our eyes shut and plug our ears?

Well, that’s not what God does. And as children of the Living, Hearing, Seeing God, we are called to begin, I believe, by opening our eyes and our ears...

I know you share with me this dream for these women who are indeed Blessed and Blessing in God’s sight, Precious, Graced, Gifted and Beautiful, their own names bearing witness to this truth. And it’s my prayer for us, for me and for all you who are here, that we, too, may know the deep, blessed truth of God’s seeing and hearing us and have eyes to see and ears to hear one another, to be part of that flow of blessing.

Now and forevermore. Amen.