The God Who Sees
This Sunday’s Narrative Lectionary reading, Genesis 12:1-9, was about Abram and the initial promise of God to make him and his descendants prosper. But reading further into Abram’s story, there are many twists and turns, ups and downs. Abram was faithful, yes. But Abram was also human. And Abram and Sarai let doubt creep in about God’s promises.
Enter Hagar, Sarai’s handmaid. Sarai and Abram at this point are old, far past the point in life where having children is a human possibility. Sarai, having never had children before, has a hard time believing God’s promise that they would have a son. So, she does what many of us do: she comes up with a human solution to fulfill God’s promise.
“Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had not been able to bear children for him. But she had an Egyptian servant named Hagar. So Sarai said to Abram, “The Lord has prevented me from having children. Go and sleep with my servant. Perhaps I can have children through her.” And Abram agreed with Sarai’s proposal. So Sarai, Abram’s wife, took Hagar the Egyptian servant and gave her to Abram as a wife. (This happened ten years after Abram had settled in the land of Canaan.) So Abram had sexual relations with Hagar, and she became pregnant. But when Hagar knew she was pregnant, she began to treat her mistress, Sarai, with contempt.”
Genesis 16:1-4 NLT
So here are some humans who are replicating what happened in Eden. We have a promise from God that hasn’t happened yet, and a human who gets it in her head that maybe there’s another, better, easier, quicker way to make this happen. So she takes things into her own hands and offers something to her husband: the chance at having a child. It’s the thing God promised. Right?
Except it isn’t how God said it would happen. And so Abram shrugs and is like, “Yep. Sounds good to me.” And boom. Hagar is pregnant with his child.
Everything’s good. Just as God—er, Sarai—planned.
But now Sarai feels ostracized and hated because she can’t have children, and so…
“Then Sarai said to Abram, “This is all your fault! I put my servant into your arms, but now that she’s pregnant she treats me with contempt. The Lord will show who’s wrong—you or me!” Abram replied, “Look, she is your servant, so deal with her as you see fit.” Then Sarai treated Hagar so harshly that she finally ran away.”
Genesis 16:5-6 NLT
Sarai, feeling hated and despised by her servant, blames Abram. Because…wait. But it was Sarai’s idea in the first place! Ahh, human emotions! Always on point.
Abram takes Adam’s way out and throws it back in Sarai’s court, not taking any responsibility for his part in all this drama. (He had agreed that it was a good idea, and considering Hagar was a servant, Abram definitely had the power in this power dynamic.) Also, he ignores the fact that he had taken Hagar as a wife (see v. 3) and instead of giving her the protection a wife needed and deserved in that time, he treats her as a servant and tells Sarai to handle the situation. Which she does. By mistreating Hagar. We don’t know for sure what kind of mistreatment this was—verbal abuse? physical abuse? manipulation?—but whatever the case, Hagar gets scared and runs away.
This is the part that has stuck with me this past week: Hagar is an Egyptian servant. As an outsider (both because of being Egyptian and because of being a servant) Hagar was not included in the promises God made to Abram. She is out of place, out of sorts, and, it seems, out of hope.
Hagar has run into the wilderness of Shur, and she stops near a spring. It is here that “the Angel of the Lord” (is this "just" an angel? Or is it, like in the story of Shadrach, Meschach, & Abednego, likely the pre-incarnate Jesus?) finds Hagar and speaks with her.
“The angel of the Lord found Hagar beside a spring of water in the wilderness, along the road to Shur. The angel said to her, “Hagar, Sarai’s servant, where have you come from, and where are you going?” “I’m running away from my mistress, Sarai,” she replied. The angel of the Lord said to her, “Return to your mistress, and submit to her authority.” Then he added, “I will give you more descendants than you can count.” And the angel also said, “You are now pregnant and will give birth to a son. You are to name him Ishmael (which means ‘God hears’), for the Lord has heard your cry of distress. This son of yours will be a wild man, as untamed as a wild donkey! He will raise his fist against everyone, and everyone will be against him. Yes, he will live in open hostility against all his relatives.” Thereafter, Hagar used another name to refer to the Lord, who had spoken to her. She said, “You are the God who sees me.” She also said, “Have I truly seen the One who sees me?” So that well was named Beer-lahai-roi (which means “well of the Living One who sees me”). It can still be found between Kadesh and Bered. So Hagar gave Abram a son, and Abram named him Ishmael. Abram was eighty-six years old when Ishmael was born.”
Genesis 16:7-16 NLT
In this beautiful turn of events, God (whether as the pre-incarnate Christ or through an angel) sees Hagar, a foreign-born servant woman impregnated by her mistress's husband, alone in the wilderness. God sees Hagar, truly sees her. And then...he gives Hagar a promise! Hagar will also have "more descendants than [she] can count" (and later on in Genesis, God also promises to make Ishmael a great nation, though not the nation of the covenant). After hearing this news, Hagar becomes the first person to name God. She calls God, "The Living One Who Sees Me."
There is actually another story in scripture that tells us about the One Who Sees.
In the gospel of John, we very briefly meet Nathanael, one of Jesus's disciples.
On the next day Jesus wanted to set out for Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.” (Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the town of Andrew and Peter.) 45 Philip found Nathanael and told him, “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the law, and the prophets also wrote about – Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” 46 Nathanael replied, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip replied, “Come and see.”
Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and exclaimed, “Look, a true Israelite in whom there is no deceit!” Nathanael asked him, “How do you know me?” Jesus replied, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.” Nathanael answered him, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the king of Israel!” Jesus said to him, “Because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree, do you believe? You will see greater things than these.” He continued, “I tell all of you the solemn truth – you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”
John 1:43-51 NET
Here, Jesus meets Nathanael by telling him, "I saw you." And Nathanael believes and follows.
How has God told you that God sees you? Have you been in the wilderness, running away, or under a fig tree, and then God showed up and said, "I see you"?
What does it mean for God to see us? What does it mean for us to be seen?
Drop your thoughts in the comments below or in our Facebook group.