The woman who named God (The servant girl)

We are quite busy in our modern lives and have all sorts of gadgets to make life easy. The washing machine cleans our clothes, while the vacuum cleans the home. We now have air fryers and microwaves to cook food. Technology to make lives comfortable. Yet amidst all the technology, we also rely on people – maids, gardeners, helpers, drivers to name a few. We need these people from the lower rung of society to come into our homes to make life easy for us. And they do, they come in and cook our meals, clean our homes, wash our clothes, water the garden and even look after our children. But what do we do for them? Do we thank and appreciate them or do we think they have their wage and they should perform? 

When I look at these men and women who come into our homes to work for us, I am reminded of a servant girl who worked in one such home, did her job and did everything she was asked to do, even birth a child for the family. The story of Hagar is a story of struggle and how God meets us in our circumstances. Yet most times, we have paid more attention to Abraham and Sarah and relegated Hagar to being the villain. However, Hagar’s life and story demonstrate how God comes to us in our darkest moments, irrespective of how messy our lives are.

Hagar was an Egyptian slave to Abraham and Sarah (cf. Genesis 16:1). As a slave she represents the voice of those abused and abandoned, people who have been left to die. In the book of Genesis Chapter 15, God had promised Abram descendants as numerous as the stars. (cf. Genesis 15:5). But Sarai and Abram were impatient and they couldn’t wait for God to fulfil his promise. They decided to take matters into their own hands. Just like many of us do, we aren’t willing to wait for God’s redemption or blessing. While waiting, we have to encounter taunts and insults and we are not willing to wait. Many childless couples take the route of artificial insemination or IVF because they cannot wait for God’s time. Girls and boys impatient for marriage get into wrong relationships because they can’t wait for God’s chosen partner. Sarai and Abram couldn’t wait as well. They decide they need to act and Sarai asks her husband Abram to take their slave girl Hagar as his wife (cf. Genesis 16:2). We aren’t told whether Abram protested or thought about it. The very same verse says “Abram hearkened to the voice of Sar′ai”. Abram has intercourse with Hagar and she conceives (cf. Genesis 16: 4). In her pride of bearing her master’s heir, Hagar looks with contempt at Sarai, and Sarai then comes to regret her entire plan and makes life miserable for Hagar. 

The pregnant Hagar who is unable to bear Sarai’s cruelty runs away into the wilderness where she first encounters an angel of the Lord. Hagar runs from humiliation and cruelty like so many of us do. Consider how we treat our servants and maids. Do we taunt and humiliate them so that they are forced to run away and look for alternate jobs? Even though Hagar ran away, God met her in the wilderness and assured her that she, would bear a son; you shall call his name Ish′mael; because the Lord has given heed to your affliction. He shall be a wild ass of a man, his hand against every man and every man’s hand against him; and he shall dwell over against all his kinsmen (cf. Genesis 16: 11-12). The Lord assured Hagar that he would also multiply her descendants. She then names God as the God who sees. Hagar is the only person in the Bible to name God. Truly we may run away thinking that would solve our problems. But we can’t escape the Lord. “Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence?” (Ps 139:7) Many times, we trust in God to fix our problems, but His solution for us may be to ‘return and submit’ to our pain. Hagar heeds the word of the Lord and returns.

In the book of Genesis 16: 15-16 we read: And Hagar bore Abram a son; and Abram called the name of his son, whom Hagar bore, Ishmael. Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to Abram. Soon God fulfills his promise and a son is born to Sarah and he is named Isaac. Abraham was a hundred years old at the birth of Isaac (cf. Genesis 21:5). God had promised Abraham he would have a son when he was 85, and God fulfilled his word when Abraham was a hundred years old. As Isaac grew, on the day of his weaning, Abraham organised a feast. Ishmael who must have been in his teens was playing with Isaac. When Sarah sees them playing, she asks Abraham “to cast out this slave woman with her son; for the son of this slave woman shall not be heir to my son Isaa,”. (Genesis 21:10). Though Abraham was displeased, he heeded God’s voice and sent Hagar and Ishmael away. Ishmael – a young man who is asked to leave with his mother. They leave and wander in the wilderness of Beersheba. 

When the water she had with her is over, she is worried about her child’s welfare. Knowing that she will not find food and water in the desert, she is certain of death. But unable to see her son die, she gets him to sit in one of the bushes and she goes a distance away from him. As the child sees his mother leave, he weeps and cries and the Lord hears the cry of Ishmael. Psalm 18:6 “In my distress, I called upon the Lord and cried out to my God; He heard my voice from His temple, and my cry came before Him, even to His ears.” God comes to Hagar a second time and calls out to her, “Fear not; for God has heard the voice of the lad where he is.” Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water, and she went, and filled the skin with water, and gave the lad a drink (Genesis 21:19).  

And God was with the lad, and he grew up; he lived in the wilderness, and became an expert with the bow. He lived in the wilderness of Paran, and his mother took a wife for him from the land of Egypt (Genesis 21: 20-21). God was with Ishmael just as he was with the prophets, and the apostles and just like he is with us. Hagar met God during her pain and abandonment. She was in a foreign land, living among foreign people, people alien to her. Hagar, a non-Israelite woman with no power was met by God and was the only woman who gave God a name. Through all her pain and struggles, God blesses her and fulfills his promise in her life.

Lessons from Hagar

• Even in moments our despair and struggle, call out to God and he will come to us. Hagar just like Abraham and Sarah is our model of faith, for she shows us where to find God. 
• God never forsakes us. He accompanies us in the wilderness of our lives, of our mission, of our failure, and so on. 

Proofread and edited by Fr Austin Fernandes SDB