Genesis 16

Wow - one and a half years have past since I last blogged!! Picking up Genesis 16 are reading it with a fresh perspective, shaped significantly by my reading of Tom Wright, has given me some new insight into the passage.

I was confused as to why Hagar would cherish the promise made to her by God that Ishmael would indeed live and become a nation, a nation at conflict with everyone around. I suppose it had not occurred to me the Hagar was a slave girl with little prospect of a meaningful future. She was at the mercy of Abram and Sarai to the point that they could determine if, who and when she would marry. Her life was marked by obscurity and there was little possibility of anything significant ever happening to her. Apart from this I guess I was blinkered by the prevailing individualism that has shaped my world view. Today our aspiration rarely reach beyond our careers or at best for the success of our immediate family. We have lost touch with the identity of families, clans, tribes and even nations. If pressed we may consent to the possibility that it would be nice for our nation to prosper but that thought will quickly move on to the more significant question of our own prosperity and our own progression. We take it for granted that life in the UK will go on and we take it for granted that our children will grow old and most likely have children of their own. For Abram and Hagar though the liklihood of longevity for family and tribe was far less certain. The dream of the next generation surviving and progressing was by no means a given. Considering that they lived in a world where conflict was common it would have been a bonus for Hagar's descentdents to live at peace. What is significant to Hagar is that her descendents would live at all, let alone that they would become a a nation of significance. This is far more than most slave girls would have ever imagined or dared to dream off. Above and beyond this Hagar future had been revealed to her by God. Hagar is overwhelmed that she has met with God and lived. Hagar, a slave girl, met with God! To meet with God was one thing but to meet with him, live and walk away with the promise that you would be the mother of a nation is altogether mind blowing for a woman of any generation but particularly for a slave from a God fearing family like Abram's.

There is something about this passage that exposes our narrow, shallow and selfish world view. I look back and am surprised that I couldn't identify with Hagar's joy. How could I read this passage over and over again and miss the significance of what had happened to her.

Its passage's like these that should help us grasp one of the big themes of the bible - "the people of God". The bible wasn't written to celebrate the greatness of a collection of individuals but was rather a story in which God is seeking to establish a family, a family that will bless the earth and will become a "people". God's story is searching for the creation of a worldwide family that live under his blessing. His work in the lives of individuals is a significant part of achieving that end, but it is not the end in itself. We need to see beyond individuals again and see that God is at work to establish the Church.