Finding

 Genesis 21:8-21

Hagar gets lost in sermons, or even in conversation in any studies of the church. We have just celebrated Juneteenth on Friday. Here it seems to pass with no celebration at all, which takes more back to Hagar.

There are incredible things in this story. First is the way in which we seem to be given permission to treat another with disdain. Sarah has no care for her. In our first encounter with Hagar she is given to Abraham, no choice or her own all that be can have an heir, which seems unlikely to come from Sarah. She doesn't get a choice or a voice. She is a slave after all.

Next Sarah treats her unkindly and she runs away. She doesn't want to be hit and degraded by Sarah. God tells her to go back. It is so not what Jesus teaches us many times we don't want to look at this text. It is where we get all the ways in which we have treated others unfairly and justified it. Yet that would ignore the ending of this story which we read today.

Today Sarah wants to be rid of Hagar once and for all. She is jealous that her son may not get what is coming to him. Juneteenth marks around about the day black people found out they were free after the civil war had been over for a while and because there wasn't Instagram or social media it took a while for news go travel. Never mind that white people didn't want things to change. They were afraid to lose their inheritance to black people.

Hagar's story doesn't end there though. Next she gives up. She is thirsty, near death, her son is near death but God hears the boys cry. God does something God doesn't do with any woman of the Bible. God makes a covenant with Hagar. God promises they will get through and live. Not only that but God will make a great nation out of their descendants. A promise to a woman. A woman who is not Jewish. A woman who is a slave. Yet God makes this covenant with her granting her a freedom she didn't think was possible.

This is the whole message of the Bible. The unlikely, the ones who don't look the part, the ones deemed unworthy are the ones God sees with different eyes. This is the story of how we are most blind to that. When we start seeing with God's eyes we then know how much we miss.

Juneteenth passes by here without much celebration because we don't see the slave camps on the hills falling into the ground. We don't hear about the desegregation of the schools. We don't hear about the people having to go to the colored fountain or bathroom. We don't even know about the history of how long it took to finally know you were free. This is a day to once again remind us to see with God's eyes and grant freedom to all.