Keeping His Eyes on You Sunday, May 14, 2017 Series: Mother s Day Scripture: Genesis 16:1-16 (pg. 19) Theme: God sees you. [Opening: Invisible Woman video] Would it matter to you if you knew that God sees you? I want to read for you an old, old story about an invisible mom Very 1 st book of the Bible if you d like to follow along: Genesis 16:1-16 READ, SLIDES ============================= Now, we didn t get here by accident There are some really important story-lines that brought us to this point Perhaps the most important: Abram & Sarai had been promised a son But that was over a decade ago 10+ years and the 2 were already old then now they re a decade older. Now, in the Christian world, Abram & Sarai take a lot of grief for taking matters into their own hands But I m not sure I can ever find it in myself to be critical because after 10 years of waiting I think I, too, would be wondering, Did we miss something? Did we misunderstand? Maybe God is waiting for us to do something? Maybe this is the way? -2- I can hardly find it in myself to blame them for trying some other way So, they try the surrogate mom approach. People get all whacked out about what Sarai & Abram did but I m not sure why Surrogate moms are quite common and always have been. Granted Abram & Sarai didn t have the more sterile, scientific approach available to us today But it s essentially the same idea And people in every culture, for as long as we have recorded history, people who want children badly enough have been doing the same thing. However, where these 2 bible giants do go wrong is in their treatment of Hagar Hagar is an Egyptian and she is what we would call a house-slave of Sarai. Now, Hagar will return home to Abram & Sarai after her running away episode she will stay with this family for several years until the treatment again gets so bad she will, in desperation, run away again Genesis 21 tells the story the 2 nd time for good. However, in all the time that Hagar spends as a house slave of Sarai Abram & Sarai never once call her by name- at least as it s recorded here It s always, the Egyptian or the servant Tell the Egyptian get the servant. Hagar never hears her own name.
-3- What s more Hagar has no say in this surrogate deal She s not asked she doesn t volunteer she s not offered a tidy sum of money or even a small gift. Sarai gives her, like a woman might give a leftover sweater to Good Will And Abraham takes her like a man might take a burger & fries from the young man behind the counter at 5-Guys she is given she is taken. And finally, although Abram is willing to accept the child as his own What does this noble man do when his wife, Sarai wants to get rid of Hagar? Why nothing. Nothing. He allows a pregnant woman, whose pregnancy is due entirely to his own whim; a woman who has no resources, and who is a stranger in a land not her own --- He does nothing and allows her to be driven away. Now granted Hagar has been acting a little uppity since she became pregnant in place of Sarai Maybe she was hoping for better treatment from Abram I don t know But you need to know that there are multiple episodes of surrogates and polygamous relationships in the Bible and most of them go badly. Tensions in these situations are always high A little pride flowing from Hagar doesn t justify her abuse. -4- Bottom line: Abram & Sarai perform poorly. One of my favorite Jane Austen scenes one I quote often comes from the story, Emma Emma has a friend who is of lower class than she- And Emma treats her quite rudely one day on a strawberry-picking outing Emma finds a way to quite cleverly humiliate her lower-class friend in front of Emma s friends It s an uncomfortable moment And then Mr. Knightly pulls her aside and very firmly says, Badly done, Emma. Badly done. It s a scolding that s well-deserved And it could be said here as well Badly done, you two, badly done. So, Hagar is driven away Now- if this is too much detail forgive me [PIC] Although we can t be sure of all the locations We re pretty sure Abram is camped at Hebron when this happens and we know where Hebron is. Hagar is running back home, to Egypt The road she s taking is identified as the road to Shur and we think we know what road that is We also think we know what well we re dealing w/ - the well Hagar named Beer-Lahai-Roi So we have a pretty good idea of where Hagar ends up [Pic] She has walked about 70 miles from Hebron
-5- She s pregnant alone She is in a very desolate area known as the Negev This is called the wilderness sometimes in the Bible it s desolate barren brown [PIC] And you do not travel here unprepared On this road you must know the wells or you re going to die Although we re not going to look at Hagar s 2 nd running away she barely survives the Negev the 2 nd time and it s only a miracle she does. [PIC] So: in this barren place sits a woman. She s never been called by name she s always heard herself called, the slave the Egyptian She was given she was taken And, pregnant and desperate and alone: she s been driven away. She is, truly, the Invisible Woman. I read that England is known as the Acid-Attack capital of the world [PIC] According to the most recent statistics: almost 500 women who have acid thrown on their faces in the last year. This is always because in one or two religions & cultures, a woman dishonors the males in her family if she is seen sometimes even just talking with a male outside her family -6- No one will come to her aid in England, at least, there is the possibility of something approaching justice But these women will live the rest of their lives, often blind, scarred, literally marked as a dishonored woman Made invisible in a horrible way. [PIC] I read an account of one man s recent trip to Calcutta He wrote, heartbreakingly about his work in the brothels in Calcutta The younger, prettier women are considered to be the lucky ones because they are picked first and more often Given & taken much like Hagar was The older, more haggard women get less business and often get taken by the more abusive men He also wrote that it is not all that unusual for a woman to decide that being invisible, as she is there is no hope to escape this life and it is a life she cannot live so they will sometimes douse themselves with gasoline and immolate themselves Then she s at least a statistic Invisible in an unbearable way. [OFF] Of course it doesn t take such horror for women to feel invisible
-7- Especially on this day I ve heard from women about some of the pain that is secret & often invisible-making- Women who may have, because they believed it to be the best possible hope for a child, gave a child for adoption Women who carry some deep secret about a long-ago pregnancy Women, who, when asked about children will point to the one or two standing there but there is always the memory of the one, sometimes more than one, that they never got to hold, or maybe they held for just a few short minutes But he was still a child still had a name But it s kind of a secret pain few understand It s invisible Women who, more than anything want to be a mom and are not maybe will never Or women who don t want to be and are sometimes made to feel lesser as if they ve somehow settled for a cheaper dream I suppose the number of ways that a person can be made to feel invisible are countless It might be you sometimes feel invisible and it has nothing whatsoever to do with being a mom, or maybe even a woman. -8- If so, Hagar is your champion and I want to show you why There are two names given in this account 3 actually, but two are very closely connected. Now, you need to know that in Hebrew, names are more than something that sounds nice or that you like or that you & your husband can agree on or even a way to honor a family member. Names are always a personal statement of belief. They are often a person s creed A statement about what he or she believes about God that is most meaningful You see this all the time in scripture Even in the naming of Jesus, for example Jesus is the Hebrew names, Yeshua it s connected to the OT name Joshua It means rescuer or deliverer or savior and Mary & Joseph are told to name him Yeshua because he will save his people from their sins. That happens all the time in Scripture almost every name has meaning because it is a statement of belief A personal creed. [PIC] Here, Hagar is told to name her son, Ishmael which means, God hears
-9- And every time Hagar would say his name calling him for dinner, telling him to put down the frog, or to be home before 11 Every time she said, Ishmael she would be reminded that God hears her --- he heard the cry of distress from a once-invisible woman. But there is even a more important name This is the name that Hagar actually gives to God And this is really significant, because do you know that in all of Scripture, Hagar is the only person who ever gives God a name [PIC] God will give himself many names El-shaddai God, the might one. El-elyon God most high. Hagar gives God a name, and it s marvelous: [PIC] El-roi God who sees me. Some Bibles, like the one I read from struggle to figure out, Do we put the Hebrew here, which hardly anyone can read or do we put the translation here? Ours puts the translation and skips the Hebrew But it s there, v. 13 Thereafter, Hagar used another name to refer to the Lord who had spoken to her. She said, You are El-Roi, the God who sees me. [OFF] I wonder if you know how huge it is that an invisible woman says, Finally finally, someone sees me. -10- What is it w/ our eyes? What is it about being seen? A philosopher named William Tammeus once said, You really don t understand human nature unless you know why a child on a merry-go-round will wave at his parents every time around and why his parents will always wave back. We need to be seen I m sure you ve all noticed how, during one of our children s programs --- We ll line up all of our kids on the steps and the moment they turn around that start looking for one or two sets of eyes And often, when they find them they wave And most times, mom or dad or both will wave back The kids might look around a little bit, of course But always their eyes will drift back to that one spot It s funny a teacher is usually sitting down here w/ the words to the song all that trouble they went to to write the words w/ big letters w/ red magic marker on 30 different pieces of card-stock and she checked and double-checked to make sure they re in the right order But most of the eyes are back there anyway
-11- As if the child is saying, I m in a scary place right now and I m a little bit farther away than I want to be but as long as I can see you and I know you can see me I m pretty sure I ll be OK. We need to be seen. A woman named Deborah Tannen wrote a fun little book called, You Just Don t Understand and in it she told the story of her 75-year-old aunt who lived several states away She was widowed for many years & spent more than a decade living alone in an apartment in a senior care facility where she could move from one unit to the next as she would gradually need more care She s a woman who, like many in these years, begins to feel invisible from family, from friends, from a world that values youth and pretty young things She wrote this: My great-aunt, for many years a widow, had a love affair when she was in her seventies. Obese, balding, her hands and legs misshapen by arthritis, she did not fit the stereotype of a woman romantically loved. But she was by a man, also in his seventies, who lived in a nursing home but who occasionally spent weekends with her in her apartment. In trying to tell me on the phone what this relationship meant to her, my great-aunt told of a conversation. One evening she had dinner out, with friends. When she returned home, her male friend -12- called and she told him about dinner. He listened with interest and asked her, So what did you wear? When she told me this, she began to cry: Do you know how many years it s been since anyone asked me what I wore? What her great-aunt was saying, of course, was that for the first time in many years someone there was who was saying, You matter to me. I wish I was there to see you. What a gift what a marvelous, life-changing gift When someone says, I see you. Of course, we know what it means to be seen It means you matter. You are loved. M. Scott Peck, a Christian psychiatrist who wrote a book that is still today, 30 years later, a bestseller called The Road Less Traveled [SLIDE] Peck once said, Love is a form of work. The principal form that the work of love takes is attention. When we love another person, we give him or her our attention. To love is to see or maybe, to see is to love. [OFF] Which is why what Jesus did better than anybody was to see
-13- A blind man is sitting alongside the road, begging. He s been there for years he was a fixture People dropped coins in his cup without even looking anymore He s invisible The crowds always just walked by But one time Jesus came And Scripture said, Jesus saw him And the blind man s life would never be the same. A short little man has betrayed his people by collected taxes from them for the hated Romans He s made himself wealthy but also a social outcast No one accepts his Facebook friend requests On his birthday, not a single person wishes him a happy one or invites him to lunch to celebrate But one day he hears Jesus is coming to town He wants to see this mystery man to whom so many people are drawn So, he climbs a tree --- he s invisible no one sees him and no one wants to But Jesus stops right underneath his tree & looks up: Zacchaeus! I see you up there! Come down, because you & I are having lunch today, and you re buying! A woman comes to the well at noon because she knows by habit that no one else will be there then -14- All the other women were there much earlier in the day The kibitzed laughed w/ one another Watched each other s children And enjoyed each other s company for a short time to start the day. But not this woman She is invisible and, because of the pain she carries, wants it to be that way It s just easier But there is a man at the well this day And he does what other men often do He looks at her But his look is different: It isn t filled w/ hungry lust He sees her Jesus saw her and her life would never be the same To be seen is to know you matter it is the work of paying attention the work of love. So here s what I d like to do I d like to give you a blessing that comes from God himself It s a blessing from the Bible Numbers 6 I d like to ask you to stand
-15- To all of you who sometimes feel invisible Hear and receive these words of our Father: May the Lord bless you & keep you. May the Lord make his face to shine on you and be gracious to you May the Lord turn his face to you his eyes to you And give you peace. Amen.