Abraham, Part 10 - We Are Sinners, Too
Genesis 16v1-6
13th November 2010
Many of our Bible heroes are flawed people. David was an adulterer, Moses was a murderer, and in Genesis 16 we read this about Abraham and Sarah:
Genesis 16:1-6
Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian maidservant named Hagar;
so she said to Abram, "The LORD has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my maidservant; perhaps I
can build a family through her."
Abram agreed to what Sarai said.
So after Abram had been living in Canaan ten years, Sarai his wife took her Egyptian maidservant Hagar and
gave her to her husband to be his wife.
He slept with Hagar, and she conceived.
When she knew she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress.
Then Sarai said to Abram, "You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering. I put my servant in your
arms, and now that she knows she is pregnant, she despises me. May the LORD judge between you and me."
"Your servant is in your hands,"
Abram said. "Do with her whatever you think best." Then Sarai ill-treated
Hagar; so she fled from her.
In the time Abraham and Sarah lived, it was considered acceptable for a woman who couldn't have children to give a slave to her husband, so the family line could continue. But just because those around us think something is OK, that doesn't make it all right for God's chosen people to copy them. In our day, many think abortion, tax evasion, fiddling the expenses, homosexual acts, adultery and serial divorce are acceptable. But that doesn't mean Christians should do such things. Sarah should have known better.
And, it seems, Abraham quietly acquiesced. He must have seen how desperately Sarah wanted a child, by any means, and he, too, must have begun to wonder if God's promise to provide him with an heir would be fulfilled (he was 85 years old). But it was his responsibility to say "no", to refuse to do what was wrong and, instead, to wait for God to do as He had promised.
Be careful what you ask for. Sarah got exactly what she wanted - Hagar became Abraham's second wife, and bore him a son. But Hagar's new position - not just Sarah's slave but Abraham's wife, and the only wife who had a child - made her look down on Sarah, the "failure". Sarah was not a failure; as she herself had said "The LORD has kept me from having children". It wasn't her fault, but both she and Hagar felt like it was. Sarah was more unhappy than she'd been before.
Sarah went to Abraham, saying "You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering". Again, Abraham abdicated his responsibility. Hagar was now his wife, and so he was responsible for her well-being, but he merely said to Sarah, "Your servant is in your hands. Do with her whatever you think best".
No matter how much we love our wives, no matter how much we like a quiet life, we have must do what's right before God. Abraham failed to stand up for what is right. And, with Abraham's refusal to act, Sarah began to abuse Hagar, so much that Hagar ran away.
We are rightly shocked by this story. But it's in the Bible for a reason.
A major element of the Israelite national story is the period of 400 years they spent in Egypt, being enslaved and mistreated by the Egyptians, and eventually escaping from them. But that story began with their ancestors, Abraham and Sarah, enslaving and mistreating an Egyptian, Hagar, who ran away and escaped from them.
Our Bible heros are flawed people. And we are flawed people. And we must be careful to include in our own story not just the times we've been mistreated, but also the times that we've mistreated others.
We are sinners, too.