Daily Devotion for Lent 2018 - Tuesday, Day 12

Scripture Reading: Genesis 16 (NRSV)

Hagar is an Egyptian slave.  Presumably, she was acquired by Abram when they were in Egypt and Abram obtained female slaves due to the goodwill established when Sarai became a part of the harem of Pharaoh.

For Hagar, she may have felt superior to Sarai from the beginning.  Living in the city of Pharaoh would have been culturally an increase in status over living in the tent of a nomadic herdsmen, even one that was rich.  Someone raised in a city often believes there are more opportunities in an urban setting than in a rural one.

In that day, a wandering life may have been cleaner than an urban one but people didn't associate a lack of disease with cleanliness yet.

If we come across a spring in our desert,

sometimes it is difficult to leave it.

When Hagar conceives while her mistress remained barren, we are not sure what kind of behavior would have been defined as "contempt" but whether it was imagined or justified, Sarai treats Hagar harshly as was her legal right (certainly not her moral right).

Hagar abandons her mistress and is a runaway slave.

She, too, has a mystical experience in the midst of her flight and understands God telling her to return and submit to Sarai.  She will be the mother to a great people through her son Ishmael.

This is a disturbing scene in imagining God telling anyone to submit to slavery, let alone a woman who was just treated harshly.

As we fast forward to Jesus, he also lived in a culture where slavery was the norm.  The gospels do not prohibit slavery but instead accept it as a part of society.  They also do not seek to overturn the blood inheritance of royalty but there are seeds within which spark a longing for a better way to live.

When Jesus has to ease tension within his disciples, he states in Matthew 20:25b-28:

“You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them.  It will not be so among you; but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave; just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”

Jesus doesn't condone slavery as much as he shocks the reader of his day about the perception or attitude of slavery.

So as we continue in Lent, we must ask the difficult question, "What does it mean to serve?"  and maybe the even harder follow-up question, "How much am I willing to take?"


God, I'm going to hold steady on You, an' You've got to see me through.  Amen.



Prayer by Harriett Tubman, African-American abolitionist, 19th century

Photo by Yair Aronshtam via Flickr.com.  Used under the Creative Commons license.