In the text, Genesis 21: 8-21, Hagar, an Egyptian who served as a slave and her child Ishmael were sent out into the wilderness by Abraham with some water to drink. As they walked, wandered in that wilderness under a scorching sun, Ishmael reached the edge of death due to thirst. Hagar leaves her child under a bush, for she did not dare to see her son dying out of thirst but does not go far away, sitting opposite her son with a hope against hope. Hagar out of her desperation lifts her voice, weeps and prays, “Do not let me look on the death of the child” (16v). At this point it is also important to recollect Hagar ran away from her mistress’ harsh treatment and encounters the messenger of God at the spring, a well in the desert in Genesis 16:13, and it is here that Hagar names God, perhaps the only person to name God in the scriptures. Hagar, a slave from Egypt, a person of different colour to Abraham and Sarai, names God as “El-Roi” which means ‘God who sees,’ for she in her conversation with the messenger of God, understood who this divine is and therefore names the divine. So, Hagar already had an encounter with the divine previously and therefore now when her son is on the edge of death due to thirst, she in her weeping, she in lifting her voice was invoking this ‘God who sees’ to intervene and save the child. In that wilderness, which was a kind of lockdown, Hagar laments for her child, knowing that ‘God who sees’ is a God who listens and offers hope to her child and thereby to herself. From Hagar’s weeping I hear a lament, where she raises her voice and demands of God to save her child. This week during a theological conference online, I have heard churches becoming spaces where people can lament openly and aggressively, and the book of Lamentations has become an important theme at the Pandemic theological discussions. Hagar’s prayer was a lament because she was expressing her cry to ‘God who sees’ not to allow her to see the death of her child. Her cry was a lament, for she received a promise from ‘God who sees’ in Genesis 16 that God is going to make a multitude of generation through Ishmael, and why is God allowing the death of her child at this point. What do I mean by lament? Lament in the setting of faith for me is a public outcry in the presence of God looking for hope, in protest against a system and structure within a community. Lament is a subversive way of praying, ranting at God in favour of life, and towards dismantling notions of status quo which includes religious exceptionalism. Lament provides an understanding of God, who chooses to be on the side of the oppressed.
Archbishop Christophe Munzihirwa, the Archbishop of Bukavu, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, also known as ‘Romero of Congo,’ (named after Archbishop Oscar Romero, who was assassinated in El Salvador for speaking out against the military government in 1980) worked tirelessly and courageously for the cause of peace and justice in the context of Rwandan genocide and eventually was shot dead in 1996. One of his famous sayings come to my aid in understanding the power of lament that I hear in the prayer of Hagar. He said, “There are things which can be seen only by eyes that have cried.” In the lament of Hagar, in her tears, in her weeping, she has seen abandonment, she has seen loneliness, she has seen thirst, she has seen nearing the death experience of her son, she has encountered ‘God who sees’ and ‘God who hears’, and she has seen hope offered by God. There are things which can be seen only in the eyes that have cried.
Hagar when she lamented, she was crying out loud against a system that has left her and her child in the wilderness, and when Ishmael is on the brim of death, she laments in that wilderness looking for hope from God, whom she had an encounter previously with. “Do not let me look on the death of the child” (16v), these are the only words recorded in the text as a lament of Hagar, and in the rest of the story we witness her silence or her being silenced when she was sent away into the wilderness. To understand the depth of her lament, I (ad)ventured to ‘hear to speech’ this text from the perspective of Hagar. If Hagar were to narrate her own story at that place in the wilderness, this is one of the many ways that I think she would have narrated her story. I confess that as I narrate this story from Hagar’s perspective, all along my male privilege is exposed, drawing me towards repentance.
If Hagar narrates her story:
Early in the morning, long before the sunrise, when it was still dark, Abraham, through whom I bore his first descendant, deserted us and sent us away into the desert. All that he gave was some left-over food and a skin of water and left us into the dark.
Here I am with my son Ishmael, deserted now to be a single parent, did not know where to go, and started to walk and wander through the wilderness. Coming from a Black Ethnic Minority community, an outcasted community, I was treated as a property of my master at their house and was inhumanly pushed out from their house. After a brief walk in the woods, my child and the love of my life Ishmael felt hungry and I fed him with food and water. Towards the end of the day in that scorching sun in the desert, we were thirsty and couldn’t continue our walk. We woke up the next day thirsty and searched for an oasis in that desert and could not find any water. All I hear is my love weeping for water. I couldn’t see my son dying of thirst, and I left him alone near a bush and was weeping at the other end, crying out loud in desperation and in helplessness, thinking what kind of God is this? Where is this ‘God who sees?’ Can God come and save us from this thirst? I lamented to God in that wilderness “Do not let me look on the death of the child.” I did not want to see the death of my child in front of my eyes. There are things which can be seen only in the eyes that have cried. I wept, wept, and only wept.
I might be the only woman, perhaps the only slave woman who had a conversation with God in the Scriptures, calling God as ‘El -Roi’ (God who sees). Yet, Abraham, who couldn’t overcome his patriarchal dominance, deserted me and my son. And now we are dying of thirst here.
At that moment, ‘God who sees’ saw our plight and heard our cries. God subverted the system that Abraham used to claim to be of God, by coming in rescue of a slave woman and to her child. God manifested that God is a God who consciously takes sides with the oppressed and is not limited to those who claim God to be their own. In fact, the patriarchal writers of the text in Genesis, did not record my plight and cries, they only mentioned that God heard the cries of my child. Yes, God did hear the plight of my son, for God gave life by quenching our thirst with a well of water. The angel of God called on me and I have heard the voice: “What troubles you Hagar? Do not be afraid, for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is and your weeping from where you are. Come lift up the boy and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make a great nation of him.” As I heard the voice, my eyes were opened, my heart was opened and my whole being was filled with hope for a new life.
God sent a water angel and checked the matter from my end and strengthened me by providing water to us from a well which was very near to us. Immediately I drew water from that well, filled the skin with water and quenched the thirst of Ishmael. Water gave us a new life to me and my son, for through water my child was ordained to become a great nation.
I realised without water; life is nearly death. For I have seen it with my own eyes, for my son was nearing death from thirst, and was longing for fresh water. By drinking water from the well, Ishmael my son came back to life. When my son and me were dying of thirst, God sent an angel with water from a well. God’s responded to my lament in a practical, timely and relevant manner. God did not do a magic to save the life of Ishmael, but helped us to draw water from a well nearby, which we did not realise that it was there. Even though Abraham deserted me and my son, God did not leave us nor forsake us. God gave us waters of life so that we become a stream of life for many generations. God watched over me and Ishmael, for Ishmael grew up, made a living in the wilderness of Paran and became an expert with the bow, for he was well known for hitting a bullseye with his bow. By the way we have recognised and experienced the presence of God in the wilderness, for I am a testimony to a ‘God who sees,’ and Ishmael lives up to the meaning of his name in his testimony to a ‘God who hears.’
As I narrate this story, I recount several people across the world today in 21st century who are dying thirsty, due to lack of water, in fact lack of fresh water. There are many who are ‘quintessentially outsiders’, marginalised on gender, social class, caste and ethnicity, and have been yearning for fresh waters to save their lives.
The God of Hagar is a God who sees and is a God who hears, for the God of justice, sees and hears the cries and tears of communities who have been living under stigma, discrimination and exclusion. The God of Hagar comes to the thirsty communities with wells of fresh waters, quenching their thirst and granting life.
When Hagar speaks, she exposes the powers of patriarchy of the faithful people. When Hagar speaks, she invokes a God who sees and hears the plights of the thirsty communities, thirsty for water and thirsty for justice and peace. When Hagar speaks, she is firm in addressing the thirst of her children. When Hagar speaks, she overcomes stigma and discrimination inflicted by race, caste and such other prejudices. Let those that have ears listen to Hagar and strive for a just world, where water will be accessed by all people freely and justly.
In the context of growing child hunger in the UK in particular and in the world in general, these words of Hagar, “Do not let me look on the death of the child,” reverberates as our lament, and as our prayer today. There are many around the world today crying out “I can’t breathe” may be that would have been what Ishmael was crying out loud in that wilderness. God in our context is inviting us to be and become wells of fresh water where we can quench the thirst of several people dying out of hunger and thirst and also offer hope to people who are unable to breathe due the pressure of prejudice and discrimination.
Alluding to Emmanuel Katongole, a Ugandan Catholic theologian who explains three constitutive elements that belong to the theological practice of lament, allow me to draw three lessons for our faith communities from the lament of Hagar. Firstly, lament as a protest, Kantongole calls it ‘critique,’ where the society has forgotten the experience of weeping. Because of the growing individualism, and with the culture of growing personal well-being, we have lost the sense of fraternity in our societies. Though this lock down has enhanced the neighbourliness by talking to one another on the streets, it has not gone beyond the confines of our own streets, leave alone going as far as to the wilderness. Hagar lamented offering a critique of her patriarchal society, and today we as churches are called to lament of our insensitivity and indifference that we show towards people who are different to us. When child poverty is on the rise in our communities, when Black lives not mattering with ongoing sagas of discriminations and oppressions, when fear of the strangers has been increasing, perhaps as we return to our churches and places of worship, we are called to lament of our complacency, of our insensitivity and indifference towards others.
Secondly, the grace to weep – the church as a community of lament. This phrase ‘grace to weep’ was from Pope Francis’ homily at Lampedusa, his first visit outside of Rome, at a Refugee camp, where he was inviting the faith communities to join in the heart of divine pathos, for a call to the church is to reimagine her location which is at the foot of the cross of Jesus Christ. Hagar’s lament is an invitation for us today to be a community of lament speaking openly in the public space for the plights and pathos of children who are pushed to poverty and for the plights of the refugees. Liberation is an invitation to join with Jesus into situations of weeping and offering a way of light by being and becoming wells of fresh water to the thirsty community around us.
Thirdly, lament as “suffering -with” – the power of compassion. This grace to weep is an invitation to be in solidarity with people who are suffering and joining with them in their suffering, in their weeping. Hagar wept as Ishmael wept, and demanded ‘God who sees’ to act and demonstrate compassion for her dying son. As faith communities our calling is to offer lament as our willingness to join and suffer with those who are suffering. When the claps have finally stopped on our streets it is time to keep continuing the acts of compassion which should extend beyond our confines to the margins of our societies.
On a final note, as part of my imagination I think Hagar and Ishmael, having tasted the hope from God after their laments, would have dug several wells in that wilderness and beyond, ensuring that people’s thirst is quenched. By such acts of digging wells, they would have demonstrated the presence of God and strived in turning that wilderness into a liveable place, offering hope through community building around wells. As a church should we not become a well of fresh water to our community around us quenching the thirst of many Hagars and Ishmaels?
May God of Hagar and may the God of Ishmael grant us as communities to see things that can be seen only through the eyes that have cried for water, food, peace, love and justice.
Rev. Dr. Raj Bharat Patta
18th June 2020
Pic credit: https://theshalomcenter.org/wellsprings-life-hagar-rosh-hashanah
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