You are the God who sees me...
From Hagar to all the unseen, you are seen by the one above all + we are empowered by the Gospel and duty-bound to love and embrace the unseen and the least of us
When we walk through the halls of Scripture and peer through its pages, we get to meet a lot of characters with their glorious epic stories. From the waves of a catastrophic flood that Noah battled in a boat of extreme proportions to the parting of the Red Sea by Moses. From the character of David who slew a giant to Solomon in all of his splendor.
All of these epic accounts and testaments of old can get a bit wearying. We hear from the same stories, the same faces, the same chosen, treasured, and favored characters in a regular cycle, and forget that within the same pages lie characters that have been overlooked and fundamentally edited out by lectionaries. I can’t be the only one who’s tired of hearing David and Goliath or Jonah and the great fish on repeat.1 I can’t be the only one wishing that we heard more about the overlooked characters in the Bible from pastors and teachers in the church. I can’t be the only one feeling a bit insignificant, having difficulty relating to the situations of the characters that we hear from.
I’m tired of hearing about how I’m unlike all these characters at their best, and all too similar to them at their worst. I’m not a giant slayer and the praised champion of the people of Israel, but I’m just as much of a womanizer, adulterous, lustful, murderous man as David.2 I’m not a significant prophet and leader like Moses, but I’m just as guilty of doubtfulness when he decides to strike the rock again. I’m never empowered by the stories of these individuals, but rather consistently humbled by the flaws of their character, which are the only similarities I’m allowed to wear. In fact, it seems not to matter that I’m a victim of the evil entities, authorities, and rulers; it only matters that I’m a criminal of cosmic proportions against a holy God who harbors the fact that I didn’t make it to church today against me as much as he harbors the constant, lying, slandering, cheating, and nefarious actions of the devil himself.3
I can’t help but feel completely unseen when I have sat in a church pew and am told over and over about how miserably I’ve messed everything up and scantily pointed to Jesus for a few short paragraphs and left there. Nothing more. I’m left asking myself what more I can even take away from that sermon, or any of the other 52+ ones I get to hear in an average year. No wonder why I’m feeling so spiritually malnourished.
Granted, this is not to say that I don’t think we shouldn’t spend any time towards the recognition of our human shortcomings, but I think it’s wrong that we traumatize ourselves so horrifically that we keep coming back out of fear. Hellfire doesn’t sound pleasant, but this endless cycle of being religiously crushed and pounded into the ground feels just as unpleasant as hell itself. I have myself asking if there really is any difference at all.
I’m disturbed by the fact that the law has become our punchline as Christians. In fact, why do we keep coming back to the chains of Moses? We ironically sound all too similar to the Israelites when they grovel on their way to the holy land, and it seems particularly more tempting and easier to just walk back to Egypt and Pharaoh’s chains. Yet the good news of the Gospel should have us craving the law less and less, not because it completely perfects us, but because it is capable of transforming us and our love. And also, at the same time, because the entire message of the one we follow, the Messiah, Jesus, frees us from the restriction of the letter as he gives us his spirit. It’s this pivotal moment that we celebrate with the festival of Pentecost and should be emphatic about both throughout this off-season and the entire church year.
Yet, when we reject the spirit and go back to the Scriptures, we don’t look at it as a unified message of freedom and hope. We turn it back into chains. Chains that enslave the soul to a reduced Bible that’s just a list of rules and regulations.4 Chains that are crippling to faith and a feast for fear. And I refuse to hear that message anymore.
In Genesis 16, we have an account that can tend to be skipped over, since the audience is more eager to hear about Abram and Sarai (Abraham and Sarah), and we are more eager to tell their story. Yet, if you’ve heard of Hagar, it was probably in parentheses or a summary. “She is just a side character after all,” so we say.
Yet, clearly God thinks otherwise.
After Abram has “used” Hagar as a last resort of getting a child at the encouragement of Sarai, the couple argues over it since Hagar is unsurprisingly not happy at all.
When [Hagar] 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 slave in your arms, and now that she knows she is pregnant, she despises me. May the Lord judge between you and me.”
“Your slave is in your hands,” Abram said. “Do with her whatever you think best.” Then Sarai mistreated Hagar; so she fled from her.
(Genesis 16:4–6, NIV)
Hagar flees. She’s been forced to sleep with Abram (read “sexually abused”5) just so he ends up with some sort of offspring, or so goes the thinking of his wife, Sarai. Yet, to make things worse, even though she’s the victim in every way imaginable in this situation, Sarai lashes out at her and mistreats Hagar. The audacity, the misunderstanding, and the suffering that this woman has had to sustain are horrific. So she runs, and I certainly can’t blame her. I don’t think any of us can.
Yet, God sees, knows, and hears all of this. The abuse and sexual immorality of Abram. The distrust and the foul words and actions of Sarai.
The angel of the Lord found Hagar near a spring in the desert; it was the spring that is beside the road to Shur. And he said, “Hagar, slave of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going?”
“I’m running away from my mistress Sarai,” she answered.
Then the angel of the Lord told her, “Go back to your mistress and submit to her.” The angel added, “I will increase your descendants so much that they will be too numerous to count.”
(Genesis 16:7–10)
I believe, and am thoroughly convinced that this mysterious figure, whom the text refers to as the “angel of the Lord,” is really a Christophany6, or a pre-incarnate appearance of Jesus. The same Jesus who would come and reach out his hand to the lepers and the rejects of society, the tax collectors, prostitutes, adulteresses, and untouchables, reaches out to the unseen and overlooked slave, Hagar, and gives her the same promise that was given to Abram and Sarai. Yet, this time, the promise continues even longer than the one given to Abram and Sarai.
The angel of the Lord also said to her:
“You are now pregnant
and you will give birth to a son.
You shall name him Ishmael,
for the Lord has heard of your misery.
He will be a wild donkey of a man;
his hand will be against everyone
and everyone’s hand against him,
and he will live in hostility
toward all his brothers.”
(Genesis 16:11–12)
Ishmael is an interesting character that we don’t hear too much about beyond this account. Yet, it’s worthy to note that the meaning of his name is rather important. Ishmael literally means God hears. God was listening, and he cared. Perhaps the most astonishing thing is in the response of Hagar.
She gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her: “You are the God who sees me,” for she said, “I have now seen the One who sees me.” That is why the well was called Beer Lahai Roi; it is still there, between Kadeshand Bered.
(Genesis 16:13–14)
I can’t be the only one kind of mentally freaking out7 when I hear the very first fragment of a sentence: “she gave this name to the Lord.” Normally, we hear God telling his people (and also having to remind his people) who he is. Yet, Hagar gives God a name that he doesn’t just hear, but wears it. You are the God who sees me. God lets her give a name to him instead of naming himself, to the point of significance that the nearby well was named in honor of this moment. Beer Lahai Roi, or the well of the Living One who sees me.
The story of Hagar is a multifaceted reminder to all of us. To those of us who feel overlooked and unseen. To the ones secretly struggling with crippling depression and anxiety. To the ones who feel like their life is barely staying together and are hanging on by a thread. To the ones who are victims of despair, distress, and fear. To anyone who feels like they have to hide inconvenient parts of themselves to belong. God sees you and hears you and knows you.
It’s a reminder that he is close to you and with you, even as you suffer. It’s a reminder that some of the most overlooked characters in his story are also some of the most significant. From Hagar, to Rahab the prostitute, to Ruth, to Deborah, to Esther, to the women disciples of Jesus, whom the male disciples and society didn’t trust when their Savior appeared to them first. From Jacob, to Joseph, to Naaman, to Mordecai, to Lazarus, to the lepers, tax collectors, and sinners with whom Jesus dined. God saw them, and he also sees you. You are important and cherished. Most importantly, you matter in his story.
You aren’t worthless, and you shouldn’t beat yourself into the ground because you don’t always measure up. Christ’s victory, which defeated the powers of darkness and rendered them powerless, means you aren’t an awful perpetrator, but the victim of what the devil, the accuser, tries to hold against you and his crimes and deceptions against you. You are precious because Christ stands in the way and covers you with his holy love. You are more than the labels and the insults that the world places on you. You are more than what cripples you and breaks you down.
The sweet message of the Gospel is found in the words of Christ on the cross, τετέλεσται8 (tetelestai), or it is finished. Christ has fully crushed and defeated the power of the evil foes, rendering them powerless against us. They no longer hold claim over us, but we are Christ’s, and he is ours, and that promise can never be taken away from us. His life and death empower us to live beyond what the law tries to chain us down to. It empowers us to love.
I remember the first time I heard someone use the phrase, “Jesus is in the stranger.” There was apprehension, and I couldn’t totally reconcile the implications of what that would look like theologically. Yet, it hit me that our Savior would have us believe this very thing ourselves.
“For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.”
“Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”
(Matthew 25:35–36,40)
Jesus is found in the hungry and the thirsty. He is found in the stranger and the homeless. He is found in the imprisoned. He is in the immigrant. He is in the ostracised and the overlooked. Jesus is in those whom society finds ways to reject and remove from sight.9
The thing that our pastors so often lack to address and consider is how the Gospel empowers us to live these lives full of serving and loving and uplifting those who are our neighbors. I think there is no better vision of this (that unfortunately has been lost) than that of the early church.
All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.
(Acts 2:44–47)
This is why Christianity spread like wildfire in the first place. The early Christians knew that it was more than just a message; it was a calling to love the unloved and to show compassion to the stranger. Instead of storing up wealth, the believers gave away what they had in excess to help those in need. Evangelism isn’t just preaching; it’s in how we actively love and empower others to love those who are in need.
This is exactly why I’m tired of sitting in dusty church pews where an increasingly dualistic10 message just falls flat. I’m tired of us embracing a theology that gets us stuck in a cycle of continuing to overlook those in need because it’s easier to feel sorry about it and be absolved than to actively live out the message of the Gospel. I’m tired of being in a fear and shame cycle where I’m treated like I’m still helpless, because I’m always “just a sinner” in the eyes of this message. The reality of the Gospel proclaims otherwise.
I am set free. I am no longer bound. I am empowered to actually live and to love my neighbor. I am called to uplift those who are pushed down. I am called to protect the vulnerable. I am called to love the unloved.11
I find myself imagining how much better our churches would be if we modeled the early church. If we remembered that our actions demonstrate where our faith is and what our faith looks like. Once again, I’m tired and infuriated when such love and the use of the Gospel to push us on to love radically like Jesus, is called “social gospel”12 like it’s some sort of insult. The nature of the Gospel is living and active and is concerned with the entirety of our lives. If the Gospel doesn’t include the social aspect of our lives and how we live in the world, you and I are reading an entirely different Gospel.
We are more than just conquerors. We are given the highest calling to care for the least among us and to love them. I don’t want to be a clanging symbol or a noisy siren that has no validity. I’m not the type of Christian to just speak and do nothing, but I’m also going to listen with compassion and act according to what my Savior taught. Love is what gives validity to the message that we have to share as Christians. Paul emphasizes this in his first letter to the Christians in Corinth.
If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
(I Corinthians 1:1–3)
Without love, I am nothing, and without love, Christianity means absolutely nothing at all. What good is our message if we don’t live it after all?
So, dear fellow Christians, we are called to more than just preaching. In fact, that is so little of what we are called to do. We are called beyond just sharing the message. We are called to share the message by living it out. We might not always do it perfectly, but what good does it do anyone to never try?
With this, I urge you to ponder how the message of the Gospel, of the God who reaches out and sees us, calls us to imitate his love and to reach out to see others as well. In the name of the God who sees us no matter where we are. Amen.
Granted, these stories go hard, but getting kind of boring when I can recite the plot in my sleep. Can we get some stories about individuals who aren’t giving main character energy?
This is essentially the common message. All seriousness aside, womanizer can’t possibly apply to me because I’m gay (and I’m a big fan of my girlies). [Hold on, don’t you dare complain about me making it all of my personality. Sheesh, I just made one mention of it.]
I should note that the problem here is not that I don’t want to go to church, but I’m lacking motivation for the reasons mentioned throughout this piece, and the fact that it’s hard to belong in a non-affirming church, and thus, a church that I feel unseen in.
I could talk on, and on, and on (okay, you get the point) about how beneficial it is to have fellowship and community in practicing one’s faith because it’s in this that we have the most power to encourage each other on in love. However, it does us no good to exist in communities that drain us of this and discourage us, so I invite you to assess whether your church is actually encouraging you to live out the principles of the Gospel or not.
If I could pull out main points, this is one to take note of and to scribble all over the walls. The Bible is so, so, so much more than just a rule book, and I absolutely go insane (in a bad way) when anyone resorts to using it like one. Yes, you there, if you say the “Gospel is for all, except…” – Jesus is disappointed. You are behaving exactly like the religious authorities that he had many a spar with (textbook Pharisee syndrome if I do say so myself). The Gospel is for everyone, no ifs, buts, excepts, etc. When we add requirements, we make it back to being on us, and we take away the efficacy of the message, which is just a big no-no. The Bible is a unified message, and using it as a rulebook is, hands-down, the wrong way to distill it.
For those reading the footnotes, yes, Abram (Abraham) by all means r*ped his wife’s slave/servant. Not cool. Not cool at all. And before you protest, hold on. Just because it was socially acceptable to r*pe one’s servant in the days of old does not negate the fact that it was exactly that.
For all of my audience that doesn’t know what in the world I’m talking about here, I’m two steps ahead of you. Here is the Wikipedia article you were going to read anyway: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christophany. You’re welcome. And if you didn’t need this, ilysm – can we be frens?
Like, girl, ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh 🤯
The cool thing about τετέλεσται (tetelestai) is that it’s in the perfect passive tense, which means that even though the action is completed, it has ongoing consequences as if to say, “it is finished for all time.” Those words are essentially an eternal reality.
Yes, what I said here is a bit politically charged (but it doesn’t have to be – why can’t radical love be the common denominator?), but I’m so tired of the demonization of the least of those among us. We are called to care for all people, no matter if they’ve broken some arbitrary law or if helping them doesn’t get us popularity points. Loving people is always attractive.
Dualism, as in (not how Gustaf Aulén uses it in Christus Victor, which I’m reading rn) a clear and normally extreme contrast between good and evil (like that of Zoroastrianism). Although here it’s a stark dualism between us being “evil and horrible,” and God being the “only good thing that can possibly exist ever,” being applied constantly to both the unregenerate and the regenerate indiscriminately. This is a problem, since it leaves both groups indefinitely powerless, which is simply not true and exactly why the Gospel empowers us to love.
This can include (but is not limited to) women, children, queer people, people of different ethnicities and cultures, people with different beliefs, people who are homeless, essentially anyone who is wrongfully disadvantaged, oppressed, and unloved in society. Goes back to the question of, “Are they my neighbor?” The answer is always yes. If I’m in a better position in society, my position should not be used to continue to exploit, disadvantage, or oppress, but to love, uplift, and encourage. That’s the definition of not being evil.
Let the haters hate. It’s only love if it transcends all boundaries (and impossible is a bad excuse since with God, everything is impossible). It’s just bad rhetoric to say that it’s unrealistic to love everyone and take actions that actually help people. And also, if we don’t live by our religious principles, can we really claim it as our faith? I, however, will be unapologetically and illogically compassionate and empathetic.