(this article was first published in an abbreviated form on sophianetwork and is published with permission)

Quite often when we start to look at the thorny issue of the place of women in the Church, we forget that this debate is intensely personal.It is easy to talk ‘theologically’, by which we sometimes really mean ‘theoretically’.

So, if you might indulge me, I would like to look briefly at the stories of two women and suggest how they might show us something of the value that God gives his daughters.

Sarai – Genesis 12 v 10-20

Traditionally, this story is about Abram, but instead let’s listen to Sarai.Her silence speaks to highlight the other characters’ behaviour.

So, we join the story at verse 10 as Abram is making a choice: to stay in the land that God has given him, where hardship, in the form of famine, besets him, or to sojourn somewhere else.

So he chooses.

He goes to another place.A place that he believes his life may be endangered in another way. His choice is made, he leaves the land-gift of Canaan and he goes down down to Egypt.

He chooses and so what he does there, with Sarai, he is responsible for¹.

Arriving in Egypt, Abram ‘suddenly’ realises that Sarai, being so beautiful, will bring about his death, and so Abram has discovered a way to be rid of his barren wife!It seems that Abram worries not about Sarai’s honour, her life, or even his own relationship with her, but instead he ‘sacrifices Sarai on the altar of his own fear and self-interest’².Thus Abram convinces Sarai to tell a story which leads her to Pharaoh’s court.

Sarai is discarded by Abram, but what is God’s response?

‘the LORD plagued Pharaoh…because of Sarai…’

Sarai is given worth by God.Abram did not understand that the promise given to him, is hers too³.Abram did not honour Sarai, but God did⁴.

This story tells of the LORD’s faithfulness; to his promise, to Sarai in her vulnerability, to Abram in his wrong choices, and to his creation of ‘male’ and ‘female’ as being together included in the promise of God.

We are shown, powerfully, the sinfulness of Abram’s actions – so far from the ‘one-flesh’ hope for the male and female creatures – and the worth with which God credits Sarai.

God is Sarai’s rescuer, interested in her honour and her humanity; she is not to be used as Pharaoh’s wife; she is the ancestress, the joint inheritor of the promise, a beloved daughter.

Hagar – Genesis 16 v 1-15 and 21 v 8-21

Now let’s look at the story of another woman: Hagar. She is ‘the Egyptian’ and she belongs to Sarai. Both her foreignness and her slavery will lead to her suffering⁵.

As we join her story we find that she has ended up in Sarai’s hands, but how?How does this woman become the slave of another woman, a woman who knows what it is to be bought and sold?What impact did Sarai’s time in Egypt have on her?Perhaps ‘she learned that women can be sold to protect the lives of family members and make them rich regardless of the impact on the woman.’⁶Sarai’s story impacts negatively on the story of another woman, the oppressed becomes the oppressor.Can it be that Sarai’s treatment of Hagar is directly linked to her own treatment and the ‘education’ she received about the place of women in God’s story?

And so in the midst of her slavery to Sarai, Hagar is given to Abram to provide an heir. She is seemingly a mere captive to the story of Sarai and Abram.But once she conceives, she senses a change in her status, she is wife.The women are in competition, in a world where their lives are so freely given away Hagar senses a possible security. But she chooses the wrong way, she behaves badly towards Sarai⁷ and it leads to her downfall.Sarai is still the slave-owner and she is given free reign by Abram to mistreat Hagar.

Hagar flees.

It is then that we are given hope that God has a part in Hagar’s story.We are given a brief glimpse of that ‘big picture’ of God. We should take heart to see that God ‘shows up’, to see that the LORD is indeed interested in Hagar; she is not simply a bit-part.

When Hagar reaches the desert, she encounters the messenger of the LORD.For the first time in the text Hagar is called by her name, it is enough to make the reader weep for this foreign, female slave.This is the LORD who knows her – and by invoking her name, an intimate knowledge is suggested.

But… it is also this LORD who calls her ‘servant of Sarai’⁸.This LORD who wants her to go back to Sarai and Abram! To submit herself under them.What can this mean?Who is this LORD?

It is then that Hagar is given a promise, a promise in which her child will be free - albeit free as a wild donkey - and in which she is promised descendents too numerous to count; this is something extraordinary for a woman to be promised⁹: a foreign woman, an Egyptian!

And, extraordinarily, we also see a beautiful mutuality in the encounter – Hagar has been able to see the LORD, because he first sees her, and so she names Him!The LORD comes to Hagar in her need, He shows intimacy in using her name, reveals Himself to her - and he includes her in the story of the LORD with His people.

We are invited to see that the LORD is with the Egyptian female slave, just as He is with Abram.

However, Hagar’s story has more horrors to come.Hagar returns to Abram and Sarai, but because of the mucky relationship between the two women and the two sons, Hagar and Ishmael are sent away again, to die of hunger and thirst in the desert.

And again Hagar encounters God.

He reminds Hagar of the promise already made, a promise that Hagar has given up on - we are perhaps reminded of the promises we may have given up on - God opens Hagar’s eyes and she sees the well of water that will sustain her child in order to fulfil the promise and bring hope and life to Hagar.

And it is at this point that we realise that, not only is Hagar alive, but Hagar is free.

Look what God did for this woman!

Hagar’s story is by no means easy to navigate.There is plenty in the narrative to make us wonder whether God cares.However, I believe that to look at the story closely shows us that God honours the Egyptian woman slave.

God gives Hagar a promise, He gives her a place in the Story and He gives her a provision for life – and He places her alongside Abraham (and Sarah) in the Story of God.

We do well to remember that the place of the foreigner and the oppressed is always alongside God’s people.

Footnotes

¹Schneider Tammi J, Sarah, page 32

²Dennis Trevor, Sarah, page 37

³Genesis 12 v 1-3

⁴Genesis 12 v 17b

⁵Schneider Tammi J, Sarah, page 47

⁶Schneider Tammi J, Sarah, page 47

⁷Although it is not certain exactly how ‘despised’ Sarai was, the text implies some level of contempt

⁸Genesis 16 v 8

⁹Schneider Tammi J, Sarah, page 55

Bibliography

Dennis Trevor, Sarah Laughed, (Great Britain: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1994)

Danna Nolan Fewell, ‘Changing the Subject: Retelling the Story of Hagar the Egyptian, in Brenner, A (ed), Genesis: A Feminist Companion to the Bible (Second Series) (England: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), 182-194

Mary Phil Korsak, ‘…et Genetrix’, in Brenner, A (ed), Genesis: A Feminist Companion to the Bible (Second Series) (England: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), 22-31

Otwell John H, And Sarah Laughed: The Status of Woman in the Old Testament, (USA: The Westminster Press, 1977)

Schneider Tammi J, Sarah Mother of Nations, (New York: The Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd, 2004)