HAGAR lectio (Gen 16,3-4.6-11.15, 21.8 to 20)
16, [3] Thus, at the end of ten years since Abram dwelt in the land of Canaan, Sarai, Abram's wife took Hagar the Egyptian, her maid and gave her to Abram her husband. [4] He went to Hagar, and she conceived. But when she realized she was pregnant, her mistress was despised in her. [6] Abram said to Sarai, "Behold, your maid is in thy power: what flaws you think." Then Sarai dealt harshly so that she fled from her. [7] The angel of the Lord found her by a fountain of water in the desert, the spring on the way to Shur [8] and said, "Hagar, slave of Sarai, where you come from and where are you going?". He replied: "I am fleeing from my mistress Sarai." [9] said to the angel of the Lord, "Return to thy mistress, submissive and degassed. [10] also said the angel of the Lord "will multiply your descendants can not be numbered for multitude." [11] He added Then the angel of the Lord, 'Look, you're pregnant: chiamarai and bear a son Ishmael, because the Lord has heard your affliction. [15] Hagar bore Abram a son: and Abram called his son Ishmael, whom Hagar bore, .
21, [8] The child grew and was weaned: and Abraham made a great feast when Isaac was weaned. [9] But Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had given birth to Abraham, mocking her son Isaac. [10] she said to Abraham: "Cast out this slave woman and her son because the son of that slave shall not be heir with my son Isaac." [11] What is very displeasing to Abraham of his son. [12] But God said to Abraham: "I do not mind this, the boy and your maidservant: hears the word as Sarah tells you, listen to his voice, for through Isaac that you will name a race. [13 ] I will make a great nation, the son of a slave, because he is your offspring. " [14] So Abraham rose early in the morning, he took bread and a bottle of water and gave them to Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, the child, and sent her away. She departed and wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba. [15] All the water in the skin was missing. Then she placed the boy under a bush [16] and sat down in front, the distance of a bow-shot, she said, "I do not want to see death of the child." When she was seated in front, he raised his voice and wept. [17] And God heard the voice of the boy and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said, "What ails you, Hagar? Fear not, for God has heard the voice of the lad where he is. [18] Get up, take the child and hold him by the hand, I will make him a great nation. " [19] And God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. Then he went to fill the bottle and watered the child. [20] And God was with the lad, who grew up and lived in the wilderness and became an archer.
Resume
a dramatic story, passed between the lines, presenting the person of Sarah.
In these pages we read a story of exclusion, violence, suffering and discomfort, the election in the person of Hagar. Perhaps it is not easy to understand, but we enter into the mystery, trying to stay "crooked" on the Word to dig on the words, the "pit" of God's love for his people.
First, just read a time signature (16.3), a time which means that each of us to build a future, we need to gain experience and maturity. To achieve this, we must have the ability to hear the Word of God and enter it into our heart for the Lord to guide us in His way.
course, not easy to make this journey because often the facts, the same Word of God, do not agree with our thoughts and create broken, torn between tears as the Sarah and her maidservant Hagar.
Note how there is a tear behind this madness and folly by Sarah Wise describes as: "restless woman is crazy, a fool who knows nothing" (Wis 9:13; cf. Qo 2, 2).
We know very well that these attitudes only lead to litigation, and someone must always suffer. Now, for the song, this is someone to whom Hagar the Angel of the Lord is called upon to heal the thought of the heart.
The song has three signs of recovery: 1) the same Angelo, 2) the source of water, 3) being pregnant.
The first indicates that the Angel, that is the messenger of YHWH ", the same Word of God which is manifested, for all returns in perfect harmony.
The second is the source of water. Water is a symbol of chaos, its lack of shape and this is a reminder of the book of Genesis, the conditions existing before the creation of the world. But water is also depicted as a symbol of life for Christians it is Christ himself, "living water flowing from Jerusalem" (Zech 14.8).
The last item mentioned is pregnant. Inside the woman there is great promise numerous descendants that can not be counted.
These three elements (each one can also highlight other) is Hagar reason to return by the owner "learn in silence with all subjection" . (1 Tim 2:11).
This attitude seems to be an announcement of the people in Egypt as slaves, subjected to the ideal Egyptian (Gen 50.18), and that "far away" will have to return to the promised land (To God).
Hagar wants to go away from his mistress (16.8), "The younger son gathered his belongings and set off for a distant country" (Luke 15:13). These expressions indicate that the move away from God, lost. But God will manifest himself in the desert of life, inviting him to return. For the
Hagar return to her mistress becomes a reason for lowering of "turn away" the word heard from the Angel because "Behold, saith the Lord, bent shoulders, and serve the king of Babylon dwell in the land given to me by your fathers' (2.21 Bar).
Somehow Hagar experiences of exile, where all obstacles and resistance, trusting the words of the angel for a loving embrace with his mistress, he returns. Hagar finds its strength not only in the words of the angel, but the child she is carrying (16:11) which will give the name Ishmael (God hears =), which collects the hopes of the future.
Ishmael was born, but affectionate embrace was not the case. The ways of God are made more mysterious to us more and more twisted, painful if we do not go deeply in His Word.
Hagar suffers a triple violence. the first to be enslaved, dispossessed of their freedom to be of service Abraham and Sarah, but its not esucutrice of their project. The second
violence is that of jealousy that turns into a vengeful fury, not only in respect of Hagar, but also in that of the child. The third is that the same Abraham who, instead of defending of Hagar, Sarah exposes it to revenge and becomes co-responsible even though the biblical text is content to give a theological justification for the incident (from 21.12 to 14) .
To you who read these pages please do not be scandalized by this, even if Paul describes Abraham as "the father of faith" (Rom 4:11) and Sarah is presented as an example (Hebrews 11:11). But even in these behaviors lies the thought of God
Each of us can be answered in the Bible that is not the story of men and ideal women, but the story of God's love for humanity, for every man and woman as they are and who once found God, they begin to change their lives. Although the Bible was a collection of uplifting stories, would have little to teach us. That's why I said from the beginning you have to be "bent on the word" because the word may "untied" from our slavery, because God is on the side of the defeated, by those who are crushed by the machinery of history. In
Hagar found the story of a woman losing, but there are also the same God of Abraham Tipping its history of death in life history (21.13). It is in these lines that we can catch the deep meaning of the Bible and accept it as the Word of God
"Abraham on his shoulders Hagar bread and water ..." (21:14). They are symbols of life that humanity charge every day on his shoulders, which is called to bring symbols of the effort, symbolized by the weight on his shoulders.
The symbols of bread and water, in the Bible, depicting the presence of God who continues to care for even despair, in a situation of death to achieve its design: Abraham, Hagar's son handed over to them because, although the path leads to death, the desert bloom (see Is 32.15), there emerged a great nation (cf. Is 49:15). This confidence in the song contains the words that the angel announced to Hagar: "What's wrong? do not be afraid! " (21:17).
are words that our heart welcomes every time and again that our story is not included, are words of support for life.
In symbols we read that Abraham over the symbols of Christianity, the result of God's love in handing over his only begotten Son "by putting on his shoulders," a new bread and a new water (the scaffold), because from Him, "a spring gushing" birth of a new people.
God can do this happen. He who by his force can do everything, and we have proven with Christ, freeing him from the dead revived today continues to deliver us from our death situation to lead us back to life is the passage from winter to spring that we are all called to do, where everything flourishes, the resurrection "walk", the future is guaranteed.
singular and universal is the love of God in the sense that God loves each person in his individual reality and not as part of a group, to a people, a nation, a religion. God loves so universal in the sense that his love extends to all without charge, without distinction or preference because the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob is also the God of Ishmael, which hears the groan.
The song ends with a view of the future of Ishmael: a hunter, a parent of a nomadic tribe.
The Christian is called to be nomadic, hunter "From now on you'll be the hunter of men" (Lk 5:10). It is an endowment that shares the same mission of Jesus, that enabled the Gospel to win many, if not all men as does the hunter who takes to the snare birds and the fisherman with the net the fish.
question
1. In life each one of us experienced a history of exclusion, what were the times when you felt put in / a and excluded from / to?
2. Even today, God comes to you with the words: "What is it? do not be afraid! "as your reaction to him that you support?
3. God loves each and, like living inside of you the immense love of God?
4. Maybe you're in a country far, far away from God, you are ready to to stand up, bend at the shoulders and get on their way to God?
5. In your situation, you're ready / to be a "hunter"?
prayer
Thank you Lord for your love is poured out on all free with no preference. Hear my voice and give us the strength to always respond to hatred with love, to injustice with total commitment to justice, by sharing the misery, and war with peace.
O Lord Give me a renewed courage to follow in your ways even though I seem impractical. Amen.
actio
Ponder these words today and take them into your daily life: "Sustain me according to Your Word and I live, do not disappoint me in my hope" (Ps. 119.116) "Do not afraid, for I am with you " (Is 43,5).
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