El Roi: Making Sense Of God Seeing Us

Who here has ever read George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984? Or maybe seen the movie version of it with John Hurt…? Right, so for those of you who may not know (or need a refresher), Orwell published his work 1984 in the year 1949, and it’s really a speculation (perhaps a warning) of what the year 1984 could look like (could have looked like) if what was taking place in the just post-WW2 Britain of his time was continued to its logical extreme. In the novel, there is this character (symbol) referred to as “Big Brother”, and the totalitarian government described in the novel produces propaganda with the slogan "Big Brother is watching you” to remind the inhabitants of the novel’s world that the government is keeping tabs on them and that any wrong move (or any act of ideological revolt) would be caught and dealt with.

Now, there’s another British novel (well set of novels, depending on your edition) that was published around the same time as Orwell’s 1984 that also deals with the theme of someone with significantly more power keeping watch over those with significantly less power. Does anyone have a guess as to what novel (novels) I might be speaking of…? The Lord of the Rings, written by J.R.R Tolkien, and published over the course of 1954 to 1955!

In The Lord of the Rings, the fiery eye that we see sat atop the dark tower is one of the primary manifestations of the novel’s main antagonist (the Dark Lord Sauron), and his eye not only works as a sensor for seeking out those who might be trying to wield the magic present in the Rings of Power, his eye also operates as a symbol—a powerful symbol that Sauron has total control over Middle Earth—that to cross him is to cross an ancient being nearly as powerful as God.

Considering the fact that we, humans, like the idea of privacy and find the idea of being viewed unawares to be a bad thing, it’s no surprise, then, that Big Brother and the Eye of Sauron are considered to be forces of evil in their respective novels. And if one holds the position that God’s love for humanity is conditional rather than unconditional (which some people sadly do), it might seem logical (reasonable, even) to put God in the same category with Big Brother and the Eye of Sauron—that, like the other two, God is just watching and waiting to catch people out and then smite them.

Today’s story from the Bible comes from the Book of Genesis and centres around Hagar and the fact that she is driven to flee into the desert because her mistress, Sarai (later called Sarah), was jealous that Hagar could get pregnant and she couldn’t. In today’s passage—something we don’t see anywhere else in the Bible—God is referred to by Hagar (at v.13) as El Roi, which means “God who sees.” Hagar does not refer to God as El Roi because He (say) caught her out for doing something sinful…. Quite the contrary! Hagar refers to God as El Roi because He saw her (and her baby, Ishmael) in their suffering and came to them. He did not leave them to suffer alone but, rather, told them of the blessings they’d ultimately receive from this trial.

Now, I don’t know which one of you did this, but not that long ago, I discovered that one of our church's Bibles has had a label stuck on to it that says “His Compassion”. What an appropriate and fitting alternative title for the Bible! From the first book to the last…. from Genesis to Revelation… from the story of Hagar and her baby Ishmael to the promise of the New Jerusalem at the end of days, the Bible is filled to the brim with stories of God’s compassion and love for us.

So if (or when) the idea of God being able to see us is making any of us feel unnerved or perhaps making any of us feel like God is some alternative version of Big Brother or the Eye of Sauron, I encourage us to remember the story of how God got the name of El Roi. Hagar gave Him this name not because He came to her catch her out for something wrong she may have done. No. Hagar gave God this name because He came to her to show her compassion, mercy, and a way forward through her trial.