What About The Second Wife?

This is the way the incident unfolds:

1. Sarah blamed her husband for the mess.

2. Sarah learned that “no good deed goes unpunished.”

3. Sarah expressed her hope that God would make Abram “pay.”

4. Abraham wimped out.

5. Sarah treated Hagar so harshly that she ran away.

So much for the happy little family with one wife haughty and the other harsh. I suspect Abraham was the originator of the famous Laurel and Hardy line, “Well, this is another fine mess you’ve gotten us into.”

So while Abraham is skulking about trying to stay clean of his first wife, who is still on the war path, his second wife, Hagar, has run away. The once haughty handmaiden is now the harassed servant wife who has had enough.

We have gotten a glimpse into the characters Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar. Now another character enters the story.

“The angel of the Lord found Hagar beside a desert spring along the road to Shur. And the angel said to her, ‘Hagar, Sarah’s servant, where have you come from, and where are you going?’ ‘I am running away from my mistress,’ she replied.” Genesis 16:7-8

In the verses that follow the angel of the Lord instructs Hagar to return to her mistress and to submit to her authority. Then God gave Hagar a promise similar to that give to Abraham, “I will give you more descendants than you can count. You will give birth to a son and you will name him Ishmael, for the Lord has heard about your misery.” Genesis 16:9-12

That experience taught Hagar something about the character God and God’s character.

2. God sees the plight of the marginalized person.

“Thereafter, Hagar referred to the Lord who had spoken to her, as ‘the God who sees me, for I have seen the One who sees me!’ So Hagar gave Abraham a son, and Abraham named him Ishmael.” Genesis 16:13-15

When Jesus cited his reason for coming he quoted a variation of Isaiah 61 in which he referenced the poor, brokenhearted, captives and prisoners, and those who mourn. Last week, when I spoke of the references to justice in scripture, I noted that almost always it was in conjunction with one of the following words: widow, fatherless, orphans, poor, hungry, alien/stranger, needy, weak, and oppressed. When Jesus spoke of the judgment that will follow the Second Coming and the separation of the sheep and the goats, he said those who would inherit the Kingdom were those who fed the hungry, gave water to the thirsty, welcomed the stranger, clothed the naked, cared for the sick, and visited the prisoners. Matthew 25:31-46

God cares about people in the margins. People who are marginalized are people who have been relegated to the margins of society… they occupy the borderlands. They are people who exist outside of the mainstream. They are often kept “out of sight, and out of mind.”

A class of 5th graders was lined up at the cafeteria line of their Christian school for lunch. At the head of the line was a large dish piled high with shiny red apples. The “lunch lady,” ever diligent, had made a note: “Take only one, God is watching.” At the other end of the serving line was a large pile of chocolate chip cookies where a clever boy had left his own note, “Take all you want, God is watching the apples.” (PreachingToday.com, Pastor Tim’s Clean Laugh List, submitted by Mark Moring)