The God Who Sees Us

Last week I went to Target to pick up supplies for the winter storm. 

I shop for winter storms the same way I used to shop for hurricanes when I lived in Florida.  Bottled water, snacks and other non-perishables.  

While I was at the store, though, I passed a woman who was also shopping for the winter storm.  She had exactly one thing in her cart. 

A sled. 

And I laughed to myself because it was clear we had different priorities. 

But I can’t say she was wrong.  In fact, I envy her a little.  To see a storm and not worry about physical survival, but only how you can make the storm—fun.  I wish I was the kind of person who could stop a stranger in the middle of Target and ask for their story, because I definitely want to know hers. 

Today’s reading from Genesis 16:1-14 is a story of survival, but it’s one of those awkward stories like the one we read last week when Noah curses his son Ham for seeing him passed out drunk and naked that troubles me upon first reading.  It’s a story I have to wrestle with. 

To summarize, God has promised Abram a child, but Abram’s wife Sarai believes the child can’t possibly come through her because she thinks she is barren.  So Sarai, in an attempt to make God’s promise a reality, usurps God’s authority and gives Abram her slave-girl, Hagar.  Hagar becomes pregnant with Abram’s child, but now Sarai is having second thoughts about her plan (not God’s plan) to give Abram a child through Hagar.  She becomes abusive to Hagar, and when Hagar has had enough of the abuse, she flees into the wilderness. 

I think it goes without saying that a pregnant runaway slave fleeing into the wilderness with no supplies, no food, no shelter, no protection—the stigma of who she is at this point in the story means that her chances and her unborn child’s chances of surviving are slim to none.

 And that is when she finds (miraculously) a spring so that she can at least get hydrated.  I say miraculously because anything that pops up just when you need it through no effort on your own is usually a God-thing.

There she meets the angel of the Lord, and she is told that she must turn around and go back to Sarai and submit. 

This is the part of the story that always causes me a bit of pain when I read it, because it seems like God is behaving in an uncharacteristic way.  He is sending Hagar back to her abuser.  He is sending her back to slavery.  It seems horrible to do this to Hagar.  It does not seem particularly compassionate or empathetic.  

I don’t pretend to know the mind of God here.  Every time I think I need to explain God’s actions, I remember what God said to Job when Job questioned God about his suffering.  God basically told Job, “Where were you when I created the universe?” 

But what does seem apparent in regards to Hagar is that if she doesn’t go back, she will die.  Her unborn child will die.  God doesn’t excuse Sarai’s behavior.  He doesn’t promise Hagar that Sarai will leave her alone.  He doesn’t apologize for telling her to go back.  He doesn’t offer Hagar any explanation.  

What He does offer is a promise, which honestly, is evocative of and reflects His promise to Abram that one day Abram’s descendants will number the stars.  God has a plan for Hagar and her child. 

Hagar, for her part, doesn’t beg God to save her.  She doesn’t try and make a deal with God.  She doesn’t say she’ll do anything if only God doesn’t send her back to Sarai.  

She recognizes, with humility, the enormity of what has happened.  God has spoken to her, a slave, and not just spoken to her—God has seen her.  With God it is possible to be both humble and acknowledge that God has chosen her, that she is important to God. 

And so she names Him.  He is the “God Who Sees.” 

And so she goes back to Sarai, God’s word having given her strength.  Her story, of course, is not yet over.  We will see her again in Genesis 21, when once again she meets God in the wilderness. 

The “God Who Sees.” 

We all have that desire to be seen to be understood. 

I would argue that today’s social media influencers have an almost pathological need to be seen. 

But all of us—we want to be seen, we want to be acknowledged, we want to be understood.  We want to be noticed.  Again sometimes that can turn into a pathological narcissism.  

But especially when we are suffering, we can feel lost and invisible.  A lot of the time, we want others to acknowledge our pain. 

I was telling a friend last week that I think we are called, as Christians, to bear witness.  In other words, we are called to “see” each other.  Bearing witness is more than just being a bystander.  A bystander is passive, uninvolved.  An hour passes by and the bystander has already forgotten what they saw earlier. 

But someone who bears witness, who sits with others in their pain—makes what might have been otherwise invisible, suddenly visible.  They live on because we remember them.  When I was a chaplain in the hospital, that was my job … to bear witness, to let others know that not only did I see them, but God saw them, that God was there with them. 

Let me give you another example this time from last week’s reading.  What Ham did when he saw his father, Noah, passed out drunk and naked on the ground … that was not bearing witness.  What his siblings did, even though they took special care not to literally see Noah in his nakedness, what they did by covering him with a cloak—that was bearing witness, that was acknowledging that their father was in a bad place in that moment and that what Noah needed was compassion and grace.  By clothing him, they were literally shielding him, protecting him. 

We are called to bear witness and there is a lot to bear witness to in the world these days.  And sometimes bearing witness means stepping up, stepping out, stepping forward, moving from being simple passive observers to people’s pain and suffering to actively trying to address it. 

That may seem like a lot to ask.  And it is. 

So this week, I have a homework assignment for you.  Let’s start with something simple. 

I want you to pay attention to people, the dozens of strangers we brush past every day. 

Remember the Covid years?  We paid a lot of attention to strangers in those days.  The ones who crowded us on those one-way grocery store aisles.  The ones who were masked.  The ones who weren’t masked.  Every cough or sneeze got a side-eye.  

I want you to pay attention to people again … but without judgement. 

The other day, I was at physical therapy trying to use the computer to pay my copay and their payment function wasn’t working.

 When I told the receptionist that it wasn’t working, the elderly gentlemen standing at the desk next to me said, “You didn’t say abracadabra.” 

It was a “dad joke,” but I found myself laughing, not a fake, polite laugh, but a genuine laugh that surprised even me.  He caught me off guard.  And I laughed.  And it felt good.  

In that moment, we “saw” each other. 

Over the past few days, I have done nothing but shovel, blow snow, salt the driveway and repeat.  Every time I think I’m done, the plow comes down the alley and shoves more snow into my driveway.  And I feel a bit like Sisyphus pushing that boulder up the hill. 

But yesterday, I was outside shoveling when the plow, once again, came down the alley. 

He saw me standing there at the base of my driveway.  I had taken a few steps back to make sure I didn’t get pelted with the salt he was spraying.

I waved to him.  Just a friendly wave of acknowledgement.  I saw him.  I appreciated him, even when he left piles of snow in my driveway.  After all, everyone has had to dig themselves out of the snow this week.  There was nothing special about my situation. 

So, I waved. 

He made a couple of passes, collecting more and more snow.  And, much to my relief, he left the base of my driveway cleared, clean and free of snow. 

So much of the world’s problems these days are due to our inability to see each other, to empathize with each other, to be compassionate and forgiving.  

So pay attention this week.  See people. 

And remember what I have been saying these last few weeks. 

Love God. 

Love your neighbor, unconditionally and without exception. 

It’s that easy. 

Amen.