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Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to Cultivating Ideas. As always, my name is Sean Watkins. I serve as Associate Dean for Lifelong Learning, and I will be your host this afternoon. Cultivating Ideas is a webinar series that's offered here at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, where our faculty present the best and brightest of their ideas, their scholarship, and the content that they're working on. This is our last Cultivating Ideas for 2024. And I am very excited for our guest this afternoon. It is the Vice President of Academic Affairs, the Academic Dean, and my boss, the Reverend Dr. Margaret Ammer. When I first started Austin Seminary, just to give her a quick shout out, and I was trying to understand what Cultivating Ideas was, Michael McPheron, who served as a coordinator for my department, she sent me Dr. Ammer's lecture last Cultivating Ideas, or last year. on the Ethiopian Eunuch and it just gave me a window into what the content was like in these discussions. And so I was amazed and totally impressed by that. And so I'm very excited for her to be able to share with us today. Serving again as the Vice President of Academic Affairs and the Dean of Faculty and a Professor of New Testament Studies. The Reverend Dr. Margaret Amer holds a bachelor's in history from Harvard University and both an MDiv and a PhD from Union Theological Seminary in New Testament and Early Christianity. She has published 4 books, James, Diaspora, Rhetorics of a Friend of God. She presents also in part of the Fortress Commentary on the Bible, First Pure, Then Peaceable, Frederick Douglass Reads James, and Islanders, Islands, and the Bible, Ruminations. She has joined the Austin Seminary faculty in 2015

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and became dean and the first woman of color and first woman in that role in 2022. Today, she will be giving us a presentation on Remembering Hagar, Theological Reflections from the God Namer. With that in mind, ladies and gentlemen, I present Dr. Margaret Amber. Good afternoon, everyone. Some of that I've had a massive life event recently. My husband of 19 years passed very suddenly. So if you had seen on the list that I was going to talk about something else, I apologize, but I've had to switch things at the very last minute. Hagar is not usually my topic because it's Old Testament, but I did this for the Women's Connection at Montreat this last year, and I showed it to Sean. He said, oh, do that one. So this is what we're going to talk about today. We're going to talk about Hagar. All right. So we're going to study the story of Hagar together, and Hagar is only named a few times in the book of Genesis. But her story is preserved, I think, because she teaches us something about who God can be to those of us going through adversity. We're gonna take in this story as it is preserved for us in our scriptures. There are many other ways to read it, including through the lens of Islam. And there are feminist writers who have claimed this is an amalgamation of various stories.

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While that may be true, as English readers of the Christian scriptures, we have received this story, a blend perhaps, but nevertheless A coherent narrative. So let us consider Hagar as she is told in the Bible and what she might have to teach us. Hagar's story is interwoven with the story of Abram and Sarai, later Abraham and Sarah. So to put her story in context, we need to start with theirs. Now, in Genesis 11, Abram is identified as the son of Terah and the descendant of Noah's son Shem. This should not be understood as a historical account, but rather as an establishment of Abram's lineage. According to Lawrence Boalt, the names of Abram's relatives are actually names of towns near Haran in Mesopotamia. So in Genesis 12, Abram and Sarai and Lot leave Haran for Canaan, and they end up around Hebron. We don't know how much later, but they find themselves having to become economic refugees of a famine, moving to Egypt for sustenance. This is the first time Abram tells Sarai to pretend to be his sister instead of his wife. Sarai is taken into Pharaoh's household, and because of this, Abraham's wealth increases as he purchases animals and people, enslaved women and men. Hagar is likely one of these enslaved people. After returning to Canaan, Abraham and Lot split up, Lot heading for the Jordan Valley, Abraham for Hebron.

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Genesis 14 gives us a short interlude in which Abraham is shown to be a warrior. It's also where the mysterious Melchizedek shows up. And in Genesis 15, we read of God making a covenant with Abraham regarding the land, a story which still affects our 21st century geopolitics. For our purposes today, all of this is prelude to the story of Hagar. According to Genesis 16, 3, the story so far takes about a decade. If Hagar was purchased when Abraham and Sarai were refugees in Egypt, she has been enslaved to Abraham and Sarai for about 10 years. So, before we follow the biblical narrator, let's rehearse what we know about Hagar so far. First of all, we don't know her real name. Hagar in Hebrew means the stranger or the foreigner. It is not even a feminine name. She is unnamed by narrators who perhaps do not want her to have the value that Sarai has. Whatever she had been named in Egypt has been lost. There is one possibility from Islam. There she is called Hajar, which, as Dr. Wilda Gaffney explains, means splendid and nourishing. Was that her true name? Is she being called the foreign one for a reason? As we will see in Chapter 16, she is a young woman still of child-bearing age. According to W. J. McLennan and W. I. Sellers of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, biblical ages notwithstanding the average life expectancy of a wealthy person like Abram within the Bronze Age was about 48 years, about twice

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what an average person could expect. So Hagar, if she's one of the enslaved persons brought up from Egypt in Genesis 13, is probably quite young. She is called a pidiske or enslaved girl in Hebrew, not an enslaved woman, doule. In Greek, rather, in Hebrew she's called a shiphah, a virgin, a dependent maid who serves the mistress of the house. So let's establish that Hagar is a minor, a sexually inactive minor at the time of this story. Let's imagine then that in Genesis 16, she's a young woman of childbearing age anywhere from, say, 14 to 24 years old. 24 would be quite old for a normal person. If she's 14, chances are likely that she has had no memory of her life before being enslaved. She does not remember her parents. probably does not remember her native language and does not remember anything about her family of origin. She may remember a little bit more if she's older, say about 20, but a decade later that memory would be quite fuzzy. Hagar has spent half of her life or more enslaved, claimed as property by an old man and his old wife, working closely with the old woman. We don't know if she has desires. there be a man among Abraham's retinue who's sweet on her? The Genesis narrator does not tell us and Hagar does not either, but it's important to remember that she is not simply a pawn in this narrative. She is a whole person, a whole person who already at her young age

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has experienced the trauma of human trafficking and enslavement, who has been torn from her roots and does not have any control over any part of her life, not even her own body. So now we take up Hagar's story from Genesis 16, and here I'm going to read from the common English Bible translation. Sarai, Abraham's wife, had not been able to have children. Since she had an Egyptian servant named Hagar, Sarai said to Abram, The Lord has kept me from giving birth. So go to my servant. Maybe she will provide me with children. Abram did just as Sarai said. After Abram had lived 10 years in the land of Canaan, Abram's wife Sarai took her Egyptian servant Hagar and gave her to her husband, Abram, as his wife. Now, the paintings we've just been looking at were by Matthias Stom and Bartholomeus Spranger. But you would be forgiven if they call to mind another more contemporary piece of art. Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale is based largely on the story of Agar. So now let's take another pause. to underscore some details from the story. Let us assume the biblical narrator is exaggerating that Abraham is not 85, but closer to 45 or 50 years old. Even then, he would have been a very old man for his day, and as we have noted, Hagar was probably not much older than 20, but probably closer to 14 or 15, just on life expectancy alone in the Bronze Age. In those days, a 14-year-old would be an adult woman.

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But imagine the story today. We have a possibly teenaged girl or young adult woman forced by the woman who claims her as property to marry and have sexual intercourse with that woman's husband. Second, Consider this, Hagar is Sarai's property to control her personal maid. As Gerard von Rad and Dolores Williams have pointed out, a wife could give her personal maid to her husband in the event of her own childlessness, and then the child born of the maid was considered the wife's child. The child was born on the knees of the wife herself.

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Again, this is where Margaret Atwood gets her idea for The Handmaid's Tale. Hagar is being forced to be presented as a wife and forced to have sex with her enslaver's husband for the enslaver's benefit. All of this benefits Sarai. I think we must stop and breathe into these realities to understand the force of this story.

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So here's what happens next as the CEB translates it. Abram slept with Hagar, and she became pregnant. But when she realized that she was pregnant, she no longer respected her mistress. Sarai said to Abram, This harassment is your fault.

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I allowed you to embrace my servant, but when she realized she was pregnant, I lost her respect. Let the Lord decide who is right, you or me. Abram said to Sarai, since she's your servant, do whatever you wish to her. So Sarai treated her harshly.

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Now, the biblical narrator does have a bias towards Sarai and Abram that does not allow the narrator to narrate in favor of Hagar. But as a woman, I invite us to put ourselves in Hagar's shoes. You have been enslaved. forced into a marriage and sexual relationship, impregnated against your will for the sole purpose of being the birth mother of a child and heir for your enslaver, and now the woman who is supposed to be your co-wife and who forced you into the situation in the 1st place so that she could have an heir still wants to treat you as

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her enslaved property and to abuse you while you are pregnant. Would you respect her? Keep in mind, as Dr. Wilgaffney notes, that the Hebrew word for Sarai's harsh treatment is the very same verb that will describe the Egyptians' treatment of the Israelites in Exodus.

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Sarai treats Hagar the same way the Pharaoh treats Moses' people before God leads them out of bondage. Moreover, note that Abram allows Sarai to treat Hagar however she wishes. He doesn't intervene, because in the end, he doesn't really see Hagar as his wife.

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He sees Hagar as Sarai's property, as a solution to Sarai's childlessness, but not as a person in her own right. To be clear, both Sarai and Hagar are victims here of a patriarchal system that only values women for their ability to bear sons. But Sarai's response takes only herself into consideration. She seeks her own security, not the fullness of life for everyone in this terrible triangle.

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Now, considering Hagar's situation, if you were Hagar, What would you do? This is the choice Hagar makes. She makes a choice that many enslaved people do.

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She chose to run away from the mistreatment. Here, in Genesis 16, she meets up with a messenger or angel of the Lord, and this depiction is by James Tiso. An unusual dialogue takes place in these verses, and it is unusual first because we rarely hear the voices of women in the Bible, let alone having full discourses with God's messengers. Also, in the Hebrew Bible, God's messengers usually function as God in disguise, as Will Gaffney points out.

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That is, Hagar is not simply talking to an angel. In this scene, Hagar is having an encounter with a living God, who is simply put on human form for her benefit. Here's how the story looks. The Lord's messenger found Hagar at a spring in the desert, the spring on the road to Shur, and said, Hagar, Sarai's servant, where did you come from and where are you going?

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Notice here that the messenger of God not only knows the name, by which Hagar is called. Remember, we don't know her true name, but also Hagar's true status in Sarai's eyes. God's messenger is naming what is true in Hagar's world, that in reality she is treated only and exclusively as the enslaved property of Sarai.

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Hagar responds truthfully to God's messenger. She says that she comes from Sarai, my mistress. I'm running away. And then God's messenger says something that must have been truly disturbing to Hagar.

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God's messenger says, go back to your mistress. Put up with her harsh treatment of you. Sit with this for a moment. Why would God's messenger send her back?

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Is it because God supports the rights of slave owners, as so many Southern Presbyterian pastors preached for many, many generations in the United States? Is it because Hagar is doing something wrong, which was the argument behind the Fugitive Slave Act in this country? Or is it because God knows that Hagar cannot survive if she leaves like this? Remember again who Hagar is.

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She is a minor, enslaved, pregnant woman. Whomever her family was would be a fuzzy memory at best. She certainly would not know how to find them, how to return to her father's house. What's more, she's pregnant, which comes with its own challenges even in the 21st century.

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Imagine being a pregnant minor before contemporary medicine. Hagar has no home, no money, and no man to protect her in a patriarchal society. She may not have any food with her. She is alone, pregnant, and quite likely helpless.

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God sends a messenger to her to go back and submit to Sarai. And I think God does that not because God necessarily agrees with Sarai. Instead, I think Elsa Thomas has the right idea. What God wants is that Hagar and the child should be saved.

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And at the moment, the only way to accomplish that is not in the desert, but by returning to the house of Abraham. But first, God makes Hagar a promise. The Lord's messenger also said to her, I will give you many children, so many they can't be counted. Now already, this is a stunning promise.

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In fact, it's almost identical to the promise God makes to Abram in chapter 15. Hagar must put up with oppression for now, but God is promising her that she will survive. and that in the end she will have as powerful a lineage as the man who claims her as his property. God goes on to make a birth announcement to Hagar.

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She is one of the very few women not directly part of Jesus' line to receive a birth announcement in the Bible. God says, you are now pregnant and you will give birth to a son. You will name him Ishmael. because the Lord has heard about your harsh treatment.

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He will be a wild mule of a man. He will fight everyone and they will fight him. He will live at odds with all his relatives. Friends, it is not a promise of peace, but it is a promise of survival, a promise that this baby boy will live out the anger that Hagar has a right to feel.

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And his name will remind everyone that God hears a cry of the enslaved and the oppressed. Ishma means he hears, and El means God. Ishmael thus means God hears. Ishmael will inherit his mother's generational trauma, and it will affect him.

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And he will survive. and she will survive. They will survive, and where there is survival, there is hope of healing over time, just as there will later be with Jacob, who becomes Israel, and Joseph, sold into slavery, and so many other ancestors of faith. And then, in verse 15, Hagar does

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what no other character in the entire Bible does. Hagar names God. Listen to the story. Hagar named the Lord who spoke to her, You are El Roi.

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Because, she said, Can you still see, can I still see after he saw me? Therefore, that well is called Beer Lahai Roi. It is the well between Kadesh and Bered. El Roi means the God who sees.

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El, as we saw in Ishmael, means God. The verb Ra'ah means to see. Imagine that. This trafficked, enslaved, far

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minor, impregnated woman, is the only person, male or female, in the entire biblical canon to ever directly name God, to ever say to God, this is your name. You are L-Roe. She expands who God is. God says that God hears.

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which is why her son is named God Hears, Ishmael. But Hagar says, God not only hears, God sees. God sees the present, and for her, God sees what she cannot see. God sees a future, her future, her son's future.

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God may not be immediately rescuing her from the traumas she is facing, but God sees her. God perceives her lot. God foresees her future. God sees.

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Chapter 16 ends with Hagar giving birth to a son, not for Sarai, but for Abram. Listen. Hagar gave birth to a son for Abram and Abram named him Ishmael. Abram was 86 years old when Hagar gave birth to Ishmael for Abram.

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Interestingly, we hear nothing about Sarai in the ending of this story. We do not know if she continued to be harsh to Hagar or if she realized that because of her harshness, she almost lost Abram his son. We don't know what Hagar was feeling. We know that she survives the birth of her first child to a man much, much older than she is.

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And then Hagar disappears from the story for several chapters. We next hear about Hagar in chapter 21. Here's what happens in the intervening chapters. Chapter 17 opens 14 years later, so at this point, Hagar is a grown woman of about 30 or 40 years old, and her son is a teenager.

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In chapter 17, God creates a covenant with Abram, changing his name to Abraham and his wife's name to Sarah, and promises that Sarah will give birth to one son. This is also the beginning of circumcision, and Abraham circumcises himself and Ishmael. Chapter 18 is a birth announcement to Sarah and the deliberation between Abraham and God about Sodom, where Lot is living. In chapter 19, Sodom is destroyed, Lot's wife turns to salt, and Lot's daughters become pregnant by making their father inebriated.

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This is the narrator's way of creating libelous creation stories for the Moabite and Ammonite. In chapter 20, we have a repeat of the story from Egypt, except here Sarah and Abraham are immigrants to Gerar, near Beersheba, in the southern part of the Levant. Again, Abraham passes off his now 99-year-old, soon-to-be pregnant wife as his sister, and Abimelech tries to take her as his wife. This is not the most logical story in the world, but let's go on.

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God makes all of Abimelech's women infertile, and when Abimelech finds out that Abraham has deceived him, he gives him animals and enslaved persons as evidence that he was innocent of any wrongdoing with Abraham's wife. All of this culminates in chapter 21 with the birth of Isaac. Some scholars suppose that Isaac might really have been Abimelech's son. But for the sake of this study, let's assume he truly is Abraham's son.

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After all, this story is complicated enough. The next part of the story takes place after Isaac is weaned, that is, after Isaac stops drinking breast milk from his mother. So we're talking another two to four years later. Unlike many artists' depictions, including this one, Ishmael would have been between 16 and 18 years old at this point.

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So here's how the story goes. The boy, that is, baby Isaac, grew and stopped nursing. On the day he stopped nursing, Abraham prepared a huge banquet. Sarah saw Hagar's son laughing, the one Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham.

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So she said to Abraham, send this servant away with her son. This servant's son won't share the inheritance with my son, Isaac. This upset Abraham terribly because the boy was his son. God said to Abraham, don't be upset about the boy and your servant.

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Do everything Sarah tells you to do because your descendants will be traced through Isaac, but I will make of your servant's son a great nation too, because he is also your descendant. Abraham got up early in the morning, took some bread and a flask of water and gave it to Hagar. He put the boy in her shoulder sling and sent her away. So, Sarah is clearly worried.

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She is worried about being replaced, worried that there isn't enough inheritance for everyone, that there isn't enough blessing for everyone. Ishmael is Abraham's firstborn son. What happens if he replaces Isaac as heir? So she chooses to throw out the threat to what she imagines as her security, an imagination informed by the patriarchal system of her day.

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And yes, she is cruel for doing so. and she is acting for what she believes is a preservation of her son. Now imagine what it's like to be Ishmael. You've grown up all your life in your father's house.

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Your mother has put up with mistreatment from the woman who owns her, and when you question her, she responds, El Roi, God sees. You are your father's only biological child. You were born to be your mother's owner's heir. Then miracle of miracles, Sarah conceives, and you are a big brother.

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You love your little brother and take care of him. But when his mother sees you playing with him, she makes your father kick you out. You are not a child. You are almost a man.

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How do you feel if you are Ishmael? And imagine being Hagar. You are no longer a child. You have not been given the right to marry.

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You went back to your place of oppression because you truly believe that God sees you. Now you and your son, the child you were forced to have, the child that was born to be heir, you have been expelled from the only home you have ever really remembered. Sent into the desert with nothing but bread and water. You remember how hard it was when you ran away the first time.

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Now you have a man-child to consider. What are you going to do? And imagine being Abraham. Hagar is Sarah's property to treat as she wishes, but Ishmael is your son, your first son, the son you have raised up for the last 18 years.

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Now you are tearing out a part of your heart and sending it away on the hope that God will be faithful to him and will preserve him as God has promised to do. Will they be all right? Will you ever see your firstborn son again? And so the Bible tells us Hagar left and wandered through the desert near Beersheba.

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Finally, the water in the flask ran out and she put the boy down under one of the desert shrubs. She walked away from him about as far as a bow shot and sat down telling herself, I can't bear to see the boy die. She sat at a distance, cried out in grief and wept. This

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is Hagar at her lowest point. She has survived enslavement, trafficking, forced marriage and impregnation, abuse, childbirth, and motherhood to a child she is uncertain will be her own. But now, to have everything stripped of her, including that child, you can hear her cry through the pages of scripture. As Phyllis Tribble points out, she, not Adam and Eve or Cain, not Noah or his family, she, Hagar, is the mother of those who weep, who weep for the children they cannot save, who cry out for help because they are at the end of their rope.

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In these verses, we hear the last of Hagar's story as recorded by the Bible. God heard the boy's cries. And God's messenger called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, Hagar, what's wrong? Don't be afraid.

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God has heard the boy's cries over there. Get up, pick up the boy and take him by the hand, because I will make of him a great nation. And God opened her eyes and she saw a well. She went over, filled the water flask and gave the boy a drink.

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The narrator picks up two plays on words here. God has heard, Shema Elohim, mimics Hagar's son's name, Ishmael. God has heard the boy, whose name is God Hears. The second play on words that is that Hagar, who named God El Roi, God Sees,

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Hagar is given the gift of sight or perception. She sees a well of water, a place of survival and sustenance in the desert. And with that, she and her nearly grown man-child are saved to live another day. Now there are three postscripts to this story.

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The first is the impact of Paul's myopia on the church's reading of the Hagar story. Many Christians do not know Hagar's story well, in part because of Paul of Tarsus. He uses this story of the exile of Hagar as a theological allegory in the book of Galatians. In this allegory, the slave woman is unnamed, and she is to be cast out.

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Her child will never inherit with the child of the free, and then Paul invites the church to identify with the free woman. The woman who cast out the enslaved woman and her child, the enslaved woman Paul imagines as the earthly faithful whose children are destined to be enslaved, the free woman as the heavenly Jerusalem untouched by. Roman imperialism. Paul wants his Gentile audience to give their allegiance to the free woman, but in so doing, he devalues the enslaved woman and makes it less likely for Christians to know their ancestor Hagar as God-namer, original weeper, and faithful survivor.

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The second postscript takes place in Genesis chapter 22. just one chapter after we last hear Hagar's name. This is a story of God's command to sacrifice Isaac, depicted here by Jean-Charlot. As Abraham climbs the mountain with his son, his son asks where the ram is for the sacrifice.

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Traditional English translations have here, the Lord will provide. But what Abraham says is, Elohim yare, the Lord will see. as in the Lord will see to it. After Isaac is spared, Abraham calls that place Adonai Yire.

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Well, why is that important? Without going into the weeds too much, let's look at a couple of Hebrew words. In Genesis 21, Abraham says, God yire, God sees or God will see. Five chapters earlier, when she escaped Sarai's oppression, Hagar names God, God Ro'i, God who sees.

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And if you notice similarities between these two words, it is because they are forms of the very same Hebrew verb Ra'ah, to see. And this makes me wonder, did Hagar, the foreigner, the trafficked, enslaved, oppressed God-namer. Did Hagar teach this name of God to Abram after she returned to Sarai, after God sent her back into a horrible reality so that she might survive?

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Does Abraham use the same phrase because of the horror he is experiencing? having banished his firstborn son and now being forced by God to murder his second. In other words, does Hagar teach Abraham about who God is? A God who sees us in our time of trouble, who gives us the strength we need to survive.

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Is Hagar not only the first weeper and the first God-neighbor, but also the first theological teacher? Now, the Bible does not tell us anything about Hagar's life after she finds the well. Neither how she lives nor how she dies. However, there are intriguing hints.

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We know from Genesis 25 that Hagar had grandchildren because Ishmael's children are listed from Genesis 25, 12 through 16. Another curiosity is that the Bible mentions a group of people called Hagrites. These may well be descendants of Hagar from another man, a man of her own desire. Pulling these together and engaging what she calls her sanctified imagination, the Reverend Dr.

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Will Gaffney suggests this epitaph for Hagar, God-Namer, mother of weepers, survivor. Let us attend. And Hagar lived 177 years. This was the length of Hagar's life.

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Hagar breathed her last and died in a good old age, an old woman and full of years, and was gathered to her people. Hagar died at Heliopolis in the land of Egypt. And Yishmael, her son, went in to mourn for Hagar and to weep for her. And Hagar's daughters and sons, from the man she chose for herself, mourned with Yishmael and his daughter Mahalat.

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After this, Ishmael had his mother embalmed and mummified and placed Hagar and his mother in a sarcophagus in a tomb in Heliopolis, in the land of the Nile. The tomb and the land that is around it passed through the generations of the Hagrites as a burying place. There Hagar was buried with her man. These are the descendants of Ishmael, the son of Hagar, who God promised would become the mother of many nations.

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These are the names of the grandchildren of Hagar, the children of Ishmael, his daughter Mahalat, and these named in the order of their birth, Nebaioth, the firstborn of Ishmael, and Kedar, Abdel, Midzam, Mishma, Duma, Massa, Hadad, Tema, Jetur, Nafish, and Kedemar. These are the grandchildren of Hagar, the children of Ishmael, and these are their names by their villages and their encampments, 12 princes according to their tribes. This is the length of life of Ishmael, the son of Hagar, 137 years.

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He breathed his last and died and was gathered to his people. He was buried with his mother Hagar in her tomb. So I'm going to end this webinar with a few questions for you, and I invite you to ask any questions you have of me, but also to ponder these. When has God been El Roi in your life?

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When have you known or attested that God was paying attention to something you were going through, even if God did not remove you from it? When has God helped you to survive a difficult life situation? What is God, the seeing one, calling you to perceive? To what oasis is God drawing your attention that you might live another day?

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My goodness, just a very, very, very timely and helpful reflection on the life of Hagar. Thank you so much, Dr. Anmer. My goodness.

00:39:22.640 - 00:39:41.600

folks, as always, if you've got questions about Hagar and in response to Dr. Amber's lecture, I want to invite you to go ahead and drop those in the chat at this time. You can begin to go ahead and formulate those and put those in there. If you want to ask your question visibly or publicly here on Zoom, I want to invite you to, at the very bottom where it says React on your Zoom screen,

00:39:42.160 - 00:39:56.480

If you can raise your hand and then turn on your camera and unmute yourself and you can go ahead and ask Dr. Amer some particular questions in response to her lecture. I have one as we are waiting and folks are gathering their questions. I am true crime obsessed.

00:39:56.560 - 00:40:17.360

My dad is a criminal attorney and my mom was true crime obsessed in her younger years as well. Today is her 80th birthday and so I got it from both parents. And last night I was watching one special and it talked about a congressman who lost both of his parents due to gun violence, became a congressman and really was one of the first people back in the 80s to advocate for victims' rights. Prior to that,

00:40:17.920 - 00:40:35.280

We didn't have victim impact statements in courts of law. It was just judge, jury, and then sentencing. The victim impact statements have helped us to better understand the consequences of violent acts. You spoke to us and you presented to us from the life and the ministry, ministry, from the life of Hagar.

00:40:35.760 - 00:40:52.320

But as you mentioned, it is a completely different perspective on the narrative. Even in the text, Abram and Sarai are prioritized. Talk to us about the importance and the impact of prioritizing Hagar, prioritizing the marginalized of the marginalized.

00:40:52.320 - 00:41:15.440

This young lady who is trafficked, it illuminated the text for us in incredible ways. Talk to us about the necessity of making sure that we highlight and transform our perspective from a victim's perspective, even as we're navigating the text. And then folks, if you've got questions, drop those in the chat. I always find myself drawn to the stories of those who

00:41:16.080 - 00:41:50.240

may not be the main character, because sometimes the narrator is so biased toward the main character that the narrator leaves out the most interesting part of the story or the person that we really need to see and hear. So I've written about Rhoda, for instance, Mary's enslaved girl in Jerusalem, and I've preached about the Syrophoenician woman who doesn't get a name. These are also whole people. And there's a reason these stories are preserved.

00:41:50.720 - 00:42:07.680

And so if you ask, we have these stories, the question is why this story is preserved. It's not simply to tell the story about Abraham and Sarai. It certainly doesn't put them in a good light. So I think it's important to ask ourselves, first of all, what are folks going through these stories?

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How are these stories, who are these people and what are they living through? And then why? Why might the biblical narrator have bothered to tell this story? Why tell a story that makes Jesus look bad?

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Why tell a story that makes Abraham look bad? Why tell a story that makes Mary of Jerusalem be a slave owner? Why relate these stories? And what is it that this person that is at the heart of the story has to teach us?

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Because it's very easy when we think about the Bible, and right now the Bible in schools is quite a big topic, especially here in Texas. These stories are not just simple kids, fairy tales. These are really hard stories about people who have gone through hard lives. And I think the biblical authors preserve these stories because it isn't all bed and roses.

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And sometimes the God that we need to remember is the God who helps us survive. not just the God who is the God who like waves the magic wand and answers our prayers. God is not a fairy godmother from Grimm's fairy tales, you know. And the testimony of our forebearers of faith is sometimes you got to go through stuff.

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And sometimes the best news that God can give you is you're going to survive this. You're not going to like it, but you're going to survive it. Lord. Don't be Baptist, Sean.

00:43:40.640 - 00:43:48.760

My God, I want to do laps around my office right now. Other folks, if you have questions for Dr. Amra, that's very helpful. Thank you immensely.

00:43:48.760 - 00:43:58.960

Thank you immensely. Other folks, if you've got questions. Alan, go for it, sir. Yeah, as I was listening, I just, everything resonated with me and I went to Psalm 34.

00:44:00.480 - 00:44:31.200

this idea of the God who sees. I mean, and I would have never thought of pairing this story with a Psalm, but it just opened my eyes, talking about seeing. And I just, and I just, as you said, God, we suffer, but God is there. And that's a very helpful message, even in this difficult story.

00:44:32.080 - 00:44:42.800

So I really appreciated hearing that and just making this connection. Thanks, Alan. Thank you very much. Other folks?

00:44:42.800 - 00:44:52.880

Yes, please. Other folks, questions or comments in response to Dr. Amer's message on Hagar. Check the chat as well too.

00:44:52.920 - 00:45:04.440

We got some affirmations in the chat. Anna Marie, thanks so much for the clarification. Karen J, when is God not seen? Thank you for this beautiful meditation.

00:45:04.440 - 00:45:10.920

So Karen's affirming as well too. Other folks, any questions or comments in response to Dr. Amram? Those are very helpful and timely words.

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I'm sure folks are just kind of chilling and sitting with it. So I know I have been since you gave me the preview a couple of days ago. So and I think there is, especially right now, there are a lot of people going through, it's a season of fear for many groups right now, right?

00:45:32.080 - 00:46:09.120

If you're queer or trans, if you're an immigrant, especially if you are here undocumented, if you're a DACA recipient, a lot of progressives are in a season where it just feels like God is saying, go back to Sarai and submit to them. And sometimes the biblical narrative does not depict a God who sweeps in and takes the Israelites out. It took 400 years to get the Israelites out of Egypt. But the reality is they were able to continue, they were able to get out of Egypt because God allowed them to survive.

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And we have to tell the community stories of survival. We can't just tell the community stories of success. because we don't get to success if we don't get, if we don't survive. Yes, you were preaching on the final cultivating ideas of the year.

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It has been a challenging year. I don't know any group that has not experienced some hardship or suffering across political ideations, denominations, theological backgrounds face. 2024 has just been, it's been a rough year. And so that timely word of, God will not rescue us from this, but God will sustain us so that we can endure and survive is just a very profound and helpful word.

00:46:55.800 - 00:47:07.680

And you're spot on. I think they've talked about it every year with the Christian songs that have come out the top 100 ones, they're always of hope and joy and celebration. There are no songs of lament.

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There are no songs of suffering. We don't teach both sides of God, that the same God that affirms also afflicts, that buffets you and will buffet you, that will call you will also chastise. And so that reality of God of both sides of the story, but also a God that helps us survive and endure. So

00:47:26.160 - 00:47:31.240

Absolutely. I think folks are just chewing and meditating. I'll do a final call for questions. Are there any?

00:47:31.240 - 00:47:38.880

It's a very helpful reflection. You've given us a lot. Well, friends, thank you. Thank you very much.

00:47:38.880 - 00:47:52.240

I hope that was helpful. And I hope to be able to be more current next year when I when I'm not in the middle of my own survival. My goodness. No, that's a timely word.

00:47:52.240 - 00:48:00.800

You were preaching what you were going through. So we are grateful. Just thank you so much, I think, for being here and being present, praying for you in the midst of a very challenging season. Thank you.

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That's God that sees that guard, sees you and also will help you to survive and endure. Thank you. Thank you very much, Dr. Amer.

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Sisters and brothers, this is our last Cultivating Ideas for 2024. Thank you so much for joining us and partnering with us. participating and sharing your lunch hour. We hope you have a fantastic week, a very Merry Christmas, and a happy 2025.

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And we will see you next year here at Cultivating Ideas at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary. Blessings, everyone. Take care.