God’s Nickname

Preacher: Pastor Liz Miller

Date: March 8, 2020

Text: Genesis 16:8-15, 21:9-19

On my personal journey to incorporating prayer in my life, one of the turning points was when I started to feel comfortable praying on my own. Prayer transformed from something I passively did in church, or others did and I listened in, to something that I could do by myself, any time I wanted to. Listening for God, or having a conversation with God, became a tool that I always had with me. Whether I was driving in the car, on a long bike ride, up with insomnia in the middle of the night, or sitting in a waiting room, I could say a prayer. Sometimes it is a specific “Dear God, This is what’s going on right now. Please help me. Amen” kind of prayer and other times it is a steady stream of rambling thoughts and wonderings about life and the future. For me one of the powerful aspects of prayer is the ability to tap into it in any place or time, to always have it with me.
This became more powerful as I started learning different types of prayers. Now I don’t just have one tool, I have a whole tool box. I find that different prayers are helpful to me in different situations. I have slowly started memorizing some prayers, like the serenity prayer and Psalm 23, because being able to call on them is an act of spiritual grounding – a reminder that not everything has to be new, that we’ve been here before, and that there are familiar words will can guide and comfort me.
In that toolbox are also prayer practices that go beyond reciting words. Prayer practices are actions and experiences that through the ritual of doing them draw my attention to how the sacred is present in my life and draws me into a state of wonder, questioning, and discernment. My prayer practices draw me into reflection in a deeper way than other types of prayer.
For example, there is a wood lot across from my house along the river and going for a walk there is an act of prayer. To be surrounded by living, breathing trees and plants, wildflowers in the spring, and deer at dusk, grounds me in God as Creator of this whole planet. My walks place me into an ecosystem, which often makes my worries seem smaller, but also helps me reflect in terms of systems and patterns and how my life fits into larger processes at work. I walk a lot of different places around town – my energetic dog Murphy requires it – but I turn to the woods when I’m in need of time for intentional, soulful, prayer. There is an energy in that place that seeps into my spirit and does something different to me than walking past the businesses of downtown or by the houses in my neighborhood.
A second prayer practice that has become incredibly meaningful to me is a practice that Rev. Alice Townley will be teaching and guiding at this Wednesday’s prayer workshop: lectio divina. Lectio divina is a practice of praying through scripture by reading the same text multiple times and seeing what you connect with – first a word or phrase, then read it through and consider what the words mean to you, and read it through a third time considering how the text might be speaking to you or have a connection with your life. It’s a process that allows you to unpack scripture and bring it from the past into the present, bringing the sacred stories to life.
I had an Old Testament Bible professor in college who although she didn’t use the formal steps of lectio divina, helped us to engage in scripture in a similar way – finding new meaning and connections with stories than what any of us were familiar with by reading them over and over again.
The first story she did this with was the passage we read today from Genesis. When our professor, who was a total hippie and insisted we call her Tina instead of Dr. Pippin, introduced this story to us, we were encouraged to ignore anything we read about Abraham and Sarah and focus only on Hagar. Tina wanted us to listen to Hagar and hear her side of the story. Once we had read it, together we made a list with two-columns that described Hagar’s life—one column with the good things that happened to her and one with the bad things that happened. We went back into the story again and again to draw out the details.
There are a lot of bad things that happen to Hagar. She is an enslaved woman who is given to Abraham when his wife Sarah is unable to get pregnant. Hagar is seen as the solution to their infertility problems, and we can assume she probably did not have any choice in the matter. She becomes pregnant. Sarah was angry and jealous, so she acts harshly toward Hagar. We don’t know if it is physical or emotional abuse, but we know that it was cruel enough to make Hagar run away.
When Hagar is scared and alone in the wilderness, an angel of God appears before her. Finally! Something for the good column. This angel offers her protection and tells her that her unborn child, a son, will be wild and strong and through him her offspring will be more than she can count. And then the angel sends her back to Sarah.
At this point there are arguments for the good and bad column. The bad is that Hagar was sent back to a place where she might suffer further abuse and would have to continue to be enslaved. The argument for the good column is that at this time, as a pregnant woman with no family or husband, Hagar would have been in even more danger if she had not returned to Sarah. It’s messy and complicated, so that section goes in a little bit of both the good and the bad columns.
In part two of Hagar’s story, she and Sarah each have a son by Abraham. Sarah once again becomes jealous, this time of Hagar’s son Ishmael. Hagar and Ishmael are sent away; more for the bad column. They are once again in the wilderness, and once again, God appears. She is told she does not have to return to Sarah. God will protect her and Ishmael. And Hagar is able to watch her son grow up and become a strong and powerful leader of his own nation. Score a big point for the good column.
Dividing Hagar’s story into two columns was a simple enough exercise, but it showed us something important. When we separated these events into good or bad, we were able to see that every single time there was something good, it was directly connected to an encounter with God. Every time there was hope or protection or a promise for a better future, God was right there beside Hagar—
speaking directly to her. This taught me that Hagar was not just a footnote in Sarah and Abraham’s story. Hagar was her own person with her own relationship with God. Hagar was important. Hagar was worthy of God’s attention and care and words.
In fact, I saved the best part of the good list for last: Hagar was so worthy of God’s presence that when she first encountered God in the wilderness, she gave God a new name: El-Roi, meaning, “The God who sees me.” Hagar gave God a name, and not only that, but she was the very first person in the Bible to name God. Abraham, Sarah, Lot, Noah, Adam, Eve—all of them encountered God, but it was Hagar, the castoff slave-girl, who first gave God a unique nickname. How amazing is that? This is a woman to remember! This is a woman as worthy of as much honor and respect as any prophet or king who would come after her.
For me, hearing this story and diving back in to read again and again, I thought this was just about one of the coolest things I had ever learned in my life. I couldn’t believe that a God—our God!–not only appeared before and spoke to a woman whose name most of us hardly know, but that same God gave Hagar the privilege of proclaiming God’s own name as El-Roi. In learning this, Hagar transformed before me from a powerless girl into a fierce woman with a story of her own that was worth telling.
This was a good lesson to learn. To realize that God cares about even the most forgotten people among us. To realize that greatness does not come from your position in life but that it can come from the strength of your relationship with God, your spiritual strength and resilience. To realize that even when you feel like you are alone in the desert and all hope is lost, there are angels on their way to bring you hope. It was a good lesson, but if the class ended there, it would have just been that: a nice lesson I learned in some class I had to take almost 20 years ago.
Remember how I said the final part of lectio divina is about how the text finds connection and meaning with your own life? Tina was a professor of action so instead of just talking about how meaningful this story still was today, she took us on a field trip. Tina escorted our class out of the room, downstairs, and outside to the quad. We kept walking until we reached the entrance to our beautiful women’s college campus where we all lived and studied. We walked through arch that led off campus, and crossed the street. We walked up to the fourth house on that street and stopped. We stood facing it. It looked like every other house on the street, except that it had a tall privacy fence surrounding it.
Tina explained to us that this was Hagar’s House and that each of us would be volunteering here over the course of the semester. Hagar’s House—and that was its real name—was an emergency shelter for women and their children who were homeless, many of whom had escaped abusive situations. Residents stayed for at least a month and received meals, job and computer training, free childcare, and many other resources to support them building a new life for themselves. For these women, Hagar’s House was the spring of water in the middle of the desert.
I had walked by this house countless times over the years on my way downtown without ever seeing it. But that semester, I spent part of every week at Hagar’s House. I occasionally volunteered as the nighttime host—eating dinner with the residents, spending time with them in the evening and making sure they had everything they needed before bed, and then every Saturday morning I provided childcare so that moms could work undisturbed in the computer room.
Hagar’s House was a place where I encountered God. I met women who opened up by sharing their stories and demonstrated more determination and strength than I had ever seen in my life. I witnessed courage and grace and watched mothers love on their children. Through this experience, I was transformed.
Volunteering at Hagar’s House taught me that the reason we still pray through the Bible is because the stories inside of it are still unfolding in our world. It taught me that even when someone is ignored or discounted or invisible to the rest of us, God still sees them. It taught me that God is El-roi, the God who sees me. That’s a God I wanted to know better. It taught me that praying through our ancient scriptures can transform into powerful actions and ministry today. It can still inspire us to change our lives.
I am indebted to my professor, Tina, for introducing me to Hagar, for urging us to go back through the same story again and again until it’s meaning unfolded for us in new ways and we found the courage of our convictions. She was an unconventional teacher but her methods worked.
I still love Hagar. I go back to her story again and again, praying through it more than any other story in the Bible. I hope each of you will get to know her better and fall in love with her too. I hope that in hearing her encounter with God, each of us will be reminded that there are no requirements in who you have to be or what you have to do in order to call out for God in prayer, in rage, in grief, in sorrow. Just remember what Hagar said: Our God is El-Roi; the God who sees me; the God who sees you.