Helix Nebula, known as The Eye of God / composite astrophoto by Dylan O’Donnell Wikimedia Commons

Many of us often feel invisible, as if no one notices our efforts. Many of us feel invisible to God, too. But as Hagar learned, no one is invisible to God. God’s grace and love extend even beyond his covenant relationships.

Hagar was Sarai’s servant. Or in the most recent English translations, slave. Slavery in ancient times wasn’t quite the unmitigated evil as chattel slavery in the US.

It was more humane among Hebrews than even other contemporary societies. And in modern English, slave and servant have different meanings, even though both words translate the same Hebrew word.

God cares nothing about human notions of social status.

Even today, we regard business owners as more important than the maintenance staff. God doesn’t. Every nation makes distinctions between its own citizens and foreigners. God doesn’t

And let’s not forget: Hagar was not a party to God’s covenant with Abraham, which only Isaac inherited. Her status proved to be no barrier to God’s grace.

Hagar as Abram’s concubine

Sarah, Abraham, and Hagar / Matthias Stomer, early 17th century

Abram and Sarai wanted to start a family, but Sarai was barren. In Genesis 15, God made a covenant with the 85-year-old Abram, which included the promise of a son. Abram must have told Sarai, and Sarai figured that she should help God keep his promise. So in Genesis 16, she offered Hagar to be Abram’s concubine.

In ancient Mesopotamia and other places in the world, a woman who remained childless after a few years could find a woman slave to offer to her husband.

The relationship of man and concubine was strictly sexual. Marriage gave a woman legal status equal to her husband’s. Concubinage did  not. Did Hagar welcome becoming Abram’s concubine? Did she perhaps dream of a husband of her own? Did she even like Abram?

It didn’t matter.

She belonged to Sarai and Sarai gave her to Abram for a single purpose. She would lie with Abram and bear him children, preferably a son. And those children would legally be Sarai’s. Hagar would nurse them but have no right to raise them.

So Hagar became pregnant, something Sarai could not do. Finally, she felt superior to her mistress and treated her with less deference. Maybe even outright defiance and disrespect. Sarai never seems like a particularly nice woman. She responded to Hagar’s new attitude with rage both toward Hagar and Abram. Finally, she treated the mother of her child so harshly that Hagar ran away.

Hagar’s flight

Hagar in the Wilderness / Giovanni Lanfranco, early 17th century

Hagar was Egyptian by birth and probably intended to return there.  So according to Genesis 16:7, the Angel of the Lord found her by a spring on the road to Shur. Shur was a desert area next to Egypt. Sometime, probably later, Egypt built a border wall there.

When Moses led the people of Israel out of Egypt, they went through Shur for three days without finding water (Exodus 15:22). Hagar was just a poor, runaway slave. If she met anyone on the road, they wouldn’t pay much attention. With no provisions, she could not have survived long enough to get to Egypt. She faced a lonely and painful death.

But if people didn’t notice her, God himself went looking for her. That’s what the phrase “Angel of the Lord” always means. He greeted her by name. He asked her where she was going. Then he told her to return to Sarai, which, despite all appearances, represented the only safety she could know.

But then he made some astounding promises. She was bearing a son, whom he told her to name Ishmael. And Ishmael would have too many offspring to count. He would live in conflict with everyone else, but thrive.

The God Who Sees

Hagar addressed God as El Roi, the God Who Sees. Other people in the Bible had similar experiences, but no one else addressed him by that name. It’s easy to miss, even in a fairly familiar story.

But the Bible doesn’t have any unimportant verses any more than it describes any unimportant people. This person whom no one noticed gave God one of the dozens of names revealed in the Bible. And God enshrined the story in Scripture so everyone would know about it.

As Christians, we represent God to the world. Who is invisible in our own communities? Is there anyone most people don’t value? We must see and value them. There are no unimportant people today any more than there were in Hagar’s day.

God values and loves everyone. That includes people with menial jobs, the homeless, the addicts—everyone who seems unimportant or even contemptible. As God’s eyes, we need to see them and treat them with respect and love.