SHINING

 The other day I read the story of Hagar and Sarah’s mistreatment of her. Quick recap: Sarah is barren, and in desperation, she allows her husband Abraham to have a child with her slave, Hagar. (It was a very different time.) Hagar begins to act haughty (or Sarah perceives her as such) and Sarah mistreats her. Hagar runs away. God comes to her and tells her to go back to her abuser; that he has plans for her and her child. Hagar names God El-Roi, because she has seen God and lived. She is the only person in the bible to give a name to God. Anyway, she goes back and later, after Sarah’s child is born, Sarah can no longer stand having Hagar and her child around and kicks Hagar out for good. God again comes to Hagar and tells her that all is well, her son will be the father of many.

So, abuse of slaves was the norm. As a person who is absolutely against slavery, this is a hard text to read not because God takes care of Hagar but because God also takes care of Sarah. There is no punishment for her mistreatment of Hagar. This is one of those challenging texts. It challenges my vision of who God is and what God’s justice is. In particular, the idea that God provides for both Sarah and Hagar, for both the abuser and the abused is not how we humans, and I in particular, normally think. We want revenge or at least accountability.

We see in black and white and are quick to put labels on things and people. This creates walls between us and seems to protect us from hurt. But it also protects us from the risk of loving others and even ourselves. To love requires that we be like a child – full of wonder, playful, vulnerable, trusting, open to new ideas, and loving. Labels block those things and shut out the light of love from others around us but also God’s love as well.

But, God does not see in black and white. God sees in dazzling, blazing, shining color. I used to walk early in the morning when I lived in Flagstaff, AZ. One morning, coming home to my apartment, I saw a pine tree standing next to a street lamp. The wax on the pine needles was spreading the light every which way. It was beautiful. As I admired it, the thought occurred to me that it would look different from a different angle. I moved and the light moved. Enchanting. Then, the epiphany came: I realized that God sees that tree from every angle.

I took a class in seminary on Afro-American diaspora religions. One of the readings was August Wilson’s play, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone. Set in a boarding house, the play is, among other things, a mediation on the transitory, unsettled nature of being African American in the US. With the exception of the owners of the boarding house, the characters are moving from one place to another, from one stage of life to another, from one situation to another.

A quick, superficial recap: Bynum Walker, a boarder, is searching for a “shiny man.” He asks everyone who enters whether they have seen such a man. Herald Loomis, another boarder, is in town to search for his wife. When he finds her, she tells him she has moved on. This somehow frees Herald:

He denounces his Christian background and slashes his chest. The stage directions read "Having found his song, the song of self-sufficiency, fully resurrected, cleansed and given breath, free from any encumbrance other than the workings of his own heart and the bonds of the flesh, having accepted the responsibility for his own presence in the world, he is free to soar above the environs that weighed and pushed his spirit into terrifying contractions." He leaves and the play ends with Bynum yelling: "Herald Loomis, you shining! You shining like new money!" (Wikipedia)

To God, that pine tree on my morning walk was shining like new money. God sees Sarah’s mistreatment of Hagar, and he sees her shining! We shine too when we join God’s vision and give up the labels that we put on others and be who we were created to be; dazzling, shining children of God.

Go out and shine, baby!

B