A WORD TO THE WISE: #invisiblewomen

Showing posts with label #invisiblewomen. Show all posts

Thursday, July 6, 2017

God Who Sees

For Genesis 21:9-21, I'm reposting a piece from the Invisible Woman series

Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. And she had an Egyptian maidservant whose name was Hagar. ²So Sarai said to Abram, “See now, the Lord has restrained me from bearing children. Please, go in to my maid; perhaps I shall obtain children by her.” And Abram heeded the voice of Sarai. ³Then Sarai, Abram’s wife, took Hagar her maid, the Egyptian, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan. (Genesis 16: 1-3)

God had promised Abram and Sarai that they would have descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and grains of sand on the beach. But by Genesis 16, Abram was nearly 80, Sarai was ten years younger but still very post-menopausal, and they had no children. But they did have a north African servant girl named Hagar.

Law and custom permitted the lady of a great household to use a female servant as a surrogate mother. The servant girl was supposed to lose legal rights to her biological child which the boss-lady would raise as her own. Genesis 30:1-12 notes that of the patriarchs of the 12 tribes of Israel were the product of similar arrangements. You could call it servant surrogacy, or arranged marriage and adoption, or you could call it sexual exploitation of underclass and denial of their parental rights. Whatever the terminology, Hagar got pregnant by her boss’s husband, ,who was her boss, and also now her husband, too (Genesis 16:3-4).

The shocking, surprising, and absolutely inevitable result of an old lady putting a young lady in bed with her husband ---- was drama.

“When [Hagar]saw that she had conceived, her mistress became despised in her eyes.” Hagar got a permanent attitude, but Sarai wasn’t about to put up with an uppity servant girl, sister-wife or not.

Genesis 16:5-6

Sarai to Abram: This is all YOUR fault. Now, I swear to God you better do something about this little girl.

Abram to Sarai: She works for YOU. Do whatever you want. Just leave me out of it.
Abram to himself (in a Danny Glover whisper): I’m getting to old for this dung.

84% of homeless women had been physically or sexually abused. HALF of all homeless women report that domestic violence was the IMMEDIATE CAUSE of their homelessness.

By the end of Genesis 16:6, Hagar was pregnant, alone, and homeless, fleeing an abusive household in which her rich baby’s daddy had done nothing for her but get her pregnant.

Yeah, I know. This ancient Bible stuff doesn’t relate to what happens in the modern world. (Insert sarcastic eye-roll)

67% of the victims of the women who are seriously injured by their abusers never seek medical treatment. Let me rephrase that: 2/3 of the women who are wounded by their abusers hide their wounds, and that is part of the problem. Victims of domestic abuse feel invisible. Our culture treats the victims of domestic abuse as if they are invisible.

They are not invisible. Not to every one.

Hagar was alone, homeless, and pregnant with no midwife and no community of women to look after her (i.e., no healthcare), but she was not invisible ---- to God. God met Hagar in her distressed and disclosed to her a plan, a Divine plan to protect her and to prosper the legacy that would be realized in her yet unborn son (Genesis 16: 11, 12).

Then she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, You-Are-the-God-Who-Sees; for she said, “Have I also here seen Him who sees me?” (Genesis 16:13)

God saw Hagar.

She was not invisible.

Hagar returned to the home of her abusers. Not surprising. On average, it takes a victim seven times to leave before staying away for good.

Years later, Genesis 21:1-19 explains, after the child promised to Sarah was born, Abraham conceded

to his first wife and evicted Hagar and her son Ishmael. Hagar, now a single mother, again homeless,
unable to provide for her teenage son.

But, God was still the God who sees. Hagar was still not invisible.

The Lord had gotten her out of the abusive home for good, and now the God-Who-Sees “opened her eyes,” so that she could see how to survive, how to provide for her son without compromising her dignity, how to not just survive, but SUCCEED. The God-Who-Sees invisible women, transformed an abused, abandoned, homeless single mother into the patriarch of a great nation.

Genesis 25:16 says that Ishmael had 12 sons who were “twelve princes.” Abraham wouldn’t have 12 male heirs for 2 more generations. And, because God invented irony, when Abraham’s 12 descendants turned on their brother Joseph, they tried to sell him to Hagar’s descendants (Genesis 37:25-27).

The abused and abandoned women are NOT INVISIBLE. God sees. God saves. God has, can, and will do great things for them.

The mother on the street, again. The sister whose last boyfriend put his hands on her like boyfriend before him. The woman and child pleading because they CAN'T go back again: God sees them.

If we truly serve God, we will open our eyes and see them, too.

---Anderson T. Graves II is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church in Fairfield, Alabama; executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO); and director of rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).

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Wednesday, May 10, 2017

INVISIBLE WOMEN, part 3 of 3: "Treat Her Like a Lady"

First off, the Bible only directs wives to submit to their legal husbands NOT women as a species to submit to men in general. The Bible does not grant men in general authority over women in general. Historically, men dominated all institutions, and the Bible faithfully records that tradition. But, except for fathers and husbands, God never COMMANDS women to submit to all men.

Also, and this is critically important, the Bible only talks about a wife submitting to her husband (as, Ephesians 5;21, they submit to one another), NEVER about a girlfriend submitting to her boyfriend.
As my wife has been known to explain, “You ain’t my daddy and you ain’t my husband.” As, I’ve been known to explain, “You other dudes can kick rocks.”

And as for husbands: in his letter to the Colossian church, Paul, the bachelor who had a low personal opinion of marriage, was compelled by the Holy Spirit to issue this command: Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them (3:19).

Let me rephrase that.

GOD said that men are not allowed to be mean to our wives.

In the Old Testament book of Malachi, God rebuked His people for their idolatry, and corruption, but then God turned and said, “And let Me tell you another thing you do that REALLY ticks Me off! You come to church crying at the altar, praying and begging. But I don’t listen. And you’re like ‘Why? Why won’t God listen to our prayers?’ And I’m like ‘Because I see how you mistreat your wives.’ “

And this is the second thing you do: You cover the altar of the Lord with tears, with weeping and crying; so He does not regard the offering anymore, nor receive it with goodwill from your hands.

Yet you say, “For what reason?”

Because the Lord has been witness between you and the wife of your youth, with whom you have dealt treacherously. Yet she is your companion And your wife by covenant. (Malachi 2: 13, 14)

GOD SAID that it pisses Him off when husbands mistreat their wives.

It’s a sin for a man to abuse or wrong his wife. Literally a sin. A sin so terrible, so personally offensive to God, that when a man does his wife wrong, God doesn’t even want to hear that man’s prayers. And just in case you missed that in the Old Testament, God repeated it in the New Testament.

Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered. (1 Peter 3:7)

Peter, a husband and Jesus' closest personal friend, asserted that my eternal inheritance is somehow tied to how good I am to my wife. God commands me to try to understand Sheila. God requires me to honor her.

Point blank, a husband who mistreats his wife jeopardizes his relationship with God.

. . . Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously with the wife of his youth. (Malachi 2: 15)

So, there is no way that the same God who said, “Don’t even talk to me if you’re being mean to your wife,” is O.K. with domestic abuse. There is no way, that “submit to your husband” means let that dude beat you up. There is no way that God intended being the head of your family to mean hitting your wife upside the head.

God used Paul the bachelor to command husbands to love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her.

We yell so much over the submit verses that we don’t hear God telling husbands to treat their wives like they want to be treated.

So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church. (Ephesians 5:28, 29)

No dude wants to be beaten up or degraded. So ---- don’t do that to women. GOD SAID, “Don’t do that to women.”

No man wants to be bankrupted by his spouse or left to care for his children without the means to provide for them. So GOD SAID, “Don’t do that to women.”

But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. (1 Timothy 5:8)

Wives are God’s gift to men. (Bro, if you picked up the wrong one, I’m sorry but that’s your fault.) As with all Divine gifts I am steward of my wife’s heart for a time, but at the end of time I’m required to present Sheila to God in better condition that I received her. That’s another part of Ephesians 5 we skip over.

. . . that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. (Ephesians 5:27)

(And no, that verse does not require husbands to cover plastic surgery or botox.)

Yes, many men abuse women. And, yes, way too frickin’ many of them are professed Christians. But. BIBLICAL Christianity prohibits domestic abuse. GOD clearly, explicitly, and repeatedly commands men to be good, Christ-like husbands who protect the bodies of their wives, provide for them, and love them with the understanding and grace that Jesus showed to us.

Any man who does otherwise and calls himself a Christian is lying on God.