WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO ABOUT THE FUNERAL?

blogging Genesis 23

² So Sarah died in Kirjath Arba (that is, Hebron) in the land of Canaan, and Abraham came to mourn for Sarah and to weep for her.

³ Then Abraham stood up from before his dead, and spoke to the sons of Heth, saying, ⁴ “I am a foreigner and a visitor among you. Give me property for a burial place among you, that I may bury my dead out of my sight.”

. . .

¹² Then Abraham bowed himself down before the people of the land; ¹³ and he spoke to Ephron in the hearing of the people of the land, saying, “If you will give it, please hear me. I will give you money for the field; take it from me and I will bury my dead there.”

I can’t (or won’t) tell you how many times I’ve sat with grieving spouses, children, or parents who said, “Pastor, I don’t know how we’re gonna bury her/him.”  Sometimes that meant they didn’t have the money.   Sometimes they had the money, but no one had made arrangement in advance.  They hadn’t talked about coffins, cremation, graves, markers, or funerals.

They loved their dearly departed, but in their family they didn’t talk about death, especially the business of death.

I won’t tell you how many times, but it’s common.  It’s easy for better prepared families to mock and judge the unprepared, but you’d be surprised how common lack of preparation is, even among people we think of as great, powerful, and admirable. 

The following is a true story.

There was this guy, a minority from out of state.  He’d come into town like he owned the place or he was supposed to.  He’d been caught committing fraud but he’d never been convicted, possibly because he had a following of hundreds of earners who would kill for him --- and had. 

He had two kids, sons.  His oldest lived out of state with the boy’s mother, his ex-wife.  Well, maybe she was his ex-wife and maybe she’d been his official side-chick.  The stories are kinda confusing on that point, but everyone agrees that the man put his first baby’s mama out with his teenage son because of the drama he had another baby by his first wife and then there was just too much drama.  It was like even God knew they couldn’t make it work under one roof.

Now, this guy wasn’t all bad.  He was deeply and sincerely religious, and he absolutely loved his first wife, and, though he made some parenting decisions that under other circumstances would have warranted a visit from child protective services, he sincerely loved both of his sons.   He was fiercely loyal.  I mean, this guy LITERALLY went to war when his nephew got in trouble. 

Our guy, like the Rockefellers, Carnegies, and Kennedys, eventually earned the respect of the ruling men around him. 

Over time this man amassed money, jewels, vehicles, and weapons for his private army; but when his wife died he realized that he was technically HOMELESS.

He’d moved around:  eastside, westside, northside, southside.  He’d stay for a while, make some money, maybe get into some trouble, and then move and set up somewhere else.  He had baller status, but no real estate.  For all his power and property, he didn’t own so much as a plot of Earth big enough to bury his wife in.

Was he stupid?  Was he a ghetto fool?  Was he just another thug who should’ve bought life insurance instead of necklaces? Maybe you shouldn’t have any sympathy for this guy.  Maybe he deserved the extra pain of having to negotiate and grieve at the same time.  Maybe this was God’s way of paying him back for being a b-ad baby’s daddy and a convicted felon.

Maybe.   

Abraham went to the men who ran things and asked, “Give me property for a burial place among you, that I may bury my dead out of my sight” (Genesis 23:4).

They offered to donate space in their family mausoleum’s but our guy Abraham insisted on paying full price for a burial plot so that the land would belong to his family forever.   After the usual haggling, Abraham bought a tomb and the land surrounding it from Ephron the Hittite for 400 shekels (Genesis 23:5-16).

God had promised that Abraham’s descendants would own all the land where Abraham was renting and squatting. 

On the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying: “To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the River Euphrates— the Kenites, the Kenezzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, ²¹ the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites” (Genesis15:18-20).

Sarah’s death made Abraham realize how far he was from walking in that promise.  When Abraham purchased Sarah’s tomb he didn’t just arrange for a funeral, he made arrangement for the future of his family.

Abraham acquired a piece of real estate that anchored his family’s claim to residence in the Promised Land through a legal deed witnessed, notarized, and recognized by  the Canaanite tribes that would rule the land until Abraham’s descendants through Isaac and Jacob came to claim it 500-plus years later.  In Genesis 25:9-10 both Abraham’s sons buried him in that tomb.  Through Ishmael and Isaac, the legal anchor of the  Abrahamic claim to the Promised Land was preserved through the Ishmaelites (Arabs), the Edomites (descendants of Isaac’s son Ishmael), and the Jews (descendants of Isaac’s other son Jacob).   Today, a mosque that used to be a church sits atop the spot 3 historically contentious religions s believe is the cave Abraham bought in which to bury Sarah. 

 

The Ibrahim Mosque

The financial funeral arrangement Abraham made resonate 4,000 years later. 

A long, long time ago, an imperfect man said, “Lord, I don’t know how I’m going to bury her.” realized the need to provide a place for those who had gone on and simultaneously to leave something for those who hadn’t come along yet.

In other words, MAKE A WILL, FILL OUT A LIVING WILL, GET SOME LIFE INSURANCE, AND WRITE OUT YOUR FUNERAL PROGRAM so your family doesn’t have to go to the Hittites begging after you die!

---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).

Subscribe to my personal blog  www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com .

Email atgravestwo2@aol.com

Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves

Follow me on twitter @AndersonTGraves 

Click here to support this ministry with a donation.  Or go to andersontgraves.blogspot.com and click on the DONATE button on the right-hand sidebar.

Support by check or money order may be mailed to 

Miles Chapel CME Church

P O Box 132

Fairfield, Al 35064

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. ² So 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. ³ Then 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).

Subscribe to my personal blog  www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com .

Email atgravestwo2@aol.com

Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves

Follow me on twitter @AndersonTGraves 

Click here to support this ministry with a donation.  Or go to andersontgraves.blogspot.com and click on the DONATE button on the right-hand sidebar.

Support by check or money order may be mailed to 

Miles Chapel CME Church

P O Box 132

Fairfield, Al 35064

LET THEM HAVE THIS MOMENT

 Genesis 21:1-7

And the Lord visited Sarah as He had said, and the Lord did for Sarah as He had spoken. ² For Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the set time of which God had spoken to him. ³ And Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him—whom Sarah bore to him—Isaac.  ⁴ Then Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, as God had commanded him.

⁵ Now Abraham was one hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him.

⁶ And Sarah said, “God has made me laugh, and all who hear will laugh with me.”

⁷ She also said, “Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? For I have borne him a son in his old age.”

We’re going to let Sarah have this moment. 

Paul counseled early Roman Christians, “Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep” (Romans 12:15). But some of us have a terrible habit of contaminating moments of legitimate rejoicing with our pessimism.

“Brother, the Lord blessed me with that promotion I’ve been praying for.”

“Praise the Lord, man.  But you know that the enemy’s gonna try to set you up, now.”

“Hey, girl.  I just got engaged!”

“Ooh, I’m so happy for you.  Make sure ya’ll get counseling because more Christians get divorced that atheists.”

The responses above are wise and correct, solidly grounded in Biblical principles and academic research.  But the responders miss what the Scripture has preached since ancient Rome.  Don’t poop on good parties.  Don’t rain on righteous parades.  Don’t weep with people who were rejoicing before you got there.   

So, as we visualize Sarah in Genesis 21:1-7, we are going to let her have this moment.

Cause she’s 90, dude.  For 25 years she’d listened to a promise that was impossible when God first spoke it(Genesis 12:5), and she’d given up on her miracle.  But here it was.    Post-menopausal conception.  Pregnancy carried to term.  Natural child birth.  No epidural.  A baby.  Her healthy baby boy. 

Some moments are so infused with ridiculous levels of pure joy that your body doesn’t know what to do so it just defaults to it nervous response to awkwardness: laughter.

Genesis 21:1 - 7 was that kind of moment.

And Sarah said, “God has made me laugh, and all who hear will laugh with me.” (Genesis 21:6)

Let her have that.

I know you’ve read ahead.  You know the drama and pettiness coming next.  We’ll get there.  But right now Sarah is rejoicing.  Rejoice with her. 

Practice with Sarah what you’ll do next time a friend shares their testimony of a blessing.  Rehearse not pointing out how the whole thing could go sideways.  With Sarah as your case study, model rejoicing with those who rejoice.

Don’t endorse foolishness.  Don’t be silent to so-called blessings that are actually opportunities to sin dressed up in church jargon.  But when the blessing is a blessing, hold on before you share your gift of prophetic pessimism.   

Let them have that moment.  Rejoice with them.

---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).

Subscribe to my personal blog  www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com .

Email atgravestwo2@aol.com

Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves

Follow me on twitter @AndersonTGraves 

Click here to support this ministry with a donation.  Or go to andersontgraves.blogspot.com and click on the DONATE button on the right-hand sidebar.

Support by check or money order may be mailed to 

Miles Chapel CME Church

P O Box 132

Fairfield, Al 35064

IT'S COMPLICATED (Genesis 20)

Genesis 20.

It easy with cartoons.  The heroes are good guys who only do good things, and the villains are bad guys who only do bad things.   Reality is more complicated.  Sometimes the “hero” does something bad, something absolutely and deliberately morally wrong when he had the option to do good but he just didn’t.  Sometimes the “villain” is more ethical and honorable than the hero.  In the real world, people are complicated.

Unfortunately, we tend to read the Bible like it isn’t about the real world.  We oversimplify the actions and character of Biblical figures so that they neatly fit into our images of good guys and bad guys.  That may be how we read Scripture, but that isn’t how it’s written.  The Bible speaks reality, and reality ---- is complicated.

For example, Genesis 20 is a story of lies, enticements to sexual sin, and fraud at the highest levels.  It’s also the story of how God took extreme steps to preserve the integrity of an honorable king.

The main figures in Genesis 20 are Abraham, Sarah, and Abimelech.  Abraham and Sarah were the ancestors of the promised line of the Jews out of which would come Moses, and David, the prophets, and Jesus.  Obviously, they’re the heroes.  Abimelech was the pagan king of the early Philistines, a founding father of Goliath’s homeland; he’s the obvious villain.

But.  (If you’ve been following my blog, you had to know there was a but.)

But all the crimes and sins in Genesis 20 were committed by Abraham and Sarah, and the only ethically correct person was the biggest Philistine in the country.  Cause when you tell the truth, the whole truth about the real world ---- it’s complicated.

See what had happened was: Abraham moved his family into the territory of the Philistine city-state Gerar. There, Abraham and Sarah reverted to an old con-game they’d been playing for decades.  Sarah pretended to be Abraham’s sister and not his wife.  Which was half-true but totally a lie.  It’s complicated. (Read the post Crime Doesn’t Pay but it Does Collect Interest to learn more about Abraham’s and Sarah’s crime spree.)  

Sarah was pushing 90, but she was still an extraordinarily beautiful woman, so Abimelech did what kings did in those time ----- he took the beautiful woman to be his wife with, I must add, the full permission of the male head of her household, her older “brother” Abraham the Hebrew. 

But Abimelech never consummated the marriage.  He couldn’t.

Let me explain. 

While Sarah was in Abimelech’s home, the house of Abimelech experienced 100% infertility.    Prior to the advent of modern medical knowledge of the reproductive process, infertility was attributed to women.  e.g., the Lord had closed up all the wombs of the house of Abimelech (Genesis 20:18); but, verse 17 says that the plague of infertility ended when God healed the women in Abimelech’s harem and when God healed Abimelech himself. 

In a dream, God told the king of the Philistines that I also withheld you from sinning against Me; therefore I did not let you touch her (verse 6).

Now how did God keep Abimelech from touching Sarah?  Why did Abimelech need healing, too?

O.K., I’m just going to be blunt.  God made it so Abimelech couldn’t get it up. 

But not to punish the king of the pagan city.  To protect his honor, because Abraham and Sarah had tricked Abimelech.  The Philistine hadn’t done anything wrong. As the Lord him, Yes, I know that you did this in the integrity of your heart” (Genesis 20:6).

When God corrected, Abimelech the pagan immediately took Sarah back to Abraham and made things right.   Now, think about all the times that Abraham and Sarah didn’t stick to God’s plan.  If you need help, remember that Hagar and Ishmael were in Abraham’s camp watching the whole lying scene.

Abraham had lied to his host, deceived the government of the nation of his residency, caused a plague, and basically pimped out his wife.  But, his reasons kinda made sense.  Abraham has a large, rich household including thousands of livestock and  hundreds of armed men (Genesis 14:14).  It was reasonable to worry that the Philistines might take the presence of a beautiful woman as an excuse to kill Abraham’s people and take his stuff, or they might take the offer of a beautiful woman as the perfect offering of peace.  He couldn’t give them Hagar because there was the son who looked like both of them.  For the good of the entire household, Abraham and Sarah agreed to leave Sarah vulnerable to the men of Philistia.  Or out of cowardice.  Or out of faith that God would protect her somehow because God had promised them a child together.  Or some combination of all the above.

It was complicated.

Abimelech wholeheartedly believed in the existence and power of God (Yahweh/Jehovah).  He talked with God, and the Lord regarded him as a man of integrity, a “good” man.  Abimelech pursued righteousness (verse 9) and exercised mercy.  Instead of imprisoning, enslaving, torturing, and or executing Abraham, Sarah, and everyone they knew and loved, Abimelech paid a self-imposed fine for keeping Sarah away from her husband (verse 16), showered Abraham with other gifts, and gave them permanent access to the pastures and campgrounds of Philistia.  Because Abimelech recognized that Abraham was a prophet.  And because Abraham’s God was  a supernatural weapon of mass destruction Who could penetrate Gerar’s security apparatus and infect Abimelech’s people with the biological agent of His choice.  So, Abraham wouldn’t be punished for his crimes.  He would be rewarded.  The king perverted justice, but only because it was in his people’s national interest.   

It was complicated. 

God scared the Philistines, but He didn’t do them any lasting harm.  No one died, and their populations soon resumed it’s natural progression.   While population growth was at zero, the Lord gave Abraham and time to repent and come clean.  When they didn’t God used the good villain to reunite the family of the lying heroes ---- not because Abraham and Sarah deserved the promises God had made, but because God had made them.

God had given Abraham His Word that he and Sarah would have a son.  The word wasn’t that Sarah and Abimelech would have a son.

 

So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void, But it shall accomplish what I please, And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it (Isaiah 55:11).

The complications people create are undependable.  God is complicated, but He is consistent.  That’s why we can trust the Lord. 

For I am the Lord, I do not change; Therefore you are not consumed, O sons of Jacob. (Malachi 3:6)

The Bible is deep, complex, life-directing, and God-affirming.  If we would accept the complexity of its truth, Christian scholars wouldn’t have to make so many excuses.  You don’t have to manufacture arguments against God’s judgment to have faith in God’s love.  You don’t have to censor verses and chapters to construct a narrative that satisfies a selfish, simple taste for one dimensional characterizations.  You don’t have to embrace atheism or ignore contradictory actions and statements.  Those contradictions aren’t errors or clues to a 3^rd century editorial conspiracy.  Those so-called contradictions are evidence that the Bible is the truth and nothing but the truth. 

Because when you tell the truth about human beings, it’s always complicated. 

But when God is part of the story, even the complications make sense.  

---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).

Subscribe to my personal blog  www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com .

Email atgravestwo2@aol.com

Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves

Follow me on twitter @AndersonTGraves 

Click here to support this ministry with a donation.  Or go to andersontgraves.blogspot.com and click on the DONATE button on the right-hand sidebar.

Support by check or money order may be mailed to 

Miles Chapel CME Church

P O Box 132

Fairfield, Al 35064

AN OFFER YOU CAN'T REFUSE (blogging Genesis 17)

Genesis 17.

Despite the drama between the boy’s mom and Abram’s first wife, Abram the Hebrew loved his son, his only child:  Ishmael.  So, in Genesis 17, when God appeared to Abram promising that this time next year he and Sarai would have new names and a new baby boy, Abraham’s initial response was, “Nah.  Nevermind.”

And Abraham said to God, “Oh, that Ishmael might live before You!” (Genesis 17:18)

Abraham tried to laugh off God’s offer. Well, actually it’s more like Abraham fell out laughing AT the idea of turning a 100 year-old man and a 90 year-old woman into new parents.  (Genesis 17: 17).

God didn’t think it was funny.  And, it wasn’t an offer.  It was a covenant.  And this was not a negotiation. 

For all of Abraham’s ha-has, God was so serious that He imposed a special ritual to show how very much He meant business.  “Abraham,” God said, “Take a sharp rock and cut skin off your penis.”

Laughter abruptly cuts off.

“I’m sorry, Lord, what?”

The mark of the non-negotiable covenant held by the descendants of Abraham and Sarah would be circumcision. 

“And,” God said, “the uncircumcised male child, who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin,cut off from his people; he has broken My covenant.” (Genesis 17:14)

that person shall be

“Cut off.”  Get it?  Circumcision was God’s way of saying, “Remember My covenant or I’ll cut off more that.”

But wait.  There was more. 

 

In Genesis 12:2 God promised Abram that he would be the father of a great nation.  In chapter 17, right after changing his name to Abraham, God said, “I have made you a father of many nations” (Genesis 17: 4). 

Christians and Jews revere Abraham as the father of Isaac, who was the father of Jacob, who was the father of the 12 patriarchs, who were the fathers of the 12 tribes of Israel.  Isaac was the promised child whose line would receive, record, and remember the law and the prophets.

What advantage then has the Jew, or what is the profit of circumcision?  Much in every way! Chiefly because to them were committed the oracles of God. (Romans 3:1-2)

The covenant of the Word of God and of the incarnate, Living Word of God ---- Jesus--- rested with Isaac, but the promises of nation-sized greatness and favor was good for all Abraham’s kids.  And Abraham had lots of kids.

Ishmael, his oldest son, begat 12 tribes of his own, each of which became a nation (Genesis 25: 12-18).    After Sarah died, Abraham remarried and had 6 more sons by Keturah.  One of them founded the Midianites (Genesis 25:1-4).  Isaac’s other son, Esau, founded the Edomite nation (Genesis 36).  True to His word, God, made Abraham and Sarah the patriarchs of multiple nations.

A couple of lessons:

1)      We have the free will to accept or reject God’s offers of grace, but some of those offers are non-negotiable.  There may be certain things in this life that God has decided you ARE going to do ---- or else.  There are some things in this life that God has decided you or I will do and there is no “or else.” 

Jonah didn’t want to preach to the Ninevites.  He was willing to drown to avoid preaching to the Ninevites.  Jonah would rather have died in the desert sun than preach to the Ninevites.  Jonah preached to the doggone Ninevites.

Figure out what the non-negotiable are in your calling from God, and do them because  God isn’t going to let it go. 

2)      Abraham had assumed he would be remembered by one nation through one son.  God preserved Abraham’s name through many sons who fathered many nations. 

On the way to fulfilling your non-negotiable mission, God can do great things for and through you.   AFTER you have run your race and finished your course, God can do even more great things for and through you.   

Instead of waiting for that ONE magnificent thing you’re going to do, do all your things magnificently.   

Don’t just leave a legacy.  Leave legacies. 

---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).

Subscribe to my personal blog  www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com .

Email atgravestwo2@aol.com

Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves

Follow me on twitter @AndersonTGraves 

You can help support this ministry with a donation.  Just click on the DONATE button on the right-hand sidebar.

Support by check or money order may be mailed to 

Miles Chapel CME Church

P O Box 132

Fairfield, AL 35064

THE INVISIBLE WOMAN (Genesis 16; 21)

 Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. And she had an Egyptian maidservant whose name was Hagar. ² So 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. ³ Then 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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