A couple reflections tonight:
 |
| Genesis 21 |
First, the creation story is the latter of the two. The tale about Hagar and Ishmael, and their banishment and survival in the wilderness--this is the older, more ancient. But in the wisdom of the redactors, from the vantage point of exile, the creation story is proclaimed first. Obviously, this works chronologically; but I think it's more nuanced than just that. I think the priestly story of creation ("Let us make humankind in our own divine image!") is something like the melody line that weaves the entire Genesis collection together. All of these human beings--brave and busted, failed and flawed, faithful and blessed--bear the image of God. And not just indiviually--but together! A strange community of faith and faithfulness (and sin and brokenness) stitched together across generations.
And if this is so, we have to read the complicated story of Abraham and Sarah, and Sarah and Hagar, and Isaac and Ishmael, and Hagar and Ishmael (banished into exile!)--as part of the very same narrative, illuminated by the very same blessing, all of them bearing together the image of a complex, broken God. Abraham dismissed Hagar and Ishmael (yielding to the systemic sins and injustice of his time, perhaps)--but we cannot.
Because we read Genesis from Chapter 1 forward. Because we live in the world sanctified and illuminated by the priestly creation story. "Let us make humankind in our own divine image!" Because we know--or because we choose to BELIEVE--that Hagar bears the image of God every bit as remarkably as Sarah does, and Ishmael bears the image of God every bit as beautifully as Isaac does. In fact, we know that they all bear that divine image TOGETHER--a human community, undivided in the grace and love of God.
So, let's hear it for the redactors. Let's hear it for the storytellers who gathered the stories and arranged them with purpose, grace and love.
