作者Revd Sally Hitchiner 聖馬田堂副主任牧師 乍看之下,今天的福音經課似乎只是亞伯拉罕這個偉大人物的主要故事裏面的旁支(花邊)情節。上帝應許亞伯拉罕成為一個偉大國家的國父。但他的妻子撒拉年老且無子。 撒拉和亞伯拉罕無法想像上帝的應許如何能實現,於是他們做出了一些妥協。為了實現被應許的偉大成就,撒拉建議亞伯拉罕娶他的埃及使女夏甲為妾,以此獲得一個後嗣。 夏甲懷孕了,並因為撒拉無法懷孕,夏甲利用她腹中日漸長大的嬰兒來取笑打擊撒拉。撒拉向亞伯拉罕抱怨,亞伯拉罕說:「你可以隨意待她。」於是撒拉苦待夏甲,夏甲逃走了。上主的天使在曠野中遇見了夏甲,告訴她回去順服撒拉,並期待擁有眾多後裔。夏甲稱上主為以勒魯伊,即「看顧人的神」,你可以將其翻譯為「關注人的上帝」。夏甲生了一個兒子,名叫以實瑪利。 後來,撒拉生下了一個兒子以撒,但當撒拉看到小以撒被稍大一些的以實瑪利戲弄時,她就要求亞伯拉罕將他們母子趕走。亞伯拉罕打發夏甲和她那尚幼的兒子到曠野,只給了他們很少的糧食和水,結果水很快就用完了。 遠離家園,在曠野的中心,夏甲悲哭著將她的兒子放在一棵灌木樹下,她坐得足夠遠,讓她可以看到孩子但不會聽到他死亡時的哭聲。但是上帝聽到了孩子的苦痛,呼喚夏甲,讓她看到了一口水井。以實瑪利在曠野中長大成人,而夏甲最終返回埃及,為他找到一個來自她故鄉的妻子。 這是一個令人心碎的故事。故事裏面很難找出一位英雄主角。撒拉表現得彷彿夏甲和她的孩子可以被隨意利用,然後在不需要的時候被丟棄如廢物。亞伯拉罕將自己與妻子的安逸生活看得比兩個在他照顧下的人的生死更重要。 夏甲本身也很複雜。她被當作奴隸,就像當時幾乎所有女性一樣,她無法選擇自己的婚姻對象。她作為妾的地位比亞伯拉罕的正妻撒拉低得多。但她利用自己的孩子來小看撒拉,並透過取笑撒拉來讓自己感覺更有權力。我們甚至可能對上帝在這個故事中支持撒拉和亞伯拉罕壓迫夏甲的作為感到不舒服。 為什麼這個故事會出現在聖經中呢?如果亞伯拉罕的故事只是一個簡單的故事,講述了他從一無所有到如今世界上超過一半的人(猶太人、回教徒和基督徒)都聲稱他是自己的祖先,你可能會認為這個關於夏甲的故事會被省略掉。如果歷史真是由勝利者一方編寫,為什麼他們會浪費時間講失敗者的故事,尤其是那些被英雄主角如此惡待的失敗者呢? 或許編纂這個故事的人在舊約聖經結尾時回顧以色列的歷史,意識到夏甲體現了猶太人的許多特點。這就是為什麼故事中提到她是聖經中首位受到天使造訪的人,也是聖經中唯一一個給上帝起名字的人 ── 以勒魯伊,看顧人的神。她是唯一一個收到上帝後裔應許的女人。她是第一個為一個垂死的孩子哭泣的女人 ── 而在舊約聖經中,許多女人都經歷過這樣的境況。她出生在埃及,是一個奴隸 ── 而舊約聖經中的以色列人同樣在出埃及時爲奴,以及在舊約聖經結尾時被擄。舊約聖經的作者們留意到了夏甲,並珍視她的故事。 但我們仍然必須努力理解為什麼上帝似乎拒絕了她。對於基督徒來說,上帝看似拒絕她是這個故事的關鍵。想一想。這個人是上帝約定的核心。這是一個體現了以色列出埃及和被擄時期的人。如果以色列要實現其使命,這個人的痛苦似乎是必需的。這是一個在她最痛苦的時刻被驅逐出去的人,她懷疑她的上帝為何背棄了她。這個人被輕視、拒絕和深知悲傷。你看到這個人像誰了嗎? 這就是為什麼夏甲的故事出現在聖經中。因為她的故事 ── 出埃及、被擄和被女人、男人甚至上帝拒絕 ── 就是耶穌的故事。 對於基督徒來說,這個故事出現在聖經中是為了確保我們記住,耶穌更像夏甲而不是亞伯拉罕。對於基督徒來說,夏甲的故事意味著沒有自由、沒有好消息、沒有救贖、沒有福音,是通過踐踏、驅逐、虐待和剝削夏甲而獲得的。 但這個故事中沒有絲毫的感傷情懷。一開始,我們就被告知夏甲並不是天使。重點不在於耶穌與那些誠實但受壓迫的民眾產生共鳴。重點是耶穌存在於那些可以說是自己導致自己失敗的人之中,但很有可能這些人所受的傷害比他們所犯的罪還要多。無論如何,他們今天都在流浪、哭泣、被蔑視和拒絕。這是一個複雜的,充滿了強烈情感的故事,其中夾雜著殘忍、背叛、恐懼和絕望。這個故事很複雜,但在福音的光照下,它實際上可以是相當簡單的。 如果你今天來到這裡的時候,感覺別人看不見你的苦難或不在乎你的苦難;如果你今天來到這裡的時候感覺到很難與上帝建立聯繫,似乎教會中的其他人生活都比你輕鬆;如果這就是你的情況,那麼這個故事就是為你而存在。聖經中的其中一個最早的故事是關於一個人驚訝地發現上帝看見了她。在她身上,或許也在你的生命中,我們能找著讓我們能夠看見耶穌的其中一個故事。 At first glance today’s Gospel seems to be a side story of the main story – the story of the great man Abraham. God promised Abraham he would be the father of a great nation. But his wife Sarah was old and childless.
Sarah and Abraham didn’t could not imagine how God’s promise could be fulfilled so they made some compromises. In order to achieve their promised greatness, Sarah suggested Abraham take his Egyptian slave girl Hagar as a second wife and get an heir that way. Hagar conceived, and used her growing baby to taunt Sarah who couldn’t conceive. Sarah complained to Abraham, Abraham said “Do what you like,” so Sarah was cruel to Hagar and Hagar ran away. An angel of the Lord met Hagar in the wilderness and told her to return and submit to Sarah and look forward to having a great many descendants. Hagar called the Lord Elroi, or the “God of Seeing,” you could translate it “The God who pays attention” and she had a son named Ishmael. Later Sarah had a son Isaac, but when Sarah saw little Isaac being teased by Hagar’s slightly older son Ishmael, she demanded Abraham throw them out. Abraham sent Hagar and her toddler son to the wilderness with meagre provisions, which duly ran out. In the middle of the wilderness, far from home, Hagar, weeping, placed her son under a bush and sat far enough away so she could see him but not to hear his cries as he died. But God heard the boy’s distress, and called to Hagar, and she saw a well of water. Ishmael grew up in the wilderness, and Hagar eventually went and found a wife for him from her home country of Egypt. This is a heartbreaking story. It is hard to see a hero. Sarah acts as if Hagar and her child can be picked up and used then disposed of as rubbish when they are not needed. Abraham values an easy life for himself with his wife over the life or death of two people under his care. Hagar herself is complicated. She has been given as a slave, and like almost all women had no choice who they married. Her status as second wife was much lower than that of Sarah as Abraham’s primary wife. But she used her child as a tool to taunt Sarah, and used taunting Sarah to make herself feel more powerful. We may even feel uncomfortable with the way God acts in this story, backing up Sarah and Abraham in their oppression of Hagar. Why then is this story in the Bible? If the story of Abraham was a simple story of going from nothing to the person more than half the world today (Jews, Muslims and Christians) claim as their ancestor, you’d think this story about Hagar would have been left out. If it really is the winners who write the history, why would they bother to waste time on the losers, especially the losers they treated so badly by the hero? Maybe those who compiled this story at the end of the Old Testament, looked back on Israel’s history realized how Hagar embodied many characteristics of the Jewish people’s story. That’s why the story notes that she’s the first person in scripture to be visited by an angel and the only person in scripture to give God a name – Elroi, the God who sees me. She’s the only woman to receive God’s promise of descendants. She is the first woman to weep over a dying child – something many women do through the Old Testament. She was born in Egypt and is a slave – like Israel at the start of the Old Testament in the Exodus and again at the end of the Old Testament in the Exile. The writers of the Old Testament saw Hagar and valued her story. But we still have to struggle with why God seems to reject her. And for Christians the fact that God seems to reject her is the key to this story. Think about it. This is a person who was at the heart of God’s covenant. This is a person who embodied Israel’s exodus and Israel’s exile. This is a person whose suffering seemed to be required if Israel was to fulfil its destiny. This was a person who was cast out and, in her moment of deepest agony, wondered why her God, her God, had forsaken her. This was a person who was despised, rejected, and acquainted with grief. Do you see who this is like? This is why the story of Hagar is in the Bible. Because her story, the story of exodus and exile and rejection by woman and man and even God, is the story of Jesus. For Christians, the story is in the Bible to make sure we remember that Jesus looks more like Hagar than he does like Abraham. For Christians, the story of Hagar means that there can be no freedom, no good news, no salvation, no gospel, that’s won by treading down and expelling and abusing and exploiting Hagar. But there’s not an ounce of sentimentality in this story. At the very beginning, we’re told that Hagar is no angel. The point is not that Jesus identified with the honest but browbeaten oppressed peoples of the earth. The point is that Jesus is to be found among those who have may well have contributed to their own downfall, but are, in all likelihood, more sinned against than sinning, and either way are to be found today wandering, weeping, scorned and rejected. It’s a complicated story, with intense feelings, laced with cruelty, betrayal, terror and despair. It’s complicated, but in the light of the gospel it’s maybe actually quite simple. If you have come here today feeling like people don’t see or don’t care about your suffering. If you have come here today feeling like it is hard to relate to God as everyone else in church seems to have life easier than you. If this is you then this story is for you. One of the first stories in the Bible is a story of someone who was surprised to discover that God sees her. In her, perhaps in your life, we find, one of the first stories where we can see Jesus.
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