The God Who Sees Me

When the main character isn't who you think...

It seems to me a great deal is made of the covenant story in Genesis as though Abraham is the only character in the story. Rather, if we look at the texts around this covenant narrative, we see God interacting with a number of other people, always expanding the covenant, and doing a few things that would have been considered transgressive for that time period. First God tells Abraham that he and Sarah (well  Abram and Sarai at this point), are going to have a son. Sarah knows the mechanics of these things and at their age, realizes that this isn’t going to happen, at least in human terms. So she decides according to the text to find an alternative solution. 

I think it’s interesting to note here that she is the primary actor and basically tells Abraham what to do. Now, while common at the time, what she does and what Abraham does at her bidding is despicable in that they use another human as a commodity--as a means to an end. If we pause here for a moment we will see essential guidance…