humanity

Cast Out This Slave Woman with Her Son

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / Leave a comment

“But Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, playing with her son Isaac. So she said to Abraham, ‘Cast out this slave woman with her son, for the son of this slave woman shall not inherit along with my son Isaac.'” – Genesis 21:9-10

They laughed, the boys at play.
How many mothers watched? But one
saw threat and dissolution of
the wealth expected for her own.

How precious was her Laughter! She
had laughed to hear an angel say
that she would bear a much-desired son,
for she had forced her maid already to

Her husband’s bed, there to conceive
the older laughing child. No wonder that
she laughed, not just at things that could not be,
but that she’d brought an heir to life.

But now, she finds that promises fulfilled
have made a change. The boy she forced
another human being to bear, what is his place?
She could not bear to share the wealth.

“Go, cast them out,” she said to Abraham.
“He cannot have a place beside my son.”
Now Abraham had argued with his God
to find a place for his first born, but no.

He would not argue with his wife. He cast
them out. He knew the skin of water would
not last, and neither would the food. He cast
them out to where the sun would bleach their bones.

They were disposable, these two,
to Sarah and to Abraham. They’d had
a purpose once, but it had flown.
No purpose in the camp? Then go.

Too often and too many people find
they have been named “disposable”
by others with the power to displace
them, cast them out, and let them die.

But God, despite a failure to tell Abraham
and Sarah, “No. You shall not kill,” at least
preserved the lives of Hagar and of Ishamael,
declared that they were not disposable.

How soon will our humanity see what
our sacred texts still strain to see: no people are
disposable. All souls have worth to God,
and if to God, then how much more to us?

A poem/prayer based on Genesis 21:8-21, the Revised Common Lectionary First Reading for Year A, Proper 7 (12).

The image is Agar and Ismael (Hagar and Ishmael) by Jean-Charles Cazin (before 1880) – webmuseo.com, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=16403268.

Not Cool

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 2 Comments

“But she answered him, ‘Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.'” – Mark 7:28

Really, Jesus. Is this you at your best?
First you tell a woman desperate
for the health and healing of her child
she is an animal, a dog.

Not cool.

And when the crowd has brought
a man disabled, hard of hearing,
hard to understand his speech,
did you ask what he wanted? No.

Not cool.

I grant you that we get these stories
at some distance from events.
Perhaps you used a kinder phrase
to tell this woman that you would not help.

Still: not cool.

Perhaps when you withdrew with the
disabled man, you asked (somehow),
he understood (somehow), and so
you knew you’d do what he’d desire.

Still: not cool of Mark to leave that out.

We’re left uncertain from these words
whether a deaf man is as fully human
as a woman of another race
who had to claim humanity of you.

Not cool.

And we could use your clarity amidst
accursed reasons to dismiss
humanity by race, by gender, or
by disability.

Not cool.

Whatever demon tormented the girl
was nothing to the demons we embrace.
Whatever deafness afflicted the man
was nothing to the way we will not hear.

Not cool.

So Jesus, I must ask you this:
to exorcise the demons we acclaim,
and cure the deafness of our hearts
when we would not be healed.

Not cool: but oh, so needed.

A poem/prayer based on Mark 7:24-37, the Revised Common Lectionary Gospel Reading for Year B, Proper 18 (23).

The image is Cristo e la Cananea (Christ and the Canaanite Woman) 16th cent. by Ludovico Carracci, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=35849286. Carracci’s depiction of this story has great movement. As is not uncommon in artistic depictions of this scene, there is a dog behind the woman in the lower left corner.