The Journey of the Othered Outsider

It’s the way you style your hair and outfits, the way you enter a room and take a seat at the table. It’s the expression in your eyes, the tension in your lips, the sound of your voice, the words you string together to narrate a story, and how you make meaning of personal experiences and public occurrences. Despite your best efforts to fit in, you never truly belong. When you feel the gnawing ache of being the other, the incredible news is you are the very person God pursues and invites into intimate faith and worship.

Hagar (Genesis 16) embodies the other who Sarai uses to alleviate her anxiety and judgement about being childless. Abram is informed of this plan and complies without resistance (v 2). The plan unfolds smoothly, and Hagar becomes pregnant with Abram’s son. However, instead of celebration at this news, jealousy and disdain ensues between Sarai and Hagar (v 4).

Sarai was attempting to address a looming concern about the future of her family, but her servant has turned against her in blatant arrogance. In her distress, Sarai appeals to Abram for support. He is of little help. He is ambivalent and aloof. When confronted with Sarai’s hurt and anger, he denies complicity, abdicates responsibility, and from a distance, he appeases her to do whatever she deems best (v 6).

When Sarai’s reaction is harsh, Hagar flees. She is on her way to Shur, a place of familiarity. She is returning to her homeland pregnant, vulnerable, and impoverished. Despite her circumstance, for the first time perhaps, she is determining her own destiny. For much of her life, she had no voice; decisions were made for her (cf 12:16). She was told where to go and what to do, especially as a foreigner, immigrant, and the other.

However, before she reaches her intended destination, the Lord divinely intervenes. He finds her and calls her by name — Hagar. This detail is easily overlooked but holds significance because “This is the only known instance in ancient Near Eastern literature where the deity addresses a woman by name.”

God proceeds. He draws her out from being consumed by her thoughts and emotions. He asks in verse 8, “Where have you come from and where are you going?”

This question is more than literal; it connects the past to the future and invites Hagar to her story, to consider how she has come to be where she is and to what she turns to for comfort and care.

What has she endured? What scars does she bear? What costs has she paid? What lived experiences have shaped her heart, framed her worldview, and influenced how she navigates her surroundings? And where is she taking her heartache, grief, sorrow, pains, and even joy? Where will she seek protection and safety? How will she fulfill her desires and longings for belonging?

What follows this invitation seems jarring, heartless, and difficult to stomach. God explicitly instructs Hagar to return and submit to Sarai, the very relationship where she experienced harm and abuse.

It’s tempting at this point to assume God has turned a blind eye or justifies suffering to prioritize a goal. And cynicism lures us to believe God’s redemptive plan of rescue and restoration includes some but excludes others like Hagar, the lost and vulnerable.

However, what happens next dispels myopic conclusions. Hagar is personally invited into a relationship of faith with the Lord who hears (v 11) and sees (v 13) her. This means that harm is not minimized; abuse is abuse, injustice is injustice. Moreover, God stands with the oppressed, protects the vulnerable, believes their story, and makes right the wrongs. Hagar is not returning to the worship of pagan gods of Egypt, but her obedience is promised blessing through the household of Abram.

In Genesis 15, God enacted the Abrahamic covenant. Then, about 14 years later, God instructs Abraham to circumcise all the males in his household, including foreigners and servants (Genesis 17). Had Hagar continued her journey to Shur, she and her son would not be covered under the covenant.

Hagar arrived in the wilderness distraught, haughty, empty-handed, but she leaves with someone looking for her, to which she responds with worship.

From the outside, she appears to be an unlikely worshiper, an outsider, a stranger, and the other, but she is the very worshiper that God seeks to tell the story of where she’s been and where she is going. He uses her to showcase his goodness, glory, power, and kindness. And she holds the distinction of being the first and sole individual in the Bible who ascribes God a name — He is the God of seeing (v 16).

Similar to Hagar, your otherness is not a liability or weakness. It’s the asset that yearns for more than this temporal life can offer. It’s the posture that opens you up to the divine interruption of God. It’s the story that tells the good news of the glorious gospel.

"Birdsong had returned

to the branches:

the stream sang

in the fold of the hill.

In its time and great patience

beauty had come upon us,

greater than I had imagined." Wendell Berry