Sarah Leading Hagar to Abraham- Mathis Stom
Forbidden fruit and its consequences
This painting, Sarah Leading Abraham to Hagar by seventeenth century painter Matthias Stom hangs in the Gimaldegalerie in Berlin. Even a quick look at the figures portrayed by the artist conveys something unseemly, even odious. All too evident is the purpose of the intrusion of the elderly woman ushering the very young girl into Abraham’s bedchambers.
I learned of this painting in a most intriguing meditation by Dominican priest, Fr. Anthony Giambrone called Forbidden Fruit and the Fruit of Faith.
Abraham’s bare aged and sunken chest perversely contrasts with the youth and innocence of young Hagar. Instead of a salacious male appetite, Abraham’s reaction approaches revulsion.
So does ours; what we see is unnatural.
Abraham’s exhausted countenance and Hagar’s nervous anxiety portend the forbidden nature of what Sarah is commanding. And quite clearly, she is in command.
What is happening here?
We know don’t we? It is apparent that the wrinkled, aged woman is ‘gifting’ her husband with her servant, young, and ostensibly fertile. She is far too old to produce an heir for her husband’s tribe therefore she brings him her servant Hagar to lie with him.
In Sarah’s culture, this was common practice. Barren women routinely urged their husbands to lie with a servant to produce an heir for the tribe. But Sarah and Abraham have been chosen and belong to Another.
If culturally acceptable, why use the term “Forbidden fruit?”
Remember the promise to Abraham and Sarah in Genesis made by the “three visitors”?
* The LORD appeared to Abraham by the oak of Mamre, as he sat in the entrance of his tent, while the day was growing hot.
Looking up, he saw three men standing near him. When he saw them, he ran from the entrance of the tent to greet them; and bowing to the ground,
he said: “Sir,* if it please you, do not go on past your servant.
Let some water be brought, that you may bathe your feet, and then rest under the tree.
Now that you have come to your servant, let me bring you a little food, that you may refresh yourselves; and afterward you may go on your way.” “Very well,” they replied, “do as you have said.”
Abraham hurried into the tent to Sarah and said, “Quick, three measures* of bran flour! Knead it and make bread.”
He ran to the herd, picked out a tender, choice calf, and gave it to a servant, who quickly prepared it.
Then he got some curds* and milk, as well as the calf that had been prepared, and set these before them, waiting on them under the tree while they ate.
“Where is your wife Sarah?” they asked him. “There in the tent,” he replied.
One of them* said, “I will return to you about this time next year, and Sarah will then have a son.” Sarah was listening at the entrance of the tent, just behind him.b
Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in years, and Sarah had stopped having her menstrual periods.c
So Sarah laughed* to herself and said, “Now that I am worn out and my husband is old, am I still to have sexual pleasure?”
But the LORD said to Abraham: “Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Will I really bear a child, old as I am?’
Is anything too marvelous for the LORD to do? At the appointed time, about this time next year, I will return to you, and Sarah will have a son.”d
Sarah lied, saying, “I did not laugh,” because she was afraid. But he said, “Yes, you did.”
Like Eve, Sarah didn’t trust the Lord.
Sarah did not believe what seemed impossible. In fact, she laughed…then lied! Of course the promise sounded absurd. Our sympathies align with Sarah because we think like men not God. Father Giambrone’s writes that although the couple is performing an act which is socially and culturally acceptable, there is more required here than convention.
“Radical belief in God’s radical promise” is required. The very respectable aged couple is making a grave mistake. One with far reaching consequences throughout the ages. In the Hebrew, author Giambrone writes that Abram is said literally to “listen to the voice” of Sarah. A phrase that appeared only one other place in the Hebrew Bible. In Eden, when Adam “listened to the voice” of Eve. Abraham, like Adam, knows that what he is about to do is offensive to his God.
But he does it anyway. He “obeyed Sarah.” Abraham, Sarah and Abraham were just and righteous people, yet they surrendered to sin. What chance do we have in a world where where forbidden fruits are vaulted as rights and are swallowed up in the business of sin?
Indeed.
It’s the third Sunday of Lent
And it’s getting hard. Sure there are fruits of the fasting, looser clothes for one but Lent’s not even half over and it feels like an endurance test.This third Sunday of Lent’s a good time to ask ourselves how we’re doing on this forty-day journey aimed at a closer relationship with the Lord. And ponder the reason for the fasting. For too easily we can fall into traps like pride at our fasting or generosity. And forget that our aim is to follow Christ: his serene acceptance of mockery, rejection, slander, injustice, brutality and a long suffering death. A list that stops us in our tracks, does it not?
The recently released film, The Last Supper, portrays those two last days of Jesus’ life through the lens of Saint Peter. We hear his voice from the beginning, “I was a fisherman.”
Our view, then, is as a watcher of Jesus., like they are. We love him, follow him, listen to him but have no idea what he’s doing or why. The actors playing Peter, Judas and Caiaphas are superb. And so is their sparse dialogue. It plunges us into Peter’s mind while he puzzles about Jesus’ increasingly erratic behavior. And worries about Judas’ visible despair that he won’t discuss. And then valiantly fights to defend his beloved Jesus-eager to fight to his death. Then his total incomprehension at Jesus’ command to stop.
“Do nothing while they arrest and immobilize me, while they jeer, beat and invent reasons to crucify me.”
“Just watch.”
Peter’s panicked shouts, “No, I do not know him!” lodge in our throats.
Indeed, he did not know him, he was-is- Other: Holy, Holy, Holy.
Then later, the doubling of his grief and guilt at finding Judas hanging at the end of a rope. “I failed you too, Judas.”
We feel connected with Peter in a new way after watching this film. With all of these people placed in the life of Jesus, people just like us, faced at times, with impossible choices. But who slowly assimilate “Radical belief in God’s radical promise.”
“…He must increase; I must decrease.”
John 3:30
