[This is the 3rd of a 4 part series. You can read the 1st part focusing on anxiety here and the 2nd part focusing on pride here]
Pride, Anxiety, and Injustice in Relationships
Why is it so hard to dislodge injustice? Why is it that families and communities can allow the worst sort of situations to go on and on? You see this happen all the time. They won’t make even the slightest change to make a bad situation better. Why do they stay in these bad relationships and make little effort to change them?
Why? Because it is scary. Injustice is rooted in an attempt to solve the basic problems of life: loneliness, insecurity, provision, and meaning. When you fight against injustice, you are battling with people’s anxiety over these basic issues. This makes these problems much more intractable.
This does not mean that we should not fight against injustice. It just means that we will fight against it better if we understand that it is rooted in anxiety over the basic problems of life.
A great example of this tragic interplay of injustice can be seen in American race relations. The treatment of African-Americans by whites in this nation has been reprehensible. However, the system of slavery was designed to solve the basic problems of labor, and it was the basis of the position of the wealthy elites of Southern society. Over this position, they had much anxiety. If they let slavery go, where would that leave them? Understand. I am not excusing it. I am just saying that there was a fear in letting that go that made it harder to apply the basic principles of Western and Christian teaching to this issue. As Booker T. Washington noted, “Having once got its tentacles fastened on to the economic and social life of the Republic, it was no easy matter for the country to relieve itself of the institution.” This is the way injustice becomes a fixture in human life.
That’s why it was so necessary for Martin Luther King, Jr. and others to work to force whites to give up their privileges in the South and elsewhere. He recognized that because of the anxiety of giving up privileges, the white community would not give up their privileges without being compelled to.
On a smaller scale, why do people stay in such bad relationships? Why do they not confront such bad behavior? Because the alternative is often being alone, and that is quite scary. The current relationship solves to some degree our anxieties over loneliness and security, and it is hard to face those issues more directly without the anxiety reducer of even a bad relationship.
In our third installment of our study on the relationship of Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar, I want us to consider what injustices their anxiety and pride led them to. I will show how each of their behaviors was unjust but also try to show how that injustice was rooted in their own significant challenges. The injustice calls for condemnation, and the anxiety calls for sympathy. It is a complex response to a complex problem.
The goal is to enable us to better confront injustice in ourselves and others. When we can confront our own unjust behavior by confronting our underlying anxieties. That’s what God does when He confronts this issue, as we shall see in the next article.
Hagar
We noted in the last article that Hagar’s anxiety was that of a slave: she is unseen. However, what every human longs for is to be seen and to be seen as significant. A slave is not seen that way. A slave is just part of the scenery. That’s the misery that every slave would experience every day of their lives.
Then, something happened. Hagar was chosen to bear the child of Master Abraham. She conceived, and she became a major player in the house. She let this go to her head. The result was that she looked down on her Mistress, Sarah. “And when she saw that she had conceived, she looked with contempt on her mistress” (Gen. 16:4). This wasn’t something she kept to herself. Sarah noticed and brought it up to Abraham.
What was the injustice here? It was a lack of respect. Ironically, she did not see Sarah as valuable. Maybe Hagar was just doing to Sarah what Sarah had done to her, but this would not justify this behavior.
There is a sense in which Sarah had priority in the house. Sarah and Abraham did provide for the people in the house. There is a certain order in the economic world simply because there must be a concentration of capital in order to do anything. This was the common arrangement of a household in the nomadic, agricultural world. This provided an arrangement where a group of people were provided for and could work together for a household. In that sense, Sarah was owed respect.
However, there is another sense in which she was due respect. She was due respect as a human being. This is a basic obligation we have to all human beings: to honor who they are as humans, created in the image of God. It is a basic condition for human interaction. When respect breaks down, so do relationships. As the Apostle Peter puts it, “Honor everyone” (1 Pet. 2:17). Show respect to everybody. Even when we are disagreeing with someone and giving an explanation of our Christian faith, we are to do so “with gentleness and respect,” he says (1 Pet. 3:15).
What does it look like to show respect? It means to treat people as having significance and something to contribute. Love is willingness to give, and respect is willingness to receive. It recognizes people have a place and contribution to make. In this way, true love is going to include respect (see Romans 12:9–21).
One more point on this injustice. It is a particularly low blow. To despise Sarah because she cannot bear a child would not only hurt her but was attacking her at her most sensitive point. Already in deep pain because of her inability to bear a child, this attack was kicking someone while they were down. The treatment of Sarah was unjust.
Sarah
It is an axiom that “hurt people hurt people.” People who have experienced the pain of the threats of this world become hyper-vigilant, on the defensive, and on the attack to avoid a repeat of the pain.
Sarah was hurt. So, she attacked. First, she attacked Abraham. As the NIV puts it, she said, “You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering.” This was not completely wrong, but it was not completely right and just either. It is like the attack of Adam on Eve, “the woman You gave me, O Lord!” There is truth in the fault of the blamed, but it missed the role of the blamer. Sarah and Adam were both at fault as well.
Our tendency when things go wrong is to blame other people. Other people become the focus or outlet of our anxiety. These recriminations of others often have some truth to them, or they would not be plausible at all. Others may have done us wrong, but they generally miss the role they play in the problem or ignore the underlying problems that are the real issue (i.e., loneliness, insecurity, etc.). As a result, blaming that is the result of our anxiety or intense emotional response is almost always unjust. It’s good for us to think about this and consider how we might have hurt those around us who have been the focus of our anxious responses.
Abraham is not the only outlet for Sarah’s anxiety. She also mistreated Hagar. “Sarai dealt harshly with her . . .” (Gen. 16:5). One way we deal with the problems of life is by attacking others. We are struggling, so we attack others. Again, this attack born of our anxiety is rarely just. It may make us feel better. It relieves anxiety. But it generally unjust.
All that said, let’s remember that big struggle that Sarah was having with childlessness. This was a deep and hurtful problem.
Abraham
Abraham’s injustice is of a slightly different sort. When Sarah blamed Abraham for the situation, Abraham responded, “Behold, your servant is in your power; do to her as you please” (Genesis 16:6). He stepped out of the situation and refused to get involved.
Before we take Abraham as a coward, let’s appreciate the difficulty of this situation. When someone close to you is angry with someone, how easy is it to say that you are not angry with that person? What if the angry person is your spouse? It would seem like disloyalty. In this case, it would be easy for it to seem like Abraham was on Hagar’s side. This was a tricky situation.
In spite of the fact that it was a sticky situation, Abraham was still called to justice. He needed to enter into the challenges of the situation and seek to do what was right for everyone. Part of that may have been acknowledging his mistake in going along with Sarah’s original suggestion. He needed to take ownership of the situation and take responsibility for his role in it. He also could not let a servant be treated unjustly under his watch. As Paul reminded the people of Colossae, “Masters, treat your bondservants justly and fairly, knowing that you also have a Master in heaven” (Col. 4:1).
One of the ways that we can do injustice is by treating people unjustly. But another way of acting unjustly is by not standing up against unjust treatment of others. The prophet Isaiah put it this way, “learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause” (Is. 1:17).
Why do people not pursue justice? Because it upsets the apple cart. It brings further challenges. It is many times easier in the moment to accept the status quo. But it is not good to do so, and it often ends up leading to further problems, as it did in this case.
Conclusion and Application
The anxieties of life tempt us to make ourselves bigger than we are. They tempt us to think that we can solve everything. When we think this way, we put ourselves in conflict not only with reality but also with the demands of justice. When we think that we can control everything or deserve more than we do, then we often look down on and mistreat others. This was the sin of Hagar and Sarah.
When we think that we can continually enjoy peace in the moment, then we tend to avoid taking on the problems that we should. This leads us to allow injustice to occur. “It’s not my problem!” We say. This was the sin of Abraham.
If we remember that this is all rooted in the struggle we all have to try and find peace, meaning, and security, then we can have some compassion on, even while we condemn, the injustices that arise from our wrong solutions. The injustice arising from our response to anxiety calls for condemnation, and the anxiety in our injustice calls for compassion and sympathy. It is a complex response to a complex problem.
But is there any hope for this situation? In our passage, the situation is about to hit rock bottom. Then, something will happen that will alter this family dynamic. God is about to show up. That’s what we’ll consider in the next article.
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1. What are the times that you tend to demand that “something be done”?
2. When you hear of a problem, do you have a tendency to want to solve people’s problems? Has this ever become problematic for you or for others as it did in this story?
3. Are there issues in your life where you should take responsibility but are not doing so? What do you think is keeping you from taking action?
4. Where do you tend to get frustrated the most? Is there any possibility that this anger is about an unrealistic expectation that things should always go well?
5. When things get tense, do you immediately try to do something to bring peace in the moment? Has this ever caused problems for you or those around you?
6. Where do you see yourself as doing things well? How do you tend to view those who do not do such things well?
7. Is there someone in your life who is an outlet for your anxiety?
8. When things go wrong, is there someone whom you tend to blame?
9. Where is there an injustice in your life that you could confront but have refused to?