Sarah’s Obituary
Some things change little in 4000 years. Where we bury our dead is crucial. Land is important and Abraham, an alien in a foreign land, doesn’t have any, but such is the way they treat aliens that he is offered ‘the choicest of our burial places’ (v. 6) as a gift. The details are uncertain. The story may come from the time when Jews were re-establishing themselves after the exile and anxious to stress that that land was the fulfilment of God’s promise. It gave them a right, and it gave them hope.
For us, it says something about our common humanity and the needs of aliens, but also about Sarah.
Many of us get more recognition in death than in life, and Sarah is no exception. We are even told that Abraham, detached and insecure though he may have been, ‘mourned and wept’. Deaths call for reflection and appreciation and obituaries have their own way of helping us to see people differently. So if you were to write Sarah’s obituary what would you say?
You might say that living with Abraham could never have been easy. Did she ever regret offering Hagar to Abraham? Was she simply following custom? Did she feel boxed in, and how did she decide between wanting and surrendering? Or was it a generous gesture out of love for her husband and his future, a big heart which lacked the stamina and spiritual resources to go through with it, which would explain why her only solution was to banish both Hagar and Ishmael.
Think too about Abraham and Sarah’s relationship before and after the Hagar incident. Did she go to Abraham for help and support or was she simply doing what she knew she had to do? Did she get the response she wanted, expected or knew she had to accept? Some people might feel she was every bit as much a victim of circumstances as Hagar.
Never mind the different culture. The issue is not in the historic details but in the pressures which all societies and families force upon their members.
