God’s Correction

It amazes me how compartmentalized my brain can be at times. I have read The Chronicles of Narnia several times and now that I am reading these books with my kids I like to stop and point out some of my favorite quotes or highlights. One of which is when Aslan says in The Horse and His Boy, “I am telling you your story, not hers. No one is told any story but their own.”. I think this is a remarkably true description of how God operates. I am not told the stories of others I am told my own, particularly when it comes to my flaws and faults. God does not point out the sins of others to me, he points out my own.

Why bring this up and talk of compartmentalization? I have read that phrase many times and yet never thought about it when reading the Bible, at least until this week when I was forced to think about that phrase in terms of the Abraham and Sarah story in Genesis 17 & 18 (Thanks to Rabbi Ari Lamm for pointing this out). God comes to Abraham in Genesis 17 and promises a son to Abraham and Sarah; Abraham’s response is to laugh, and when I read this I tend to picture God smiling looking at Abraham’s comic disbelief. In the next chapter God returns with a more definite timeline and this time Sarah laughs and God’s reaction is one of displeasure and anger. The question we tend to ask is why, why is God smiling at Abraham and angry with Sarah?

The answer goes back to Aslan;s quote, “No one is told any story but their own”. God is speaking to Abraham in anger not Sarah. Sarah has not been included in the conversation and the fault is not God’s it’s Abraham’s. Abraham was told that he and Sarah were going to have a son and that “Her name will now be Sarah. I will bless her and even give you a son from her. I will bless her so that she will become nations, and kings of peoples will come from her.” Genesis 17:15-16. God had said this to Abraham alone, and Abraham clearly did not tell his wife about God’s plan. Would Sarah have laughed in disbelief had she known God’s plan previous;y? I do not think she would have, the moment with the angel would have been far less of a shock to her and while she might have reacted in laughter, it would not have been because she did not believe but because it was still too good to be true. Abraham seems to have failed to communicate the plan to his wife. And I know that if I were in his shoes I would be scared to tell my wife the plan God had given me. But there might also have been another reason Abraham would not have told Sarah, and it was cultural. Abraham and Sarah represent a highly patriarchal society where she was little more than his property,. It is likely that though Abraham would have seen the blessing of a son with his primary wife, he might not have considered her an equal.

The Bible is often subtle about the ways in which it critiques the society in which it was written, but when we think about the fact that in a patriarchal society God includes Sarah completely in the promise of blessing and is angry at Abraham when Sarah appears ignorant of that promise we see a critique on society. God is giving Abraham an option, treat Sarah as the equal partner God has made her or continue the patriarchal customs he was immersed in. Abraham failed to bring Sarah fully into the promise and when that becomes clear God shows anger toward Abraham.

This is the curse of Genesis 3. In Genesis two the first couple were “naked and unashamed” this is not a reference to physical nudity only it is a reference to the husband and wife being completely open with one another. When the couple eats the fruit God says to them that jealousy and power struggles will come to dominate their relationship. Abraham has not told Sarah the plan God has for her, even though he was given the chance to be open with his wife. The consequence is that she has the same reaction as Abraham had before. God, who only shows displeasure to the person in the wrong, shows anger toward Abraham. We often think God is mad at Sarah because it is her action that prompts the response, but God does not address Sarah God addresses Abraham. This is a sign that it is Abraham who is in the wrong for not including his wife in God’s plan when God had clearly already included her.

It is entirely understandable that many think God is mad at Sarah for laughing, I thought that too for a number of years. But it is a lesson to me that when something in the Bible does not seem to add up or my interpretation seems to necessitate God acting out of character, (being angry with one person but not another when they behave the same) then I need to return to that passage frequently and ask myself if I am responding to it correctly, or as I said earlier this week, “Did God really say” because often the fault is my assumption about the text not the text itself. And the question I am now asking about the text is, would God who always brings correction to the person who needs it, confront Abraham about his wife’s laughter or Sarah about her own? I think God would confront Sarah about her laughter had she been the one at fault instead it was Abraham who did not include his wife in God’s plan when God had directed him to do so.