Monday, August 13, 2007

At the end of chapter one, Letty and Phyllis ask: "How might we as daughters (& sons) of Hagar and Sarah contribute to the topics of family, faith and interfaith relations...?"
Their answers are:
That focus be not on Abraham as the founding father of three different religions but on Hagar and Sarah as the founding mothers.
That we focus on interpreting the sources in ways different from the traditional approach.
And that we can advocate as women (&men) of diverse faiths who refuse to allow those faiths to be used against us or against outsiders.

This would of course mean that we would have to pay attention even more closely than we already do to the ways words are used and liturgy is spoken.

I was at a radically feminine worship service Sunday evening. Everything was led by women, the language of the biblical texts read was inclusive even in the use of the language for and about God, the prayers included lifting up the female saints along with male saints of the church, and intoned blessings in the name of Abraham and Sarah. The words of this service would have been heard as extremely radical in most Christian worship services.

However, as a result of reading this book, Hagar, Sarah and Their Children, I felt the absence of Hagar in these words of blessing and in the reading of the text from Galatians 3.
Why when we bless each other in the name of Abraham and Sarah do we feel that we have completed the task of inclusive worship? We haven't, have we? Not until we are comfortable blessing each other and God through the names of Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar, Deborah and Miriam, Leah and Rachel, Dinah and Tamar, Ruth and Batsheva, will we have come even further along the pathway of understanding and experiencing the inclusive nature of God's love and grace for humanity.

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