Anger, blame and patriarchy: “May the wrong done to me be upon you”

The advantages of being old (not that I admit it), is that you start to see the dysfunctional patterns emerging.  The issues are complex,  the solutions more so. Sari had proposed the solution to childlessness was for Abram to have children by Hagar her maidservant. It had turned sour with Hagar despising Sari,  and now Sari was blaming Abram (Genesis 16:1-5).  We come by blame honestly,  our father Adam showed us the way “It was the woman's fault Lord, and actually it's your fault too, You are the one who gave her to me” - it's a Phil paraphrase of Genesis 3:12. How many times when,  as a peacemaker I was trying to sort out an argument, did I hear “But he/she started it!”  I like the Einstein quote “We cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking we used when we created them.”  The start of finding a solution here, is to ask “well who is going to stop it?”

It's often very difficult to figure out who started it anyway.  I mean who started the problem in this Genesis  story? Was it Sari for making the suggestion in the first place (verse 2), or was it Abram for failing to take leadership as the head of the home?  You might not like the idea of the patriarchy, the system in which men hold primary power, but if Abram had exercised faith and leadership (he believed God 15:6) saying “No we need to believe God, and wait.” But he said “yes” (verse 2 again). Perhaps he he too was having doubts,  or perhaps he secretly fancied Hagar!  After all he was a man and he was human! You may not like the patriarchy, but the  woman's movement that emerged at the beginning of the last Century was not the first push back against it. Abram ran for the hills (verse 6), so who wore the pants!

One of the many books I need to read in more detail is called “Argument free marriage.”  The thing I remember while flipping through,  is the distinction between a discussion and an argument. An argument is two people against each other, a discussion is two people against a problem.  I don't know if there were problems in the garden before the fall (2:8), but if there were, discussion is how Adam and Eve would have handled them. And when we pray Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven,  we are looking to do things this way. In order to get there, we need to come to the place where we obey James 5:16. “Confess your faults to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed.” And argument is two people confessing the other persons faults.  This is not so healing (British understatement)! Moving from where we are to James 5:16 however, is more than likely going to be a process.  

Father, I first came to the realization of how blind I must be,  by the observation that most people have a whole host of faults, and they don't see them, but I do! I then asked myself the question “Can I be the only person in creation who does not have faults?” I mean I don't see them either! But what's the chance I'm unique,  and without a whole bunch of  faults? Lord search my heart and see if there be any wicked way in me,  and lead me in the paths of life in Jesus Name Amen