Names | Who Sees - Genesis 16 | May 10

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Am I on? Okay. Good morning, family.

It's exciting to get to come together and celebrate the resurrection of Jesus yet again.

That's what we do every Sunday morning. We come together and we celebrate and

we remember the resurrection of Jesus and we partake of his body and blood at the table of communion.

And we come and we learn about who God is. And that's what we've been doing for the last little bit.

We have been exploring who God is.

And Zach has said this a few times, but I want to kind of reiterate why we are doing this.

I mean, I was looking this week as to where I heard this or read this,

but I couldn't find it. So you'll have to trust me that someone said this besides me. Knowledge is...

I didn't though, but knowledge often precedes love.

The more we get to know something, the more we come to love something.

If that thing is good, right? If it's the inverse, then we grow not to love it.

But the more we know something or know someone, marriage is a great picture

of this. Children is a great picture of this.

Friendships are a great picture of this. The more we know someone,

the more we love them. And that's what we're trying to do here.

We're trying to know God, know his character, what he's like,

to know him for who he really is, not who we might think he could be,

but know him for who he is and who he's revealed himself to be,

that we might love him, that our affections might grow for him.

And so today, we are going to do that by exploring the name El Roy,

the God who sees, and another place, the God who sees me.

And so what we're going to do today is we're going to—it's a little crooked.

I hope those of you who maybe like things not crooked will be able to be okay with it.

But we're going to explore the story of Hagar in Genesis 16.

A little public announcement.

Genesis 16 and the story of Hagar is very complex.

It has a lot of nuances and maybe challenging themes.

So if you're a kid in this room and that excites you because you're excited

about complexity and nuance, ask your parents all the questions you have afterwards.

Parents, if you're in here and your children ask you good questions,

come together to community and we can help answer them and help raise our children

and then live rightly with God.

So there are definitely things and themes and ideas in here that are challenging for me.

And I do not have all the answers as you all are acutely aware of,

But we are going to be exploring these ideas and meditating on them as a church.

So we're going to look at Hagar's story. We're going to ask the question,

who is El Roy? By exploring Psalm 72 and John 4 and Luke 7.

We're going to be reading a lot of scripture. So I hope you have your Bibles

or are willing to listen to me read the Bible. And then we're going to ask,

what are we to do? Or who are we?

And we're going to keep going. So that's the game plan. And that's what we're going to do.

So let's start with prayer. Father, we want to know you.

We want to love you. We want our lives to be shaped like you.

And would we become more like Jesus today?

Would we know you better today than we did yesterday? And would we know you

better tomorrow than we do today? Amen.

I'm going to read in Genesis 16 and I'm going to read from the Robert Alter translation.

It's, oops, we're good.

It's so work computer. So anyway, we're going to read, I'm going to read from

the Robert Alter translation. He's a Hebrew scholar and the way he kind of translates

it helps us maybe see the story with fresh eyes.

Starting in verse one. Now, Sarah, Abram's wife had born him no children and

she had an Egyptian slave girl named Hagar.

And Sarah said to Abram, look, pray.

Yahweh has kept me from bearing children. Pray come to bed with my slave girl.

Perhaps I shall be built up through her.

And Abram heeded the voice of Sarah. And Sarai, Abram's wife,

took Hagar the Egyptian, her slave girl, after Abram had dwelled 10 years in the land of Canaan.

And she gave her to Abram, her husband, as a wife.

And he came to bed with Hagar, and she conceived, and saw that she had conceived,

and her mistress seemed slight in her eyes.

And Sarai said to Abram, This outrage against me is because of you.

I myself put my slave girl in your embrace, and when she saw she had conceived,

I became slight in her eyes.

Let Yahweh judge between you and me.

And Abram said to Sarai, Look, your slave girl is in your hands.

Do to her whatever you think is right.

And Sarai harassed her, and she fled from her. And Yahweh's messenger found

her by a spring of water in the wilderness.

By the spring on the way to Shur, and he said, Hagar, slave girl of Sarai,

where have you come from?

And where are you going? And she said, from Sarai, my mistress, I am fleeing.

And Yahweh's messenger said to her, return to your mistress and suffer abuse at her hand.

And Yahweh's messenger said to her, surely I will multiply your seed,

and it will be beyond all counting.

And Yahweh's messenger said to her, look, you have conceived and will bear a

son and you will call his name Ishmael for Yahweh has heeded your suffering

and he will be a wild ass of a man and his hand against all the hand of all

against him. He will encamp despite of all his kin.

And she called the name of Yahweh who had addressed her El Roy.

For she said, did not I go on seeing here after he saw me?

Therefore is the well called Beir Lehi Roi, which is between Kadesh and Bered.

And Hagar bore a son to Abram, and Abram called the son whom Hagar had born Ishmael.

And Abram was 86 years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to Abram." Okay, there we go.

We could probably, if I just end

there and sit with that story and think about it and we should do that.

But there are a few things that I want to point out to us and think through.

The first is the Echoes of Eden. In this story, we hear the rumblings and Echoes of Eden replaying.

You have a man and his wife are waiting on the promise of God and instead of

waiting for the timing of God,

they actually take what is good outside of its time and they grasp after the

fruit and they take matters into their own hands.

And so we'll look at these echoes of Eden. We'll ask the question,

who is Hagar? And then we'll look at the problem of pain.

So we have these echoes where we're rehashing the story where we know there's

gonna be a seed from the woman that's gonna crush the heel.

And Abram and Sarai, they are waiting for that promise, but their bodies are

weak and they have not seen God come through.

And they begin to question and say, can I trust God? Can I trust God's character?

And so when we see this, we see actually them taking...

And grasp after the promise in a way that is inverting or perverting power.

And so what we see is we see that when we take matters into our own hands,

when we grasp after this fruit, we create relational strife,

oppression, and injustice.

And actually, this is what the story of scripture is all about.

The story of scripture and the human condition is one where we are told every

tree of the garden is good for food and delightful to the eyes,

delightful to the eyes and good for food.

But then we're maybe told, hey, but follow or and follow the commandments of

God and operate in his will and in his time.

Then sometimes we say, I don't think I can trust God, or I don't think that

I can trust that God is good.

And both of those things, when we begin to ask and say those things,

we then begin to warp our view of God and step into this dangerous area.

And when we begin to act on those misgivings at best, we create relational strife

and tension, oppression, and injustice.

And we'll look at Psalm 72 later, but I just want to highlight that this is

what the prophets were frustrated with Israel about.

This is what the prophets, It's when they talk about Israel going into exile,

it's because they didn't look after the poor or the oppressed or the vulnerable.

It's because they perverted justice and they promoted their own power.

And so this is something that is, yes, very complex, but important for us to meditate on.

And then the question of who is Hagar? Hagar is the stranger immigrant.

Her name means stranger or immigrant. She's a slave girl that was taken from Egypt.

When Abram and Sarai were in Egypt, they leave after a complex story of Abram

and Sarai pretending to be brother and sister.

And then they leave with a lot of wealth. And Hagar is one of the things that

they, one of the people, one of the persons that they leave with.

But she's taken from Egypt. She becomes harassed by Sarah and forced into the

wilderness where she names God.

What's interesting about this story, and again, that should recall echoes of

scripture in our minds that when pushed into the wilderness.

Hagar has an encounter with God.

And I wanna highlight, I heard this at work actually from someone that I really respect.

He said, there's three reasons why we might find ourselves in the wilderness.

Because of our sin, because of the sins of others, because of the Spirit of God.

Adam and Eve find themselves in the wilderness because of their own sin.

Hagar finds herself in the wilderness because of the sin of others.

Christ finds himself in the wilderness because the Spirit of God led him there,

or the Desert Fathers in church history.

They find themselves, they go into the wilderness, and where they do that,

they encounter God, but they also encounter perhaps the depths of themselves.

The wilderness is a place for us to reflect on who we are and find who God is.

And so Hagar has this encounter. And what we see here is that Hagar actually

is the hero of this story.

It's not Abram and Sarai who is the hero of this story or the one who see God. It's actually Hagar.

And so that leads us to this problem of pain. This idea where the angel of the Lord sends us,

sends not us, sends Hagar back to, as the scripture tells us,

back and suffer abuse at the hand of her mistress.

And so I want to highlight for us, this is something we know as a church,

we know as a people, but it is important to highlight that this story is not prescriptive.

This story is not one where we come to the scripture and say,

ah, this is how I handle abusive situations.

That is not at all what is happening here. Actually, what this is saying in

a lot of complexity and worth thinking through,

but it's deeper and this story cannot be by how we choose to give guidance to those around us.

And then Hagar, not Abram, is the hero of this story. So we can't look at this

and say, Abram came and did right.

He is a righteous man and we know that he is called righteous by God,

but this is not a story of his righteousness.

This is a story that brings complexity to the character of Abraham.

And actually we see him when he is confronted with the relational strife,

instead of coming in and being a mediator between the two, He relinquishes all

responsibility, all authority.

And that's actually the biblical authors look at that and the way that they

describe this story, that is a problem. That is the inaccurate way of dealing with this issue.

And so pain and suffering can produce good fruit.

What we see in this story with Hagar is she's asked, where are you coming from and where are you going?

And she only responds to one. She says, from Sarai, my mistress, I am fleeing.

And so as we are uncomfortable with how the angel responds, it's important for

us to remember the cultural context of this moment.

She has one answer to this two-part question. And her one answer is, I am just fleeing.

And she's found in the wilderness, which means likely that she had no place

to go, and it is likely that she was fleeing to die.

And perhaps, perhaps the cultural context of the day allowed for,

or was part of the reason why she was encouraged to go back to Abram and Sarai,

that she might live and that her son, Ishmael, might have life.

Because we see that the angel of the Lord, who perhaps, or is later named to

be God, so very well could be Christophne, which means an appearance of Christ

in the Old Testament, Perhaps Christ is encouraging her to go back that she might have life.

And what is important for us to realize is God chooses to work through the period

in time that humans are in.

While he is outside of time, he chooses to work through the period of time that humans are in.

Again, it's still uncomfortable. It's still not easy, but it's maybe things

that can help us wrestle with it as we go on this week.

The second thing that I wanna highlight is the angel of the Lord said three times.

It says, where are you coming from and where are you going? And the angel of

the Lord said, return to your mistress.

And then it says, the angel of the Lord said, I will surely multiply your seed.

And the angel of the Lord said, and then it says the promise.

Perhaps what this is implying is that Hagar, when confronted with returning to Sarai, is found mute.

She is challenged at the very least, found speechless at this recommendation.

And that's how I find myself at this recommendation.

But the angel of the Lord continues to speak to Hagar in that moment.

And Hagar's response at the end is, have I not seen the God who sees me?

And how did she get there?

Well, that's a very good question that is worth us exploring.

It's worth us meditating on. How did she get from being mute and the angel of

the Lord continues to speak to then saying, I have seen the God who sees me.

And perhaps part of it is that not only has she seen the God who sees me,

but the name Ishmael is actually the word Shema in Hebrew is the hearing or listening.

And then El, God hears.

And so the angel of the Lord says, the Lord has heeded or heard your suffering.

And so she's given the promise of a son, despite the circumstance of her suffering.

And she is given a son who God hears. And we see later in the story of Genesis,

where God then again hears the crying of Ishmael in the wilderness.

And so, as we find ourselves in the wilderness, whether it is for our sin,

the sin of others, or the Spirit of God, we can remember and hold fast that

there is a God who listens and a God who sees.

And so, who is this God who sees? This is a painting by Ferdinand Bull in 1650.

And I found it as I was preparing for this and what it's Ferdinand studied under

Rembrandt, whose use of light was very instructive.

And you see the person of Hagar cast down, but the eyes of the angel upon her.

The God who sees, sees us in our suffering and he sees us in our weakness and

he knows us. And so we'll look at a few passages.

Oh, sorry. I was getting ahead of myself. Pause. This is from C.S. Lewis.

And I would encourage you, if you are curious or desire to know more about suffering,

I would encourage you to read The Problem of Pain.

It's even C.S. Lewis, as he begins it, he says, I have no place to write this.

And it's far more complex than this book will allow.

But for me, it was a great way to explore what does it mean for us to suffer?

And how can we serve a God who...

How do we see God in light of our suffering? And he says, pain insists on our being attended to.

God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscious,

but he shouts in our pain. It is a megaphone to rouse a deaf world.

And for us, many of us have experienced pain or many of us will experience pain.

And it is not always, the scripture does not tell us that we should look at

every day and say, man, today is a great day and have unfettered optimism.

But even in our suffering, we can find a God who sees us.

We can see a God made seen who sees us.

And so who is this God? We're going to look at three stories or three passages

of scripture. We're going to look at Psalm 72.

We're going to look at and two passages in the gospels.

But first I want to read Psalm 72. And this is, if you want to open with me,

this is a Psalm written to the righteous King or for the righteous king. It's a Psalm of Solomon.

Give the king your judgments, O God, and your righteousness to the king's son.

He will judge your people with righteousness and your poor with justice.

The mountains will bring peace to the people and the little hills by righteousness.

He will bring justice to the poor of the people. He will save the children of

the needy. He will break in pieces He is the oppressor.

Skip to verse 11. All kings shall fall down before him and all nations shall serve him.

For he will deliver the needy when he cries, the poor also, and him who has no helper.

He will spare the poor and the needy. He will save the souls of the needy.

He will redeem their life from oppression and violence.

The precious and precious shall be their blood in his sight.

It continues on, but what we see in this psalm is we see a king that is coming

that will judge the world with righteousness in right relationship with God and with people.

The king will look out for the poor. He will care for the oppressed.

He will hear the cries of the needy.

And I would put forward that we meet this king in the gospels.

We meet this king in the person of Jesus Christ. And so there's so many stories

where we see this king operate with the principles of the kingdom of heaven.

But I just want to look at two. I want to start with Luke seven.

And this is the Messiah who sees, and it starts in verse 36.

Then one of the Pharisees asked him, that being Jesus, to eat with him.

He went to the Pharisee's house and sat down to eat and behold,

a woman in the city who was a sinner, when she knew Jesus sat at the table in the Pharisee's house,

brought an alabaster flask of fragrant oil and stood up at his feet behind him weeping.

And she began to wash his feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of

her head. And she kissed his feet and anointed them with fragrant oil.

Now, when the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he spoke to himself saying,

this man, if he were a prophet, would know who and what manner of woman this

is who is touching him, for she is a sinner.

And Jesus answered and said to him, Simon, I have something to say to you.

So he said, teacher, say it.

There was a certain creditor who had two debtors, one who owed 500 denarii and another 50.

And when they had nothing with which to repay, he freely forgave them both.

Tell me, therefore, which of them will love him more?

Simon answered and said, I suppose the one whom he forgave more.

And he said to him, You have rightly judged.

Then he turned to the woman and said to Simon, Do you see this woman?

I entered your house, and you gave me no water for my feet, but she has washed

my feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head.

You gave me no kiss, but this woman has not ceased to kiss my feet since the

time I came in. You did not anoint my head with oil, but this woman anointing

my feet with fragrant oil.

Therefore I say to you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much.

But to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little. Then he said to her, your sins are forgiven.

Jesus asks a question here of Simon. He says, do you see this woman?

And this is an odd question because

this author, Luke, says a little bit earlier, the Pharisee saw this.

So obviously the Pharisee saw this woman.

But Jesus asks a layer deeper, do you really, truly see this woman?

And the Pharisee thought he saw her because he saw her as a sinner.

And Jesus asks the question or rebukes him and says, you have no eyes by which you can see this woman.

And I think sometimes we can be the Pharisee who looks, but does not see.

And sometimes we can be the Pharisee who looks at ourselves and says,

at least I'm not like her.

And in reality, what Christ says is, if you saw yourself the way I truly see

you, you would see the depths, you would be able to plumb the depths of your

sin and encounter the depths of my love for you.

But when we keep ourselves as the one who has 50 denarii forgiven,

we actually miss out on encountering the God who sees us as we really are.

Which leads me to one more story of God, Christ being the one who sees.

This is John 4, one that's very familiar to us.

And in John 4, we know that Jesus, he goes to a well, and I'll read just a few parts of it.

He says, he finds a woman from Sumerian. She came to draw water.

And Jesus said to her in verse 7, give me a drink.

For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. Then the woman of

Samaria said to him, how is it that you being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?

For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.

Jesus answered and said to her, if you knew the gift of God and who it was who

says to you, give me a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.

The woman said to him, sir, you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep.

Where do you get this living water?

Are you greater than our father Jacob who gave us this well and drank from it

himself, as well as his sons and livestock.

And then Jesus says, "'Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again,

"'but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him "'will never thirst.

"'But the water that I shall give him "'will become a fountain of water,

"'springing up into everlasting life.'".

She said, sir, give me this water that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.

And Jesus said to her, go call your husband and come here.

And the woman said, I have no husband.

Jesus said to her, you have well said, I have no husband for you have had five

husbands. And the one whom you have now is not your husband in that you spoke truly.

And that story continues. And she is so enamored and enthralled and amazed by

this person that she says, you must be the Messiah. or he says, I who speak to you, am he.

He reveals himself as the Messiah to the Samaritan woman. She goes to her home

and she shares the good news of the kingdom of heaven, which we call the gospel.

And how does she share the gospel? She goes to someone and says,

this man knows all that I have ever done.

Or in other words, this man knows me.

She was known by the Messiah, the coming one, the savior, but it did not lead

her into fear. it actually led her into joy, into sharing others,

this man actually knows me.

This story where she's had five husbands is not likely one where she got tired

of the man, but actually rather the man probably in this cultural moment,

she probably was tossed aside.

She was treated as not valuable, but she encounters a man who says,

I know you, and I love you.

And I see you for who you are. And it does not change how I feel about you.

And it awakes in her such excitement to bring others to meet this man.

Which leads me to my last point as we conclude.

So what are we to do about it?

What are you and I, when we encounter the God who sees, what are we to do?

And the first thing is we are the ones who God sees.

We are called to plumb the depths of our sin and know and meet ourselves,

not because we will reveal to God who we are, but because God reveals to us who we are.

And in that we are to plumb the depths that go far deeper of God's love for us.

We are to encounter the God who sees.

We also are the ones by whom God sees others.

Henry Cloud and something Townsend, Henry Townsend.

Anyway, I don't know if they're both Henry. They wrote a book called How People Grow.

And in this book, they say that we often want the 21st century quick fix of

a pill that will change us, that will make us grow, make us different.

And we ask and we pray for this miraculous transformation that will just make it better.

And they said, but in their experience as counselors and followers of Jesus,

the way of Christ is one that is long and requires endurance.

And it's long change over time through the church.

It's the church acting as the eyes of God by which people become seen.

And it's the church acting as the hands of God that help mold and shape the

people around us, you and me into the people and image of God that we were created to be.

So we are, when we are confronted with the God who sees, we are the ones who

God sees, and we are the ones by whom God sees others.

Which leads us to getting to hear from Rebecca.

All right, here we go. I'm going to clean next up with me because that's going to happen.

I'm going to try to kind of reiterate a few things and then tie in my own story

and tie it back into this.

And I'm like 100% going to cry, so just hang on with me.

Zach asked me to share along with Jake today because this is one of the names

or aspects of God that I just have always resonated with.

When anyone asks, what names of God are you thinking of right now? This is always the one.

I just love it. I mean, everything about God is pretty fantastic,

but this is one that's always just kind of been important to me.

So Zach asked me to share maybe why it's important or share about a time in

my life when this became really real to me.

And so I'm gonna share something with you that's very personal.

Because I love you all. You're my people.

And I really believe in the importance of vulnerability and community.

And if God is pressing that on my heart, it's only fair that I be one to participate in it.

So I feel like this is what God is asking me to share, whether or not it means anything in the end.

And it's just an act of obedience for me, just like Hagar I am going to share

about a time because anytime God sees you.

It changes things, right? So the part about Hagar's story that I really love,

that I really connect with, or at least on this reading, there are so many things.

But the version that I read says, in this place, this is Hagar's response to

what the angel says, in this place, have I actually seen the one who sees me?

And Jake talked about that place being the wilderness, right?

She's not in a good place. She's not in a safe place.

And she was given some really tough instructions afterwards.

Some of the news was good, but some of it was really hard. Go back.

Your son will be a donkey who's against everyone around him.

But I will bless you through that. And she sees that. She sees God seeing her.

She acknowledges that God was seeing her, that he always sees us.

It just took for her being in this place with nothing else in the way,

where she was able to acknowledge, is this the place? Here, really, now?

This is where I see the God who sees me. I'm going to share this story.

In early 2023, so a few years back, you all know me you know where this is going,

after church one Sunday some friends pulled George and I aside and prayed for us,

My husband was in ministry. We're in a non-profit. It was a difficult season,

long season, but they prayed for us and read this scripture over us,

and I'm going to read it to you now.

It's the beginning of 2 Kings chapter 4.

2 Kings 4 · chapter mention

I'm going to try to read it. The wife of a man from the company of prophets

cried out to Elijah, Your servant, my husband, is dead, and you know that he revered the Lord.

And now his creditor is coming to take my two boys as his slaves.

And Elisha replied to her, How can I help you? Tell me, what do you have in your house?

Servant has nothing there at all, she said, except a small jar of olive oil.

And Elisha said, go around and ask all your neighbors for empty jars.

Don't ask for just a few. And then go inside and shut the door behind you and your sons.

Pour oil into all the jars, and as each is filled, put it to one side.

She left him, and she shut the door behind her and her sons.

They brought the jars to her, and she kept pouring. And when all the jars were

full, she said to her son, bring me another one.

But he replied, there is not a jar left. And then the oil stopped flowing.

She went and told the man of God and said, go sell the oil and pay your debts.

You and your sons can live on what is left.

And we received this prayer in the scripture with some enthusiasm, thinking, fantastic.

God wants to fill us up and provide for us and take care of us.

And then a couple months later, my husband, his servant, was dead.

As I sat in my home.

This moment came back to me.

I would say I remembered the situation, but it was really more like a sucker punch.

And I physically doubled me over.

And it was not a good place. It was not a place where I felt safe,

but I saw God seeing me, and I saw that he had been seeing me.

It was not comforting.

It was powerful. And I knew I was not alone.

And I knew that I could trust God. And I knew that I would trust him.

In Mark 2.17, excuse me, Jesus says, I did not come to, or a doctor doesn't

come for the healthy, he comes for the sick.

And when we're fine, I like that quote by C.S. Lewis, God speaks to us.

He sees us, but sometimes it's harder to see.

And he comes when we're in need, but we're all the sick, right?

Sometimes we think we're healthy, but we're not.

Sometimes we think we're the one that owes 50 but we're always the one who owes 500,

it's important to remember that as we humble ourselves before god,

and take the opportunity to open our eyes and look to see god seeing us because

when he does it's powerful but he does that when when we're broken when we need it,

and so that may not be super encouraging,

but I know all of you have been through things too you just haven't gotten to

air all your dirty laundry in front of everybody or maybe you have,

but it's also really important as we tie this back in here when you've been seen by God.

To see The...

On behalf of God, other people. The Samaritan woman went out after that,

and she expressed what had happened to her and brought people back to Jesus.

And just like this couple that prayed over us, if they had not done that,

I would not have had that moment with God.

But they were faithful to see us, to allow God to see us through them.

And so I encourage you both to open your eyes to look at God,

to see God seeing you, but also to see the people around you and how God sees

them and how God wants to see them through something that he might be calling you to be or to do.

We are not God, but we are his messengers, just like the messenger that spoke with Hagar.

And so we always have opportunities to love and serve and do that around us

i was thinking about isaiah 43 19 just to wrap it all up it says see see.

I am doing a new thing. Now it springs up. Do you not perceive it?

I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.

So I encourage you to look and see what God is doing and how he is making a

way through your wilderness, through the wilderness of those around you,

where you can meet them and encourage them also.

Moving to a time of communion. And as we do, we're going to reflect on this.

And as you know, often we like to do poetry as well. So we're going to read some poetry.

This is written by George Herbert.

And what I would encourage you to look at is look at how the author communicates

and Jesus responds to seeing or to eyes.

So, love bade me welcome.

Yet my soul drew back, guilty of dust and sin, but quick-eyed love,

observing me grow slack from my first entrance in, drew nearer to me,

sweetly questioning if I lacked anything.

A guest I answered, worthy to be here. Love said, you shall be he.

I, the unkind, ungrateful?

Ah, my dear, I cannot look on thee.

Love took my hand, and smiling did reply, who made the eyes but I?

Truth, Lord, but I have marred them. Let my shame go where it doth deserve.

And know you not, says love, who bore the blame. My dear, then I will serve.

You must sit down, says love, and taste my meat. So I did sit and eat.

Last line, tasting the meat and sitting and eating is from Luke 12,

where the watchers are invited to the table and served by the king.

And they taste it. And the King James, it says, they taste the meat of the king.

And that's what we get to do at the table of communion, is we come,

we are seen by love, we are invited into his presence, and we are served by him.

Another poem, he ends it with, Love is that liquor, sweet and most divine,

which my God feels as pain, but I as wine.

So we encounter the blood of Jesus as sweet wine that brings life to our bodies,

that brings joy to our faces and hearts, communion and nearness to each other and to God.

But He actually is the one that bore it as pain.

So, as we look at the story of Hagar or the woman at the well or the woman who

wept over him, we actually can see in some sense, Christ, the one who was abused by his crucifiers.

The one who was outcast, and in that we can encounter him.

So, let's come to the table, let's eat of the meat, and let's drink of the wine,

which is sweet and most divine.