Thinking of Sarai on International Women's Day

Today is International Women's Day. I recently wrote this essay about Abram and Sarai; my pastor is off lectionary, and it was interesting to return to Genesis 12 for the first time in decades. This story contains so many elements, and it reverberates with many issues today. I read it completely differently than I did when I was a child reading my way through the book of Genesis.

This passage is one of the ones that people use to justify a Jewish homeland, to justify Israel. There are many justifications for Israel, but an ancient religious text should not be one of them. Then, as now, one person’s new homeland creates another person’s displacement.

Abram and Sarai, although blessed by God, are not immune from displacement either. When a famine makes them leave their adopted home of Canaan, Abram and Sarai are looking for a new place to live. Then, as now, they don’t leave because they want a higher living standard. They leave because they want to eat. They leave because they have to do this to survive.

Long ago, when I first heard this story, I didn’t think about the gendered elements. Sarai is at risk because she is female; Abram is at risk because he is her husband. They create a subterfuge, which results in Sarai being taken by the Pharaoh.

I’m sure that when I was younger, I saw this as the equivalent of winning some sort of contest: Sarai gets to be queen!

Now that I am older, with the benefit of lots of social science research, I see her as a victim of trafficking. Because of her desperate circumstances, she agrees to precarious circumstances. We should remember how little power women had, then as now.

Let me be more blunt, since there won’t be underage children reading these words. I now read about the beautiful Sarai, and I know that she will endure rape, and likely at the hands of many men. She will not have the power to refuse. My skin crawls, and I want to vomit at the thought of this kind of torture.

We think we have come a long way as humans, and we have. But it’s important to know that slavery is at an all-time high in human history. There’s never been an easier time to own a slave. We know that women and children are valuable primarily because there are men who will pay to rape them. We know that humans don’t do a good job of protecting the most vulnerable.

My heart breaks for Abram and Sarai, even as my heart breaks for separated families today. How will they stitch their lives together again? How will Sarai heal from her nightmare? How will Abram be of use to her in her recovery?

But in the end, they are the lucky ones. Pharaoh doesn’t kill them, and they are free to go. They have each other. It’s more than many refugee families will ever have.