God Who Sees: Hagar, Juneteenth, and Justice

Genesis sets Hagar in the wilderness with a dying child and no water, and lets the reader feel the ache of a mother who cannot bear to watch. The story names Abraham and Sarah as heroes of faith and also shows them petty and fearful, using their power to enslave, exploit, and discard Hagar. God meets Hagar in the desert and calls her by name when others call her only the Egyptian slave woman. Hagar answers that tenderness with the audacity to name God, El Roi, the God who sees me, the God who sees the enslaved, the forgotten, and those others refuse to see. The text then lets the reader watch God not only see but hear, and open a future for the son others tried to erase.

Juneteenth stands beside that scene as an accident of the calendar and a Spirit led coincidence. The day freedom finally reached enslaved people in Texas becomes a lens to revisit the complexity of a nation’s story. The Lynching Memorial’s 800 suspended pillars speak a number the land still struggles to say out loud, nearly 4,500 African American persons murdered in public terror. Corten steel that bleeds rust when it rains, ground that slopes so the names rise out of reach, and air that feels full of remembered terror and loss, all bear witness that truth can devastate when it is finally faced.

The National Monument to Freedom speaks another word, a copper gold open book inscribed with 120,000 surnames recorded by freed families in 1870. That open book glows with determined hope, the will to bear one’s own name and claim God given worth no matter what anyone else says. Juneteenth and Hagar answer each other. Truth devastates and hope humbles. Hagar’s naming of God and emancipated families’ freedom names both insist that the God who sees also secures dignity and future.

Sankofa offers the way forward. The bird that looks back for the egg needed to move forward teaches that honest remembering is not indulgence but nourishment for freedom. The question presses the church in this moment. What will its place be in the long struggle for freedom that continues to this day. Integrity asks for willingness to be devastated by the truths of complicated histories and humility to receive the egg of hope. God’s future calls a community to embody hope, advocate for the disenfranchised, repair wounds left by injustice, and seek justice in all the inequities that still structure common life. El Roi still sees and still calls all to be free.

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Key Takeaways

• 1. El Roi sees the discarded God receives Hagar by name when power reduces her to a role. The God who sees does not avert his eyes from those others erase, and that vision becomes provision and future. Prayer that begins with being seen can move from survival into dignity. Faith learns to trust the gaze that refuses to look away. [48:04]
• 2. Truth devastates, yet hope humbles The witness of lynching’s scale and cruelty can strip denial to the bone. Yet the glow of freedom names and the courage they signal can bend the heart low in reverence. Devastation that is not dodged can make room for hope that is not cheap. Truth and hope need each other to make people honest and strong. [50:56]
• 3. Freedom names rewrite a stolen story Surnames chosen and registered by freed families mark a turning from property to person. Naming claims lineage, agency, and future, and it resists every power that says otherwise. Christians can practice naming that honors image bearing worth in neighbors and in enemies. Such naming becomes quiet, stubborn protest against erasure. [56:20]
• 4. Sankofa looks back to move forward Remembering does not paralyze when it is yoked to responsibility. The egg retrieved from honest history becomes the food that sustains faithful action. Confession without defensiveness opens space for creative repair. The Spirit turns backward looking truth into forward leaning courage. [60:01]
• 5. Complicity demands repair and advocacy Abraham and Sarah’s misuse of power warns how sanctified people can harm. A church that knows this risk will choose advocacy for those disenfranchised and concrete work of repair. Repentance turns from vague sorrow to specific labor. Love takes up the long work wherever inequity still speaks. [60:36]

Youtube Chapters

• [00:00] - Welcome
• [16:44] - Sankofa image and freedom
• [44:47] - Heroes with courage and flaws
• [45:48] - Hagar enslaved, used, discarded
• [46:03] - Desert crisis and despair
• [47:41] - Hagar names El Roi
• [48:53] - Juneteenth’s providential reading
• [50:16] - Pilgrimage to Montgomery
• [51:13] - Lynching memorial’s witness
• [56:20] - Freedom names and legacy
• [57:40] - Humbled by unquenchable hope
• [58:14] - Hagar and Juneteenth in echo
• [60:01] - Sankofa calls honest remembrance
• [60:36] - Moving into God’s future

Bible Reading
Genesis 21:14-19 (ESV)
So Abraham rose early in the morning and took bread and a skin of water and gave it to Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, along with the child, and sent her away. And she departed and wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba. When the water in the skin was gone, she put the child under one of the bushes. Then she went and sat down opposite him a good way off, about the distance of a bowshot, for she said, “Let me not look on the death of the child.” And as she sat opposite him, she lifted up her voice and wept. And God heard the voice of the boy, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, “What troubles you, Hagar? Fear not, for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. Up! Lift up the boy, and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make him into a great nation.” Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. And she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink.

Genesis 16:7-13 (ESV)
The angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, the spring on the way to Shur. And he said, “Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going?” She said, “I am fleeing from my mistress Sarai.” The angel of the Lord said to her, “Return to your mistress and submit to her.” The angel of the Lord also said to her, “I will surely multiply your offspring so that they cannot be numbered for multitude.” [...] So she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, “You are a God of seeing,” for she said, “Truly here I have seen him who looks after me.”

Isaiah 61:1 (ESV)
The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound.

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Observation Questions

1. In Genesis 16:13, Hagar names God El Roi (“the God who sees me”). What does this name reveal about her experience of God compared to how others treated her? [47:41]
2. The sermon describes the 120,000 surnames of freed families inscribed on the National Monument to Freedom. What does this act of naming symbolize about identity and dignity? [56:20]
3. How does the design of the Lynching Memorial (e.g., pillars suspended high, rusting steel) visually communicate the weight of historical truth? [53:04]

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Interpretation Questions

1. Why is Hagar’s act of naming God—a rare moment in Scripture—significant for understanding how marginalized people reclaim their agency?
2. The sermon says, “Truth devastates and hope humbles.” How do the Lynching Memorial and the Freedom Monument work together to embody this tension? [50:56]
3. Sankofa teaches that looking back is necessary to move forward. How might avoiding honest remembrance harm a community’s ability to pursue justice? [01:00:01]

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Application Questions

1. Hagar’s story shows God sees those society discards. Who in your community might feel “unseen,” and how could you intentionally acknowledge their dignity this week?
2. The 120,000 freedom names were acts of defiance against erasure. What practices (e.g., listening, advocacy, storytelling) could help you honor the full humanity of those whose voices are often silenced? [56:20]
3. The Lynching Memorial’s pillars “rise out of reach” as the ground slopes. What truths about your own community’s history are easy to ignore or avoid? How might facing them deepen your capacity for empathy? [54:10]
4. Sankofa urges retrieving the “egg” of hope from the past. What stories of resilience or faith in your family or cultural history could inspire you to act justly today?
5. Abraham and Sarah’s actions harmed Hagar despite their faith. Where might people in power (including the church) today risk repeating similar harm, and how can we hold accountability alongside grace? [45:48]