It is a pity that the verses of Gen. 16:13-14 were omitted from today's first reading. They would have provided a comforting hint that, even in the harshest of events, the God who loves us can be present.

It is essential to remember as we read the Old Testament that it was only with the coming of Jesus into our world that the full riches of God's moral plan for the world was revealed to us. The people of the Old Testament were living in the preliminary stages of that plan. In the later books of the Old Testament there are many heart rending examples of human goodness but there are many moments of - to us - inexplicable cruelty and inhumanity.

Even Abraham, our great ancestor in the faith had concubines. Sarah his wife was nasty and vengeful. Hagar became cheeky and "uppity". Abraham did little to protect her, even though he was at least partly responsible for her plight. God works in a human and flawed world. With the coming of Christ among us, the possibility of a loving and merciful world has increased many hundreds of times.

Verses 13 and 14, the omitted verses, tells us that Hagar called the One who helped her "the God Of Vision" because she had seen Him and had not been destroyed by the sight. The name of the well beside which she sat in her flight is Beer-lahal-ori, the well where one can see God and live.