To torture someone — to play with their emotions, gaslight them, stalk them, slowly hurt them physically or hurt their loved ones in front of them — this builds power differentials. The one in control dominates and determines the outcome for the one without control. Weak, insecure people feed off this, relishing in others’ discomfort to prove their influence and power. These weak, insecure people who exploit others through forms of torture have existed throughout history and their impact is felt through every generation. It’s in the lifeblood of our country, good and evil intermixed and coursing through the leadership of every person with power. Power does that, you know — corrupts and erodes the best of us. Like mold growing on the wall behind your bed frame, small and unnoticeable, its toxic spores will transform your cellular structure before you realize it was even there to begin with.

Our ancient history is thick with dehumanizing and torturing other people, but our recent history is just as thick. We don’t have to look very far, do we? Disappeared Africans tortured in slave ships, like they weren’t actually human. Forced pregnancies of Black women slaves to perpetuate the evil economy, like their children weren’t actually human, their babies cut from their wombs over the glee from weak, insecure people. Black men, indigenous men, Hispanic men hung from trees, lynched, beaten, tortured, starved while their perpetrators circled up for prayer. Kidnapped Jews tortured in concentration camps, like they weren’t actually human. Rounded-up Japanese Americans relocated to internment camps, like they weren’t actually human.

So why is anyone surprised when laughter surrounds the concentration camp being built in Florida, joking about mostly brown people running to avoid alligators, harkening to Black enslaved people running from dogs or civil rights activists being attacked by dogs? Why are we appalled when prayer circles are formed after a bill passes that takes from the poor to give to the rich, or steals medical care from those most vulnerable or gives more uncontested power to government employees like the president? Why are we surprised that the rich use tweezers to separate the smallest amount of mint, dill and cumin for their taxes while neglecting the weightier matters of justice and mercy? (This is a quote from Jesus, BTW)? Why are we surprised when families are ripped apart through deportation, disappeared by plain-clothed ICE agents, regardless of who is in office? Why are we surprised when bombs get dropped and children’s bodies are shredded and we point fingers and say, “They started it!” or “If we didn’t do it first, they would have!” or “Jesus will return soon, so who cares!” like they weren’t even human to begin with. Even Cain, with snarky indifference, said to God, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” after murdering his brother, Abel — history always repeating itself.

While reading scripture this week, I pondered our propensity to dehumanize those who suffer, actively through torture or passively through our indifference. Some stories are so familiar — rote and mundane. They’re meant to give us black eyes but instead we yawn through them. The one of Hagar and Sarah punched me in the face this week.

Hagar was a slave woman with little autonomy or power, acquired by Abraham and Sarah while in Egypt. She worked for Sarah, beholden to Sarah’s wishes and requirements, even to be given as a non-consensual incubator for Abraham to have a baby, since Sarah was elderly. Sometime after Hagar gave birth to Ishmael, Sarah also became pregnant and gave birth to Isaac. The text tells us how Ishmael mocked his little brother, and while the Hebrew word can be translated into “play,” Sarah demanded Hagar and Ishmael to leave. Through Sarah’s weak insecurity, Hagar and Ishmael were cast out. Without adequate provision. Without adequate protection. Without adequate passage. Banished and forgotten like they meant nothing, like they weren’t human.

My intention is not to demonize one over the other, to make one person the perpetrator and the other the victim, since these stories are full of emotional nuance written between the lines and years. I imagine both mothers whispering their hurts, insecurities, anger, resentment, bitterness into each son’s ears, finding their identity in their children. Like hurting, divorced parents pinning their children against the other, hoping their children love them more than the other parent, wanting their ex-partner to hurt like they hurt, using their children as tools to convince their kids that their ex is a horrible person — these coercive seeds negatively affect everything for generations. I wonder if Hagar convinced her son that Sarah was a monster. I wonder if Sarah convinced her son that Ishmael was the problem because his mother was rotten.

I was punched in the face when I wondered if Sarah and Hagar could have bravely taken the risk to become friends. If they decided to raise their boys together as brothers, beloved brothers. If Ishmael loved his baby brother, protected him, played with him, helped him learn to hunt and fish and farm. What would the generational trajectory have been in the Middle East if Sarah and Hagar released their own bitter hurt, blame, resentment, disappointment, insecurity and learned how to see each other as equals, forgiven and forgiving, beloved and belonging instead of finding glee in another’s discomfort or indifference in their perpetuation of harm?

While we can’t change the past and we might not be as brutal as ancient times, we must recognize and repent of our susceptibility to laugh at another’s pain and suffering or our indifference to what doesn’t directly affect us. Laughing at “Alligator Alcatraz,” at families being separated, at hospitals being shut down and SNAP benefits being tightened, at undocumented neighbors being deported like they’re criminals — this is a torturous kind of evil that comes from weak, insecure people. So may we learn to see our neighbors as beloved. And in this kind of strength of character, may we see they are worthy of protection, provision, and safe passage. Jesus never told us to love and serve our country or nation. Jesus said to love and serve our neighbors — each other — because God so loved the world! So may we bravely take the risk to find friends to belong to instead of enemies to banish! And may this friendship change our shared trajectory for generations to come. Perhaps then history might stop repeating itself.