Written by: United Theological Seminary September 27, 2018

Readings on Rosh Hashana: Hagar, Abraham, and the Wilderness

This semester I am taking Interpretation as Resistance: Womanist, Feminist, and Queer Approaches to the Bible taught by Professors Alika Galloway and Carolyn Pressler. This week’s reading concerns the story of Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar. Sarah is unable to bear children, which is unfortunate since her husband Abraham is supposed to father “a great nation” (Gen. 12.2). Sarah comes up with a plan to have Abraham use a surrogate: her Egyptian slave Hagar. Abraham agrees, lays with Hagar, and Hagar conceives. The Bible then tells us that Hagar “saw that she had conceived [and] looked with contempt on her mistress”(Gen. 16.4). Sarah responds by being so cruel to Hagar that she runs away to the desert. Upon finding a spring of water, Hagar meets an angel of God who gives her an ambivalent message: go back and submit to a life of cruelty but also your son Ishmael will be the father of nations. A mixed bag, for sure.

The story transitions to Abraham being visited by three angels, who announce that Sarah will give birth to a son. Sarah, eavesdropping, laughs to herself at the thought of being able to give birth in her old age. But the joke’s on her, I guess, because she gives birth to Isaac or Yitzhaq, whose name means laughing. Haha! Oh, except, the story kind of takes some pretty dark turns. Time passes and Sarah sees Ishmael and Isaac playing, hears Ishmael’s laughter, and commands Abraham to exile Hagar and Ishmael into the wilderness. Even God talks to Abraham, backing up Sarah’s plan. Abraham acquiesces. Hagar and Ishmael travel through the desert with little food and water. Close to burying her own son, Hagar weeps and cries out: “Do not let me look on the death of the child!” God, hearing Ishmael’s cries, talks once more to Hagar. God says:

“What troubles you, Hagar? Do not be afraid; for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. Come, lift up the boy and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make a great nation of him.”

Then God makes a spring of water appear, Hagar and Ishmael are saved, and Ishmael grows to be a skilled archer and father of many sons. It’s a happy ending! Well, except that the next major story for the family is the Akedah, or binding of Isaac by his own father.

Now, it is always exciting when my academic work corresponds to what is going on in my religious world. Our examination of this story corresponds with the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashana. On Rosh Hashana, it is traditional to read the story of Hagar’s exile and the binding of Isaac from the Torah. We read these stories of sending children to the brink of death right as we celebrate the change of seasons. As we make wishes for the future. As we dream of sweetness and good fortune. As we prepare to open up our bodies and souls for the ten days between now and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. In this milieu we tackle Hagar and the Akedah.

Over the years, I have heard many sermons comparing Hagar’s wilderness to the days of awe between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, days of uncertainty when we are being judged by God whether to be placed in the book of life or the book of death. But in 2017, amidst fires, earthquakes, hurricanes, threats of nuclear war, and fascists marching on the street, wilderness seems something different. More tangible. The wilderness is our normal. Or at least, we have normalized the wilderness. Or at least there is a danger of doing this.

The stories of Hagar in the wilderness and the binding of Isaac even show an evolution from discomfort at violence to accepting it. Earlier, we have Abraham actually arguing with God to save the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. So, when Sarah asks Abraham to send Hagar and Ishmael away, “ The matter [is] very distressing to Abraham on account of his son.” (21.11). But by the time God asks Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, Abraham goes without complaint, without talking back. On one hand, it is possible to see how Abraham might be afraid to argue because he has seen cities destroyed and his family torn apart by God. On the other hand, I wonder if Abraham goes willingly to kill his son, because he has seen the power of willingness to sacrifice those you supposedly love, for is not God all powerful? And has God not demonstrated His power through spectacles of violence and force? Does Abraham go along, because– to be good, to be devoted, to be holy, to be a father like The Father– he must be willing and able to kill? After all, Abraham was willing to put both Sarah and Hagar in danger at different points, willing to use them to fulfil his name. Is it so far a stretch to see how he might be willing to shed life after being taught to abuse it?

This is a dangerous story for me. And a particularly potent depiction of patriarchal violence. It becomes second nature for Abraham to allow pain to shape him and in turn to cause pain. His role as a forefather seems contingent on rites of violence.

Nationalism, xenophobia and hatred of immigrants, racism, obstructing health care, and denying rights to LGBTQ people come from the same impulse as Abraham’s to accept the cycle as long as the father is still in his place. To be a patriarch, is to perpetuate everyone else’s suffering.

But the story we tell on Rosh Hashana is also the story of Hagar–she is not just a prop in Abraham’s tale. It is by her example that I believe the Bible sets up a potential critique of the forefather. For unlike Abraham, Hagar voices her pain. She weeps. She excises her suffering in an exclamation to God: “Do not let me look on the death of the child” (21.16). She speaks her pain, locates God as a player in her suffering and commands Him to take responsibility for her and Ishmael. Hagar has spoken to God before, and her relationship with God is different from Abraham’s. After God told the then pregnant Hagar to go back to her suffering, she asks “Have I really seen God and remained alive after seeing him?” There is in her exclamation profound ambivalence to God. She recognize a danger in God and a disbelief in surviving Him. But from that space between trust and doubt, in that semi-acceptance of her lot, she lives. She eventually thrives. And she is able to address God as an agent in her own right. Not just the passive receptacle of God’s command, but someone who has seen the beauty and the terror of the divine, and spoken it. She has addressed her pain, not hidden it or perpetuated it through others, but reflected it back onto its source.

When I first heard Leonard Cohen’s song “You Know Who I Am” from Songs from a Room, I thought the lyrics were in God’s perspective to someone, probably Abraham– based on the other songs from the album. God describes Himself requiring incredible asks:

Sometimes I need you naked,

Sometimes I need you wild,

I need you to carry my children in

And I need you to kill a child.

But God is also the revealer of remarkable truths and healing.

If you should ever track me down

I will surrender there

And I will leave with you one broken man

Whom I will teach you to repair.

As I reflect on the particular understanding that Hagar has of God, I wonder if she is a more fitting “you” for the song to be addressing:

You know who I am,

You’ve stared at the sun,

Well I am the one who loves

Changing from nothing to one.

I imagine Hagar in the desert staring at the sun, which gives life, but in that moment most assuredly also implies death. And she knows God and speaks to God and dialogues with the deadly and life-giving God, even as He plays a more sinister character in Abraham’s adjacent story. To speak to power is to know power and in turn to know yourself, to know your own pain and investigate it. To know God is to know what and who you are and to use your voice. Abraham once cried out. He once argued with God to save lives, but in becoming the de facto patriarch, his ability to speak to God turned to being able only to listen to God and then, after the Akedah, to silence.

As we move into another year, deeper into the wilderness, I hope that I, that we as individuals, as a country, as a world can look at our pains and name them instead of simply passing it onto others. I hope that I will be held accountable for the pain I cause, just as I vow–through my art and through my academics–to hold accountable the structures that perpetuate my own pain. And in doing this, in speaking to power, in reaching to God, talking to God, loving and fearing and wondering about and speaking to God, I hope for a year of sweetnesses that do not perpetuate the suffering of others and that indicate the potential for liberation. Shana Tova Umetuka!

Max Brumberg-Kraus is originally from Providence, RI, but moved to the midwest to attend Beloit College, WI as an undergrad. There, he majored in Theatre Performance and Classical Civilizations with a minor in Critical Identity Studies, and was the Artistic Director of Beloit Independent Theatre Experience (BITE). He moved to St. Paul in July 2016, where he continues to pursue his artistic goals as a performer, playwright, and poet. Max is the Digital Content Specialist at United, where he is also pursuing an MA with a concentration in Theology and the Arts.

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October 9, 2026

Alums Homecoming News Releases

Rev. Dr. A. Leon (Lee) Tredwell (’06) Honored As a 2026 Distinguished Alum

United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities is excited to announce that Rev. A. Leon (Lee) Tredwell, PhD—who earned his MA in Theology and Biblical Interpretation from United in 2006—has been selected as a 2026 Distinguished Alum. An accomplished preacher, teacher, and published author, Dr. Tredwell has championed biblical narratives that affirm the divinity of all people, regardless of their race, creed, color, class, gender, or sexuality. Adopted at age four, Lee was raised in the Baptist faith and felt called to ministry as a child. Even so, after earning a degree in Political Science and Sociology at Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota, he spent the first ten years of his professional life as a grain trader for Cargill. After connecting with Drs. Ralph and Alika Galloway, Lee found United, and his call was reignited. He remembers Rev. Dr. Carolyn Pressler (Professor Emerita of Biblical Interpretation, 1990–2020) and Dean Richard Weis* with great affection. Both teachers, he observes, “taught us to wrestle with the biblical text until it opened up and spoke.” They also introduced Lee to Black and post-colonial hermeneutics, and Rev. Dr. Weis led him to passages in Jeremiah 38 (Hebrew Bible) that sparked his interest in learning more about a Black character named Ebed-Melech. Lee also cites the influence of Rev. Dr. Christine Smith’s (Professor Emerita of Preaching 1992–2013) preaching courses on his life. In Colorado, at the University of Denver and Iliff School of Theology, Lee completed a joint PhD program with a concentration in Religion and Social Change in 2017. Ronald Smith, a former United student who nominated Lee for this award, notes, “Dr. Tredwell has demonstrated that he is an innovator and compassionate leader who has served both inside the academy as a professor of African American Preaching at Iliff School of Theology, University of Colorado, Boulder, and in the larger community; he has served as [a] pastor, civil rights and human rights activist, and [a] chief executive officer in Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Minnesota, and Texas.” Lee’s new book—Black, Queer and Blessed: My Story and the Biblical Story Churches Don’t Teach—was published in June 2025. As the description reads, “For all who believe God-Yahweh is angry, mad, disgusted, and against LGBTQIA+ folx, regrettably, you been had, misled, took, hood-winked and bamboozled! Black, Queer and Blessed, through lived experience and the excavation of the subjugated biblical narrative of Ebed-Melech, demolishes society’s antiquated mores.” The book is part memoir and part theological reflection on the Ebed-Melech revelation. In addition to his roles as teacher, preacher, and author, Lee has specifically worked to promote adoption of Black children from foster care and create affordable housing. These days, he serves as the pastor of Theology and Community Engagement at Allendale United Methodist Church in St. Petersburg, Florida. As Ronald Smith asserts, “Dr. Tredwell is the embodiment and an exemplar of United Theological Seminary’s mission, vision, and values.” * of blessed memory About United Founded by the United Church of Christ (UCC) as a welcoming, ecumenical school that embraces all denominations and faith traditions, United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities has been on the creative edge of progressive theological thought and leadership since it was established in 1962. Today, United continues to educate leaders who, through the eyes of faith, engage in the dismantling of systems of oppression, explore multi-faith spirituality, and push the boundaries of knowledge.

Lena K. Gardner (’15) Honored As a 2026 Distinguished Alum

[caption id="attachment_11955" align="alignnone" width="1920"] photo by Bethany Birnie[/caption] United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities is thrilled to announce that Lena K. Gardner—who graduated with an MA in Justice and Peace Studies in 2015—has been selected as one of our three 2026 Distinguished Alums. A highly respected social justice activist and community leader, Lena is the co-founder and executive director of Black Lives of Unitarian Universalism (BLUU), a nonprofit founded in 2015 that creates life-giving and life-saving opportunities for spiritual community and Black-centered organizing. According to Rev. Dr. Rebecca Voelkel (’13), Lena has “been a force in the Twin Cities’ religiously rooted justice ecosystem for the last 15 years.” Dr. Voelkel, Lena’s nominator, traces Lena’s justice-organizing acumen back to 2011, when she served on the Faith Organizing Roundtable—a body that coordinated religious communities’ opposition to the anti-marriage amendment. Lena went on to champion marriage equality in the 2012–2013 legislative session. After a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, shot and killed Michael Brown, Jr., an unarmed 18-year-old Black teen, in 2014, Lena played a key role in transforming the Faith Organizing Roundtable into the Multifaith Anti-Racism, Change & Healing or MARCH. “In that same period,” Voelkel notes, “Lena was a core team organizer of Black Lives Matter Minneapolis and served on its steering committee.” Lena was deeply involved, quoted in many national and local articles, and interviewed on Minnesota Public Radio after former police officer Derek Chauvin killed George Floyd in 2020. In April 2021, after a Brooklyn Center police officer killed Daunte Wright during a traffic stop, Lena co-wrote an article in the Sahan Journal demanding that Attorney General Keith Ellison prosecute the case, and that the Hennepin County attorney be removed. More recently, Lena embarked on another ambitious project. In May 2024, through the BLUU Cooperative Housing Initiative, she co-hosted a groundbreaking ceremony for an affordable housing complex for single parents in North Minneapolis. In a MinnPost article about the groundbreaking, Lena explained, “It’s really about trying to give back to one of the communities that made me…. We really see providing stable housing in a cooperative framework as one of the many paths to collective liberation and Black liberation. Ultimately, it’s about self-determination.” When Operation Metro Surge arrived in the Twin Cities in late 2025, Lena took action again. As Voelkel observes, she “returned to the MARCH steering committee…. When MARCH organized a clergy call (in five days) to which 700 clergy came, the ability to create and host such an amazing event owes part of its success to Lena’s relationships with communications specialists, graphic designers, and organizers.” Lena was also a driving force behind Neighbors Helping Neighbors (NHN), a mutual aid group she and Anna Stamborski founded in late 2025 to connect vulnerable ICE-targeted families with congregational networks whose members could provide shopping and transportation services. Through all of Lena’s indefatigable contributions to working for justice, Voelkel asserts, she “has focused on Black excellence, Black power, Black spiritual wholeness, Black beauty, and how non-Black folks can act in solidarity and followership of Black folks, particularly Black queer women. She has done so skillfully through building relationships across differences in ways that facilitate and deepen genuine relationships.”

Cori Berg (’98) Honored As a 2026 Distinguished Alum

United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities is elated to announce that Cori Berg (’98)—advocate, artist, and educator—is a 2026 Distinguished Alum. Cori earned her Master of Arts (MA) in Theology and the Arts in 1998, and for more than 27 years, she has integrated creativity, art, and spirituality into her field. Cori arrived at United in the 1990s, having majored in theater and minored in studio art during her undergraduate studies. “I knew I had an artistic voice,” she recalls, “but it didn’t make sense in any of the traditional contexts.” After seeing an advertisement for United’s Theology and the Arts program, Cori drove from Dallas to the Twin Cities to visit as a prospective student. A campus art exhibit by Merle Janis was all she needed to see—“this school had something I needed: strength, boldness, vulnerability.” For Cori, “life is liturgy.” She credits United with introducing her to “the freedom in a progressive faith.” At United, Cori learned to expand her creativity, which became a launching pad for a vibrant career. “United gave me a safe, nurturing space to explore, dream, and execute big things,” she writes. “I’ve continued that through the rest of my career as an artist, an educator, an administrator, and a speaker.” Art is central to Cori’s work and features prominently in her curriculum development for children. Her art was featured in the 2012 opening parade for the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge in Dallas, TX, a project that involved “seniors, children, and adults in all aspects” from a local Methodist community program. Ministry with Children and Spirituality, courses taught by Rev. Dr. Barbara Anne Keely (Professor Emerita, 1991–2015), were particularly formative for Cori’s future in education. “I remember she taught us to get on the floor and view the church nursery from a baby’s point of view,” Cori reflects. “I use this today over and over as I teach early childhood educators…. She introduced the idea of seeing oneself not as a separate body, mind, or spirit, but when one part of my being is suffering, to use the other parts to help lift that part.” More recently, Cori has been an active community member at Dallas Meditation Center, where she is known for her moving dharma talks that weave Buddhist themes into contemporary storytelling. In public schools and congregational settings, Cori has applied what she learned as a United student to the field of early childhood education, for which—nominator Rev. Jim Peck (’99) points out—she has become “one of the nation’s leading advocates.” When facing challenges in the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic, Cori leveraged her ingenuity and creative vision to support educators with online training resources. As a teacher and an administrator in spaces where lack of institutional funding and support are commonplace, Jim observes, “she uses her [United] education to work for justice and equity,” to “nurture relationships in the early childhood settings where she has served, with an expertise in working in settings in crisis to encourage recovery, healing, and new paths for serving the future.” In May 2026, Cori completed her MEd in Curriculum and Instruction at American College of Education, where she immediately enrolled to begin her EdD in Early Childhood Education. She serves as an executive director at the University of Kansas (KU) and anticipates returning to Dallas to live near her family at the end of the year while awaiting her next opportunity. We are delighted to celebrate Cori and her decades of faithful, innovative leadership in the field of early childhood education and art. About United Founded by the United Church of Christ (UCC) as a welcoming, ecumenical school that embraces all denominations and faith traditions, United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities has been on the creative edge of progressive theological thought and leadership since it was established in 1962. Today, United continues to educate leaders who, through the eyes of faith, engage in the dismantling of systems of oppression, explore multi-faith spirituality, and push the boundaries of knowledge.