Grace and Peace to you from our ever-faithful God, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus, who is our Christ. Amen.
Today’s lesson is about Hospitality: the cultural norm in the Middle East of caring for travelers, the loving act of providing for strangers, and over-the-top hospitality.
But today’s lesson also is about Laughter: belly laughs, laughter in the midst of pain, and laughter at seemingly impossible things coming true.
And today’s lesson is about Promises: Surprising promises, unfulfilled promises, and promises kept by our faithful God.
There is SO MUCH packed into today’s lesson, a key moment in the story of God’s people. The 22 verses of this lesson are so rich with meaning that preachers have gone in THOUSANDS of directions over the years. But breathe easy – I’ll focus on just three!!
But first…
I think it’s important as we explore the narrative of God’s people, that we take some time to bridge the gaps between the stories. Last week, we talked about creation, humanity’s original blessing, and our ever-present desire for “more” that resulted in our exile from the Garden of Eden. Genesis continues with Cain’s murder of Abel, the Great Flood that culminated with God’s rainbow promise with Noah and his descendants, and the Tower of Babel.
Then, Chapter 12 begins the story of Abraham and Sarah, and trust me, we could spend the entire fall talking about this one central story: how God chose Abram and Sarai to be the forebearers of God’s people, asked them to leave their land and family, and made three promises to them:
But the fulfillment of this promise took years. And our First Couple were elders from the get-go. When God called Abram, he was already 75 years old, Sarai was 65. To put that in perspective, I look around here, and I see the amazing things that our seniors are doing. Some of you have uprooted yourselves and moved to a new place. Some are working. A few have significant responsibilities with grandchildren. However, I have not met any seniors here who are starting a new family!
At first, God’s promise to Abram sounded ridiculous…. Absurd, really. Descendants? Sarai is barren. Abram says, and my house servant will inherit everything. If that’s the promise, it really doesn’t involve us. Thanks anyway. But God tells Abram, “No, my covenant is with YOU and YOUR descendants.”
A decade passes, and nothing changes. Some of you can relate to the pain of wanting children, and not being able to have a family. The yearning consumes you. I know people who have gone to extreme lengths to have children; others whose marriages have fallen apart over their inability to conceive. It’s not surprising that Abram and Sarai eventually decide that if they are to have descendants, it won’t be Sarai bearing the child. So, taking matters into their own hands, they decide on a surrogate. Sarai’s servant Hagar is chosen to bear Abram’s child. And let me be clear – “chosen” is much too kind of a word. She is forced to carry Abram’s child. Hagar gives birth to Ishmael, and drama ensues. Eventually, in her jealousy, Sarai tries to run off Hagar and Ismael, and God intervenes.
God reconciles Abram and Sarai with Hagar, but clarifies that the promise, the covenant, is through Abram and Sarai. God repeats the covenant promise, renames Abram as Abraham and Sarai as Sarah, and instructs Abraham to complete an outward sign of the covenant: circumcision of all the males of the household. So we come into today’s lesson as 99-year-old Abraham is reclining – probably in considerable pain – under the oaks of Mamre, and reflecting on this promise.
Today’s lesson is about Hospitality: the cultural norm in the Middle East of caring for travelers, the loving act of providing for strangers, and over-the-top hospitality.
But today’s lesson also is about Laughter: belly laughs, laughter in the midst of pain, and laughter at seemingly impossible things coming true.
And today’s lesson is about Promises: Surprising promises, unfulfilled promises, and promises kept by our faithful God.
There is SO MUCH packed into today’s lesson, a key moment in the story of God’s people. The 22 verses of this lesson are so rich with meaning that preachers have gone in THOUSANDS of directions over the years. But breathe easy – I’ll focus on just three!!
But first…
I think it’s important as we explore the narrative of God’s people, that we take some time to bridge the gaps between the stories. Last week, we talked about creation, humanity’s original blessing, and our ever-present desire for “more” that resulted in our exile from the Garden of Eden. Genesis continues with Cain’s murder of Abel, the Great Flood that culminated with God’s rainbow promise with Noah and his descendants, and the Tower of Babel.
Then, Chapter 12 begins the story of Abraham and Sarah, and trust me, we could spend the entire fall talking about this one central story: how God chose Abram and Sarai to be the forebearers of God’s people, asked them to leave their land and family, and made three promises to them:
- One: that they would have descendants as numerous as the stars in the heavens, as immeasurable as the grains of sand on the seashore,
- Two: That they would be blessed as a blessing to all people throughout the world,
- Three: That they would have a homeland: Canaan, the Promised Land.
But the fulfillment of this promise took years. And our First Couple were elders from the get-go. When God called Abram, he was already 75 years old, Sarai was 65. To put that in perspective, I look around here, and I see the amazing things that our seniors are doing. Some of you have uprooted yourselves and moved to a new place. Some are working. A few have significant responsibilities with grandchildren. However, I have not met any seniors here who are starting a new family!
At first, God’s promise to Abram sounded ridiculous…. Absurd, really. Descendants? Sarai is barren. Abram says, and my house servant will inherit everything. If that’s the promise, it really doesn’t involve us. Thanks anyway. But God tells Abram, “No, my covenant is with YOU and YOUR descendants.”
A decade passes, and nothing changes. Some of you can relate to the pain of wanting children, and not being able to have a family. The yearning consumes you. I know people who have gone to extreme lengths to have children; others whose marriages have fallen apart over their inability to conceive. It’s not surprising that Abram and Sarai eventually decide that if they are to have descendants, it won’t be Sarai bearing the child. So, taking matters into their own hands, they decide on a surrogate. Sarai’s servant Hagar is chosen to bear Abram’s child. And let me be clear – “chosen” is much too kind of a word. She is forced to carry Abram’s child. Hagar gives birth to Ishmael, and drama ensues. Eventually, in her jealousy, Sarai tries to run off Hagar and Ismael, and God intervenes.
God reconciles Abram and Sarai with Hagar, but clarifies that the promise, the covenant, is through Abram and Sarai. God repeats the covenant promise, renames Abram as Abraham and Sarai as Sarah, and instructs Abraham to complete an outward sign of the covenant: circumcision of all the males of the household. So we come into today’s lesson as 99-year-old Abraham is reclining – probably in considerable pain – under the oaks of Mamre, and reflecting on this promise.
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The first thread of this story is Hospitality: A code among the wandering Middle Eastern people requires hospitality for wayfarers. There were no hostels or hotels in the desert. No McDonalds or even an Imo’s Pizza along the travel routes. So, the unwritten rule was to care for those passing through. Safety while they were among your household. Water to drink for people and animals, and a little bit for washing up. And food for sustenance – just a little bit of bread.
According to those standards, Abraham put on a feast for the three strangers! According to one scholar, three measures would have made 60 loaves of bread for Sarah and her servants to bake! Abraham then had a fatted calf prepared, and had the goats milked for milk and curds. While this was happening, Abraham was running around supervising the preparation, even as he certainly was in no shape to be moving!!
This was not an hour of freshening up, eating, and being blessed on their travels – the travelers received OVER-THE-TOP hospitality. Roasting a calf, preparing curds from the milk, baking bread takes many hours. We can only imagine Abraham didn’t provide this type of hospitality to all strangers, so perhaps he sensed these three were special visitors that day. Abraham’s hospitality is central here.
Thread number 2 is Laughter. One has to involve some biblical imagination in this story to fully appreciate the humor of three strangers arriving the day after God commanded Abraham to circumcise himself and all the males with him. Rather than telling someone else to care for these visitors, 99-year-old Abraham is on his feet, rushing, jumping around, supervising the preparations. Do you see the absurdity? And the ridiculousness of the quantity of food prepared: Imagine Sarah, from the tent, asking Abraham, “How many visitors did you say are there? 30? Three???? How much flour? How long are they staying? Are we packing ‘to-go meals’ now? Abe, you know how long it takes to roast a calf?” This is laughter at absurdity.
But there is more laughter here. I’m sure you’ve all experienced, and perhaps yourself used humor to cover pain. This is the laughter that only shallowly covers a betrayal, a disappointment, a broken relationship. Like the guys who take their newly divorced friend to Vegas for a Second Bachelor Party, but the laughter and celebration only temporarily block the grief of a failed marriage, divorce legalities, and child custody decisions. Sarah’s laughter reflected the pain of God’s promise of descendants and the open wound of her continued barrenness.
A final kind of laughter in today’s story is the laughter of relief at a resolution. Imagine the laughter, from Abraham, from Sarah, from their family and friends, when Sarah DID turn up pregnant in her 90th year! Preposterous, isn’t it, that Abraham could father a child at 99? More outrageous yet that Sarah’s far-beyond-menopausal body could carry and bear a healthy child at 90? Unbelievable. If God had given Sarah a child at 65 or even 75, people would pass it off as an extremely healthy woman doing a rare thing. At 90, there’s no denying the miraculous event of Isaac’s birth. Even the name, Isaac, means “he laughs.”
So, after hospitality and laughter, the third thread of the story is faithfulness. Abraham and Sarah’s story reflects faithfulness over more than 25 years from God’s initial call to Isaac’s birth. They went all-in on God’s call to leave their home and families, travel where God would lead them, do what God asked, and wait upon God for descendants.
Now – and this is IMPORTANT – neither Abraham nor Sarah followed God perfectly. Read the entire Abraham story from Genesis Chapter 12 to 25 and you will find Abram passing off Sarai as his sister, not once, but twice. You will find them taking God’s plan into their own hands and being downright abusive and harmful to Hagar and Ishmael.
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The Bible is not a fairy tale. It is the story of God using imperfect people to shape a community faithful to furthering God’s love and grace in the world – Amen?! A story that continues with the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, and a story that carries on and on, all over this world, through all of you. I see you, people of Trinity. I haven’t been here too long, but I see you.
Imperfect people.
Faithful people.
People intent on following Jesus as well as you can.
This story goes beyond the faithfulness of two people. At its heart, the story of the birth of Isaac is one of God’s faithfulness.
God – in God’s own timing -- kept the promise through the birth of Isaac.
We too can share in this story by providing unexpected, abundant hospitality to strangers in our midst. We too can laugh with joy at our God whose calling card is doing the impossible, again and again. But most of all, we too can trust in a God who was, who is, and who will be ever faithful to God’s promises.
Amen.
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