a sermon on Genesis 18:1-15; 21:1-7, as part of the Unraveled worship series
I have a very serious question for you this morning, Church. When was the last time you really laughed? I’m not talking about a little chuckle. I mean, when was the last time you had the throw-back-your-head, tears-running-down-your-cheeks, gasping-for-air kind of full-body laugh? Was it just a few minutes ago? (And if it was, would you call me after worship and tell me the story so I can laugh along with you?!) Was it a few months ago? Was it pre-pandemic? Was it so long ago that you can’t even remember?
They say that laughter is the best medicine, but it feels like reasons for laughter have been in short supply lately.
You know, because of All The Things.
Over the last 10 weeks we’ve been exploring biblical narratives of unraveling. I know that a series like this is new for Grace, so I’ve appreciated hearing from so many of you about how appropriate the theme has felt to the time we’re living in. The news of another stay-at-home advisory stands as a stark reminder to how this pandemic has unraveled pretty much everything about our lives. A damaged sense of public trust in this divided country that’s managed to politicize even this global pandemic adds another layer to the fraying. And we’ve been talking about pandemics and divisions for so long now that I’m honestly pretty much sick of talking about it. We all know. Things are really hard. They might get harder yet before they get better. And when things do get better, they’ll still be different. COVID has changed everything, and there’s just no going back to life exactly as we once knew it.
That’s a lot of bad news to try and process, even though we’ve had 8 months of practice by now. So lemme just cut to the chase and tell you the good news, which comes to us in this delightful little story from the book of Genesis:
When we think things are ending, God is just getting started.
In case it’s been awhile since you’ve encountered the story of Abraham & Sarah – who are known as Abram and Sarai in earlier chapters of Genesis – let me give you a little back story. We first encounter Abraham in Genesis 12 when God calls him, seemingly out of the blue, to leave his homeland and his people and go to a land he’s never seen. Along with God’s call comes a threefold promise: first, that Abraham will be a “great nation” with as many descendants as there are stars in the sky; second, that Abraham and his descendants will inherit the land of Canaan; and third, that they will be a blessing to the whole world. Well, all of that is well and good, but there’s one pretty big hiccup in this whole “great nation” promise. Abraham has no children, and his wife, Sarah, is barren. It’s pretty hard to become a “great nation” if you don’t even have one child.
Well, they can’t produce an heir but they also can’t let the promise slip through their fingers, so Abraham & Sarah take matters into their own hands. They give Sarah’s handmaid, Hagar, to Abraham as a concubine, and Hagar gives birth to a son that she names Ishmael. Abraham and Sarah will later banish Hagar and Ishmael to the desert where they almost die. That’s a story for a different day, but their cruel choice is one of a number of pretty crappy decisions Abraham and Sarah will make as they try to follow the God who called them. I mention it as yet one more reminder that God has this habit of using people who are sort of messed up to do some great things which, frankly, gives me some hope for all of us!
Anyway, after Ishmael is born, Sarah gets her own blessing from God, and her own promise, as well. God promises that Sarah will give Abraham a son – a true heir – and that she will be the mother of nations and the bearer of kings. Cool, cool, cool. This is an amazing promise. It just has one problem. By the time God makes it, our sister Sarah is 90 years old. Abraham knew as well as we do that 90-year-old women don’t have babies, so when God tells him this plan Abraham literally falls on his face laughing at the absurdity of the idea. He reminds God that he already has Ishmael so maybe God could just make it easier on all of them and make Ishmael his heir, but God’s like, “Nope. I’m going to make Ishmael a great nation, too, but you’re going to have a true heir and my covenant will be with him – the one that your wife, Sarah is going to bring into the world.”
Which brings us to the part of the story we just heard a few minutes ago. Abraham, wiping his dusty face as he sits outside his tent in the heat of the day, notices three strangers standing nearby. When he sees them he kicks those 100-year-old legs into gear, running toward them and bowing down before them. Hospitality was a big deal in that time, and Abraham spares nothing in making sure that these men can rest and enjoy a good meal made from the finest flour and meat he has. As the strangers eat and drink they ask about Sarah, wondering where she is. Well, she is inside the tent, eavesdropping on this conversation in which one of the strangers tells Abraham that Sarah will have a son. I love, love, love Sarah’s cheekiness as she listens from the tent. I imagine her catching a glimpse of her 100-year-old husband with his thin wisp of white hair, his sagging skin, and his slightly bent, bony shoulders as she laughs to herself. “A son?! Can two old people like us even have pleasure anymore?!” (I’m pretty sure I would have liked Sarah.) The Lord overhears Sarah’s laughter and asks Abraham, “Why did she laugh? Is anything too wonderful for the Lord?”
Is anything too wonderful for the Lord?
Sarah & Abraham’s dream of having a child had been long dead, but God keeps this promise to Sarah. She gives birth to a son and they name him Isaac, which means “laughter” in Hebrew, because, as Sarah says, “God has brought laughter for me; everyone who hears it will laugh with me.”
Friends I want to remind you that the Bible is not a science book. Rather, the Bible is a book of many books that tells the long story of God’s extravagant love and mercy poured out on the world. Though I wouldn’t put anything past our God, wondering over whether a 90-year-old woman in the ancient world really, actually conceived and bore a child misses the point. The point is that when we think things are ending, God is just getting started.
I don’t know all of the details of what’s come undone in your lives in these difficult days. I don’t know all of the endings, all of the unravelings. But I do know this: we are loved and led by a God of promise. The promises of God might not always be easy to see or touch or understand. They might seem absurd or impossible and they might take 100 long and difficult years to unfold. But they are there.
Next week will be the last in our Unraveled worship series. It will also be our Commitment to Connect Sunday, where we will invite one another to connect – or re-connect – to Grace’s ministries in some specific ways. And then we’ll move into Advent, a season that begins with another unexpected promise of a child; this time, a child whose name means not “laughter,” but “savior.” A child who will be for us God’s ultimate promise that where we see an ending, God is just getting started.
My prayer for you today, dear church, is that this little story from Genesis would fill you with a sense of the promises of God in your own life. Promises that, if we could see the ending, might have us falling on our faces in a fit of laughter like Abraham, or chuckling behind the tent door like Sarah. Promises that fill God’s own heart with laughter because God delights in you, and because God delights in the holy absurdity of unexpected blessing that is always, always unfolding in our lives.
So laugh it up, beloved of God. This is not the end. God is just getting started.
Amen.
Heidi Torgerson 