Genesis 18:1-15, 21:1-7
What do you do when
God’s promises seems as impossible as a 90 year old woman giving birth?
You laugh.
Not a laugh of joy.
A bitter laugh – like laughing
at a joke that ceased to be funny a long time ago
A laugh of derision.
A laugh of scorn.
Have you ever stood
beside the tent with Sarah and laughed that laugh?
I have.
I sifted through stories
this week - stories of people who persevered, who were patient, who never gave
up and finally against huge odds achieved their dreams. I could tell you
one of them.
But then I realized that
the story I need to tell today is my own. You’ve heard part of my call
story. The good parts - toward the end when the promise became real, the
way that first flutter of life in a pregnant woman’s womb makes the baby real,
growing larger and closer as the moment of birth arrives.
But what happens when
God’s promises come in a place where there’s no hope of life?
How old was I when I
first felt God calling me to ministry? I’m not sure anymore - 13, 14,
maybe as late as 16, or 17.
But it was impossible.
This was the 1970’s and women could not be pastors. I raged against
the promise: why would God call me, give me gifts for something that
could not be? Why would God promise what I could not have?
The promise lay lifeless
as I went off to college. Then I found a way I could make the
promise real - (not God!): I could become a youth minister.
Women could do that. That must have been what God meant!
Have you ever tried to
force God’s promise? Tried to take it into your own hands and make it
happen? If you have then you know how bitter that road can be. Sarah
tried that when she convinced Abraham to have a baby through her slave Hagar, a
baby Sarah would claim as her own son. How
later Sarah looked at the child playing in the yard and knew that this was not
right- God’s promise was still empty.
I discovered that I was
no more suited to be a youth minister at that time than Sarah was suited to
have a child through her slave. This was not how God’s promise would be
fulfilled.
It’s a moment when you
can lose all faith. I tried - and it didn’t work. I must have it
wrong. This is not really what God is calling me to do, not what God
promised.
It’s a moment when you
can turn your back. And I did. I gave up - faith, God, everything.
For years, like the fool
in Proverbs, I said in my heart, “There is no God.”
Was it like that for Sarah? How many times did Sarah
doubt?
How many times did
Abraham?
Up to that day by the oaks
of Mamre, all the promises were made to Abraham. Three times God had
promised Abraham that he would be the father of nations - three times Abraham
was promised a son, but only the last time, 24 years after God first called
Abraham, was Sarah even named in the promise.
And Abraham laughed -
Sarah, ninety year old Sarah, have a child?
Who could blame him for
laughing?
All that wasted time.
When she was a younger woman - say when God first made that promise 24
years ago, and Sarah was 66 - then maybe. She had been barren all their
marriage, and even at 66, ‘it had ceased to be after the manner of women with
her.’ But she was still younger. It was still impossible, but maybe not so impossible?
I imagine there was a lot of laughter as as he
and all the males in his household were circumcised according to God’s command - and not the good kind. Scornful laughter, snorts of derision, barks of disbelief.
Bitter laughter from Sarah as she watched her husband once more
trust in this stale old promise God had dangled before him for almost a quarter
of a century.
Now this day, outside
the tent, Sarah hears the promise herself. These men - God’s messengers, or the
very Lord God - they came for her. She was the reason they were there. They asked where she was, knew her by
name. Promised that she would have a son, not sometime, but in a year!
And she laughed. A
dry bitter laugh of one who no longer has any hope.
And yet - is anything
too wonderful for God?
No because with God all
things are possible.
Because God is a God
that breathes life into dust,
God is a God who makes a
way out of now way.
God is a God who can
bring life to dried up dreams, and promises that seem to have withered over the
years.
God is a God who snatches victory from the jaws of
death, and bursts forth with laughter from a three-day old tomb.
God is a God who laughs
when life triumphs over death.
A joyous laugh - just as
Sarah laughed when she held her son. As she watched this child of
laughter - Isaac - grow.
Is anything too wonderful
for God?
No. There is
nothing too wonderful for God.
And even when you turn
you back on God, God stays with you. God keeps God’s promises.
Even when you laugh at
God.
[1]
The Simarillion. I have changed the
names Tolkien gave to Eru Illuvtar and the Ainur and Melkor to their Greatest
Story (biblical) counterparts in order to facilitate the storytelling to a
group who is not familiar with Tolkien’s world.
