A PROMISE FULFILLED

One of the things I really appreciate about the saga of Abraham and Sarah is its down-to-earth character and unvarnished portrayal of human life. Indeed, in the passage before us today, Abraham and Sarah come alive as real people dealing with real issues.

We can easily imagine with our minds eye the scene from these verses. For example, in watching Abraham hurriedly putting together a feast to honor the unexpected visitors we can see ourselves busily making ice tea and searching the pantry for sweets for unexpected guests. Then, in the description of Sarah standing just inside the tent so she can discreetly overhear the conversation between her husband and the three visitors we recognize our own inquisitive behavior.

In a surprisingly unvarnished manner, the biblical scribes were unafraid of recording honest human behaviors and emotions. Especially in this story they were more interested in portraying the genuine struggles that accompany a life of faith, rather than to offer a glossy veneer of unattainable piety.

Sarah’s reaction to word she would soon conceive a son is a prime example of the Bible’s honesty in representing human life. In fact, it is hard to imagine any other type of response from Sarah than laughter as she overheard the three mysterious travelers inform Abraham that she and Abraham would soon give birth. I urge you to get past your familiarity with the story and try to grasp the shocking strangeness of it all.

It was a ludicrous idea. It was a laughable notion. At the time, Abraham was old, almost 100, and we can assume that Sarah was right there with him in age.

Moreover, driving home the absurdity of what the travelers had to say, our text tells us, in proper Jewish euphemistic style several rather delicate facts, “…it had ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women.” Sarah was past menopause. Moreover, keeping in mind Sarah’s phrase, “my husband is old, shall I have pleasure”, and keeping in mind that the wonders of modern pharmacological advancements (which shall remain unnamed) lay far in the future, we can safely assume that both Sarah and Abraham faced seemingly insurmountable physiological obstacles to conceiving a child at their age.

Evaluating Abraham and Sarah’s situation from a purely dispassionate, rational, perspective Sarah’s outburst of laughter is fully justified and understandable. Would our reaction to such a story have been any different? The idea that she and Abraham would give birth to a child made no sense at all. The idea went against everything they knew about nature and their own bodies. It was ridiculous no matter how you looked at it. Who could believe that a woman who had been barren all of her life and whose husband was 100 years old, would, then, in the twilight years of her life give birth?

The circumstances of this story are beyond reasonableness. Even given all of the advances medicine has made since the time of Sarah and Abraham, it is still preposterous to think that a 100 year old woman could give birth, much less that a 100 year old man would sire a child. There is no way to reconcile the birth of Abraham and Sarah’s child Issac, other than to say that it was God’s doing. God promised them an heir, and God kept his promise.

This is exactly why this story is important to us today. While God may not promise us a late in life birth, the promises of eternal life, of unmerited grace, of complete and total forgiveness, which are extended to us in the gospel of Jesus Christ are no less fantastic, or laughable.

While the overall saga of Abraham and Sarah is one of faithful response to God’s promises, this specific part of the story is not a shining moment. Let us remember that the promise of an heir had been part of Abraham and Sarah’s call from the time God had called them to leave Haran and travel west. However, after years of barrenness the possibility of it coming true seemed increasingly remote. Then, when God came to tell them that the time had come, Sarah just laughed. She just couldn’t believe the promise would be fulfilled.

In turn, then, how many of us, when confronted by the marvelous, seemingly fantastic, too wonderful to believe, promises of God respond in a similar way. Are we willing to accept that when God makes a promise it is already fulfilled, or are we inclined to react as Sarah reacted - with an outburst of laughter?

When Jesus teaches that our sins are forgiven, even before we ask, do we accept it as a statement of reality, or is our first response to laugh - after all it seems too good to be true?

When Jesus teaches that God loves each of us as his children, even as we often fail to live as God intends us to live, we are likely inclined to laugh the laugh of Sarah - it seems too good to be true.

You see, while this story in Genesis involving Abraham, Sarah, and the three travelers is ostensibly about the miracle of an unlikely birth, at another level it asks us a profoundly theological question; What is the nature and character of the God we believe in? Simply stated, “Do we believe God is Lord of the universe - creator of all things seen and unseen and radically free to implement his will, or do we believe in a God that is limited by physical circumstances and whose power is in fact limited?

Without putting too fine a point on it, Sarah’s laughter indicated that she had put God in a box if you will. Her laughter indicated that she did not really believe that God could do anything - that there was a limit to God’s power.

Scripture gives witness to a God who is radically free, free even to fulfill the promise of an heir to an aging childless couple who doubted in God’s ability to come through on his promises.

Speaking honestly, if each of us examined our own journey of faith, we could all point to times in our lives when we were confronted by the marvelous promises of God, found them too wonderful to believe, and joined with Sarah in her laughter. We are constantly tempted to put God in a box.

Let me point to just a few examples of this. When we let a friend down by betraying a confidence, or fail to follow through on a commitment we have made, often as a result of our actions we become alienated from our friend. We are in need of restoration.

In this situation, God has promised us reconciliation and forgiveness - if we seek it. Yet we find forgiveness hard to accept. Rather than trust that forgiveness and reconciliation are possible and promised through God’s grace. Instead we often berate ourselves, we beat ourselves up over our weaknesses and failings. We hold tightly to our failures.

In some cases this goes on for years, destroying our lives and coloring how we see the world. By holding onto our hurt, by clutching at our weakness, are we not in reality laughing at God’s promise of forgiveness?

Another example of laughing at God’s power is when we in the church lose our resolve and commitment to the truth of God’s will. Indeed, one of our greatest temptations in the church is to dilute the strong and strict message of the gospel. We are tempted to lower our standards and soften the hard edge of scripture as we face a culture that mostly ignores us, and a media that appears uninterested in anything that cannot be explained in a short paragraph or a 30 second sound bite. Being ignored by our society can be frustrating to us in the church. We want to reach people with the good news! Yet, the world often rejects us.

However, let us remember we are the body of Christ! As Genesis reminds us, “Is anything too wonderful for the Lord?”

When we in the church water down the ethical and moral standards of the gospel in the attempt to accommodate modern cultural sensitivities, then we are laughing at God’s power to sustain and nurture us in the face of temptation.

The honest truth is that confronted by the nuances and complexities of life most people are not simply looking for a justification for their lives, rather, they are seeking a way to make sense out of their lives that gives meaning and hope to them in contrast to the emptiness of materialism and the unsatisfying nebulous spirituality that pervades our popular culture. The stark and unchanging gospel of Jesus Christ is ready for them. Are we ready to share it with them?

The fundamental message revealed in Abraham and Sarah miraculously becoming parents in their old age is that God is inherently a God of life; its message is that not even the power of death can defeat God.

God’s promise to Abraham and Sarah that they would be the Father and Mother of a great nation is not about Jewish nationalism, it is about God promising life even amidst all of the signs and conditions of death that surround us everywhere. God first fulfilled that promise in the birth of Issac, and then extended and definitively fulfilled that promise for all people in the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Let us, then, seek to live our lives trusting that God will fulfill his promises. Let us live in ways that make room for God’s freedom to restore our broken lives. May we live each moment remembering that God is a God of life; life with him. So may it be for us through the grace of God. Amen.

Reverend Marc V. Mason

11^th Sunday in Ordinary Time, June 12^th,2005

Trinity Presbyterian Church

Travelers Rest, SC