Laughing with Sarah

Genesis 18:1-15, Matthew 10:40-42

Do you ever get tired…?

·         of trying to do the right thing, when it doesn’t seem to get you anywhere and no one else seems to be?

·         of working for the cause of justice and peace when those who spout war and division seem to be at every turn and when division, racism, and xenophobia continually rear their ugly head and are exploited by so many?

·         of praying the same old prayer that God has not answered in all these many years?

·         of defending the label “Christian” against all the loud-mouthed, condemnatory preachers and politicians that have the airwaves and much of the political process?

·         Do you ever get discouraged at carrying the same label as those who make literal nonsense of the Scripture, or use it as a club to batter others, or as secret codebook to predict the end of the world?

·         Do you get tired of trying to see the best in people and give them the benefit of the doubt when they are just acting hateful and foolish, or you just don’t understand them?

·         Do you get tired of trying to keep the faith, believing that God is mindful, that anyone, including God cares, in the face of the loss of a loved one or bad news after bad news?

  Well, I sometimes do!

It is hard to hold on. It is hard to keep the faith. It is hard to act in the way we believe God wants us to, especially in the absence of measurable success, or when we are tired and lonely and feel like a motherless child. It is hard to hold on and keep the faith when God seems to have been silent to us for a long time. I can relate to that great theologian, Woody Allen, when he said something like, “Why doesn’t God give me a sign I can understand, like a hefty deposit in my bank account?”

That is the way our Hebrew forebears felt, only 100 times worse, when they sat on the edge of the River in Babylon and wept. They wept the loss of their homeland, the loss of their whole way of being, the loss of their faith. Had God withdrawn the promise? Had they been wrong all along? Was it all just a pipe dream, all this about being a light to the nations, all this about a God who was the Good Shepherd and the one who will bring peace to the earth?

In their crushing despair, they forgot that they had a story. They were part of a people, part of an ongoing story that was far from finished. We are part of the same people. We are part of the same story, individually and corporately. The priests, in that 6^th century BC exile in Babylon, reminded the people of how they came into being, of their progenitors, Abraham and Sarah. They reminded them that this isn’t just their story; it is God’s story. They reminded them of Abraham’s great faith and how their very beginning as a people was an impossibility by human standards. God did an impossible thing by bringing them into being. God will not be thwarted by their waywardness or some human despot.

I have sense, however, that it was Sarah with whom the exiles really related and from whom they gained strength to carry on. I think it was from Sarah that they learned about God’s grace. If they thought they were in a hopeless situation, what about poor Sarah?

Abraham is the one who usually gets all the attention, but let’s tell Sarah’s story.

Who was Sarah? How did she get to this god-forsaken place out here in this desert wilderness in the heat of the sun, which is the setting for today’s text?

All we know about Sarah is that she was Abraham’s wife. And that says a lot. Like nearly all women of that time, she lived a derived life. Her identity was as Abraham’s wife. She did not have an identity of her own. No one paid much attention to her. She was not consulted about this great move to nowhere that old Abram comes home and drops like a bomb one day. Though she was the matriarch, she probably had very little say in anything. After all, of what was she the matriarch? She had no children. Her main role, and that from which she would derive the most status, was from having a child, providing an heir for Abraham. She had not done this. Many would have looked at her as a failure. Almost certainly that is how she saw herself.

She most likely had lived all her life, at least all her adult life, there in Ur of the Chaldeans. She was 75 years old, according to the story when God spoke with Abram and told him to pick up everything and move. By the age of 75, Sarah would have been an elder.  Though, as I said, she had no children to give her status, she would at least have gained some status and respect due to her age. (Unfortunately, that is not an advantage of age in our culture.) Life would have been as good for Sarah as it was going to get.

That is before Abram comes home with this ludicrous story about God speaking to him. Remember, God does not speak to Sarah, (who at that point was Sarai) only to Abram. Abram was already old. I can just imagine Sarah’s reaction. “You what?  You heard a voice! How long had you been out in the sun when you heard this…voice?  And this voice told you to pick up everything and move?  And where, Abram, does this voice tell you to go?  ‘To the place that I will show you.’  It actually said that.  Where the…. heck is that?  You old fool, you have to be kidding!”

But Sarah, with no real choice and as part of Abram’s life, goes. Here they are in the scene from Scripture read today, nearly 25 years older. All they have to show for this foolish trek in the wilderness is a slave child and innumerable more wrinkles.

I have a sense that Sarah may have become a tough, cynical old lady by this point—simply for survival’s sake. And who could blame her? She has seen far more than her share of disappointment. She likely has long ago given up on God, on Abram’s God, or at least on prayer. She has developed a thick skin against any more disappointment. She has stopped expecting much out of life. The world cannot touch her now.

Abraham greets these strangers and welcomes them in the manner we all should and that was dictated by custom in the ancient Near East. He plays the big shot, though, and invites these men to stay for a sumptuous meal. Then, true to form, he calls Sarah, “Guess what, I just invited three guys for dinner – you better get busy!” So she does and, along with a servant, prepares a feast.

Curious about these strangers, Sarah is listening at the door of the tent. Notice, she doesn’t even seem to rate a proper introduction. She is doing all this work behind the scenes. Then, she overhears this preposterous statement that Abraham’s wife (that’s her) will conceive and bear a child. She laughs at the absurdity of it all! Of course she does!

I can imagine that Sarah might have been thinking:

1.      That these visitors had not found shade soon enough!

2.      Maybe, as they had not even seen her, they thought that roguish old Abraham had married himself a nice young woman. Maybe she laughed in anticipation of waltzing out of the tent and presenting her old self to them and see if they held to their story then.

I am certain, that Sarah’s was a derisive laugh. It was a laugh full of anger and bitterness, let alone shear unbelief. She snorted in derision. And who could blame her! I can imagine the long and desperate prayers for all those years that started all those years ago when Sarah was young and of childbearing age. For all those years she continued to hammer God’s door using prayers as battering rams and never was there an answer! So desperate was she to do her duty and provide an heir that she gave Abraham her servant. The servant conceived immediately, and then threw it in Sarah’s face. And now, after all this time, long after she ceased praying for a child, this is to happen! Not only was she way past child-bearing age, but probably the last thing she could imagine doing now was getting up for all those night feedings and later chasing a toddler around!

Clearly God must have a sense of humor— a warped sense of humor. So why shouldn’t Sarah laugh? But, as we said, her laugh was a mirthless laugh. It was a derisive laugh of unbelief and utter disgust at God’s incredibly bad timing!

Now these messengers reveal that they are of God, for they know that Sarah laughed. Even though the text says she laughed to herself—my guess is that she MEANT to laugh to herself—but that it was really a spontaneous outburst. Something she could not contain.

The messenger asks Abraham why Sarah laughed. (As if Abraham would have a clue to what really was going on with Sarah!)  But this is a rhetorical question. The Messenger knows why Sarah laughed. She had lost hope. She could not believe such a thing was possible. (After all, she did not really know this God herself.) The messenger replies with, “Is anything too wonderful for God?”

Isn’t it interesting that the messenger did not say, “Is anything too difficult or too amazing for God,” but rather, “Is anything too wonderful for God?” For once Sarah got over the shock, once she got over the anger that God can be so darn slow, she is overjoyed. This is wonderful news. God has not forsaken her; God has not forgotten her. Old, weary, cynical Sarah will be the mother of a great nation!

Even though Sarah had lost faith in God, God had not lost faith in Sarah. Even though Sarah had gotten tired of trying to keep the faith, God had kept the faith.

Sarah denies that she laughed. She tries to deny that she had given up, not on conceiving, but, I think, given up on God, given up on Abraham’s dream that got them to this god-forsaken desert place to begin with. Sarah is afraid that because she did not have the faith to believe immediately that such a thing was possible, maybe God would withdraw this promise. She would suffer one more miscarriage, one more unbearable disappointment.

And God, through the messenger says, “Ah, but you did laugh,” as if to say, “So what?  Who can blame you?” You see God’s plans are not thwarted by Sarah’s slow faith. God’s plans are not thwarted by the fact that Sarah had lost the faith for a time. Sarah laughs. This is a great and wonderful joke – like the resurrection. God has the last laugh and Sarah is invited into the joy of what God is doing, despite her dried-up womb, and her dried-up attitude.

This is our story too. This is how our story begins.

Maybe something more remarkable than a child conceived by old Sarah takes place here. Sarah was not too old for new life herself! Sarah received new life before she conceived Isaac because God came to her and received her as she was, but did not let her stay that way.

The Good News for all of us is that old Sarah found new life, new hope, and new faith in God. Even though Sarah had given up and become cynical, scoffed, and then lied to God, that does not remove her from her place in Salvation history. That does not remove her from her central role as the matriarch of a great nation. God will have God’s way, even with us, sooner or later. That is GRACE.

There is a “Sarah” part of all of us, isn’t there? That part of each one of us that has:

·         become cynical, lost hope, or lost a sense of if—or how—we are part of God’s will and way.

·         lived a derived life, following the whims or ways of another, not really seeing our own worth or place.

·         a sense that time has passed us by, our good days are in the past, or our hope died long ago.

·         become tired of trying to keep the faith, do the right thing, in the absence of signs, wondering if God is there, anywhere, or if you ought to just get what you can for yourself, while you can, and forget this great vision of the just and peaceable realm.

·         Or maybe, you are thinking, like Sarah must have, that you should have been more careful what you prayed for because now you got it!

Sarah laughed, praise be to God. She found her laughter again. I have a sense that Sarah laughed a lot after this episode, but now, it was not the snort of cynicism or derision, but the deep, cleansing belly-laugh of the redeemed.

May it be so for us as well.

Rev. Doug Van Doren

Plymouth United Church of Christ, June 26, 2011