Genesis 18:1-15
When I was a child growing up in Minnesota, I never thought of our family as being particularly hospitable. I just thought that everyone did things like we did. At holidays, especially Christmas, it was not unusual for us to have someone outside our family or normal circle friends sitting up to the table with us for Christmas dinner. Both of my grandmothers assumed that if you stopped by for any reason, that you were going to stay for coffee. My grandmothers could not understand not stopping for coffee. It was like they were hurt if you did not stay for coffee. And of course, staying for coffee meant also eating something. A common theme was simply: “Feed them”! It was years later that I realized not everyone did things that way.
Maybe that is one of the unspoken things that attracted me to Family of God. We definitely like the theme of feeding people.
In the lesson from Genesis, Abraham is relaxing in the shade, and sees three men. It reads like he does not know them, and they are just traveling by. It is the heat of the day. We could easily picture the men stopping for a break and getting a drink. But look at Abraham’s response: Let a little water be brought and wash your feet and rest under the tree. Let me bring a little bread and after that you may pass by. Abraham saw them, as they were to pass by, and felt he needed to greet them, welcome them, and feed them.
And not just a couple cookies to go with coffee. He went to the tent and told Sarah to make bread. This was bread that had to have the dough kneaded. That takes a while. And Abraham went to the herd and took a calf, a good one, and gave it to a servant to prepare it. Then he took the calf and the bread and some curds and milk and gave it to his visitors. This was an example of extravagant hospitality. It was more than what was expected. Think about how long it took—for Abraham, for Sarah, to get everything prepared and how long those visitors had to wait and then eat.
Abraham and Sarah waited to get a message from these visitors. They had to wait. For many of us, being told to wait is one of the most difficult things that we get told to do. Abraham and Sarah were not even told to wait, they had to just wait and wonder, in silence, until finally a message from these visitors. It is easy to mistake a “not yet” message from God, for a “no” from God. This story demonstrates that promises from God can take time for them to come to fruition.
And then the punch line of the story, Abraham and Sarah are told that they are to have a son.
Years before this Abraham and Sarah were promised by God that they would have a son. It had not happened. This story seems like a story about the tension between that promise from God (that they would have a son) and the resistance of Abraham and Sarah who doubt that word and promise from God and cannot believe the promise.
There are many times in scripture, Abraham and Sarah are held up as examples of faith. Here that is not the case. Here they are models of disbelief. For them, the powerful promise of God outdistances their ability to receive it.
By this time, Abraham and Sarah have been married for a long time. They have become accustomed to being childless. At one time they thought the promised son would come through their nephew Lot. It did not. At one time they thought the son would come through their servant Haggai. It did not. There had to be a strain on their relationship. Somehow, they made their way together to forge a life without children.
I wonder, would we have believed such a promise? If someone, say someone 90 or 100 years old, told you that they were going to have a child, would you believe them? Would you think that they were maybe not real mentally balanced?
The whole story can seem unbelievable. And so, Sarah laughs. I wonder what kind of a laugh it was. Maybe she laughs in delight. Maybe it is a nervous laugh. Maybe it is a sarcastic laugh. At any rate, Sarah laughs. She laughs and then asks, if after she has grown old is she to be fruitful.
And so, God asks Abraham, “Is anything too wonderful for the Lord?” Many people would quickly answer that nothing is too wonderful, or impossible for God. Many others would want to see God prove it. Would we believe God in that situation?
Is that where we are today? Are we in a position where we feel we can trust God to somehow get us through the mess our world and our lives are in? Or are we, like Sarah, laughing at God and the promise that God will indeed take care of us?
Is anything too wonderful for the Lord? Amen