Proper 06 A 2008
Theme: Fathers seeking love
Let us pray.
Most holy, Lord God, help us to see the love of our fathers and in so doing, may we begin to understand your love for us, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
In his book, Disappointment with God, writer Philip Yancey relates a touching story from his own life. One time on a visit to his mother – who had been widowed years earlier, in the month of Philip’s first birthday – they spent the afternoon together looking through a box of old photos. A certain picture of him as an eight-month-old baby caught his eye. Tattered and bent, it looked too banged up to be worth keeping, so he asked her why, with so many other better pictures of him at the same age, she had kept this one.
Yancey writes, “My mother explained to me that she had kept the photo as a memento, because during my father’s illness it had been fastened to his iron lung.” During the last four months of his life, Yancey’s father lay on his back, completely paralyzed by polio at the age of twenty-four, encased from the neck down in a huge, cylindrical breathing unit. With his two young sons banned from the hospital due to the severity of his illness, he had asked his wife for pictures of her and their two boys.
Because he was unable to move even his head, the photos had to be jammed between metal knobs so that they hung within view above him – the only thing he could see. The last four months of his life were spent looking at the faces he loved.
Philip Yancey writes, “I have often thought of that crumpled photo, for it is one of the few links connecting me to the stranger who was my father.
“Someone I have no memory of, no sensory knowledge of, spent all day, every day thinking of me, devoting himself to me, loving me . . . The emotions I felt when my mother showed me the crumpled photo were the very same emotions I felt that February night in a college dorm room when I first believed in a God of love. Someone is there, I realized. Someone is there who loves me. It was a startling feeling of wild hope, a feeling so new and overwhelming that it seemed fully worth risking my life on.”
Philip Yancy understood the love of someone he never really knew, his father. This brought into context how he understands God’s love. Abraham probably fell in love with a child not yet born. This child was the promise of covenant. This child is the future of a nation yet unborn.
A lot has happened to Abram when we left him in the Negev last week. Abram and Sarai go to Egypt, where Abram passes Sarai off as his sister. Pharaoh adds Sarai into his harem and is aghast when he discovers she is Abram’s wife. They are both kicked out of the country. They go back to Bethel where Abram decides that there is not enough pasture for his herds and Lot’s herds, so they separate.
There is a large war of the kingdoms of Canaan and surrounding areas and as a result Lot is kidnapped. Abram sends his army and rescues Lot. Abram is then blessed by Melchizedek. God reaffirms the covenant between God and Abram. Ishmael is born to Abram and Sarai’s slave, Hagar. In ancient times, a child born of a wife’s servant or slave is considered the child of the wife. God calls Abram to circumcision and renames him Abraham and renames Sarai, Sarah. They are then promised a child.
Now we find Abraham back at the oaks of Mamre. It was a hot afternoon there when God shows up. Abraham saw three men standing nearby and he rushed over to them and bowed with his face to the ground. He then invited them to stay with him. Abraham offers water to wash their feet while they rest under the shade of a tree. Abraham then offers to serve them with some food. They accept the offer. It will take time to prepare their food, so rest in the shade is very important.
Abraham rushes to his tent and orders Sarah to make some bread. They must have been out of bread and there is no market nearby. Abraham then rushes to his heard, picks out a calf, and orders a servant to prepare it, quickly. Abraham then serves his guests with the meat, milk, and yogurt. It is a feast. This will be an illegal meal later under Mosaic Law. But Genesis is part of the Torah, so a conflict exists in the Law.
Abraham hovers over his guests. They then ask where Sarah is. Abraham responds that she in the tent. One of the guests then says that when he returns a year later Sarah will have a son. Sarah was eavesdropping. We are reminded that this couple is very old and Sarah is a long way from being of child bearing age. Sarah laughs at the prospect of having a child with her old man.
God then asks Abraham why Sarah laughed at him thinking to herself that she cannot bear a child in her old age. God says, “Is there anything impossible for God? I’ll return next year and Sarah will have a son.” A frightened Sarah now speaks for herself denying that she laughed. God said, “Oh yes you did, you laughed!”
God’s promise came true and Sarah had a son when God promised one. Their son was named Isaac, which means “he laughs”. Isaac was circumcised at eight days old. Sarah said, “God caused me to laugh, now everyone can laugh with me. Who would tell Abraham that the old man would have a son?”
There are many subplots to this story of promise. One of those subplots is a dream deferred. Does the dream dry up or does it reach fruition? God promises that Abraham and Sarah’s offspring will last for generations. Yet they do not have a child, at least not directly. Sarah is ninety and her womb ain’t what it used to be. Abraham is now beyond being able to father another child. Deferred dreams can sometimes lead to drastic acts, like the birth of Ishmael.
There is tension in this story. This tension allows us to experience the confusion and to wonder what will happen when God appears. But why three men? Abraham refers to them in the singular. Perhaps one acts as a spokesman for the other two.
Another subplot is one of radical hospitality. The story builds at the pace of Abraham’s hospitality. There is no hint that Abraham knows that he is entertaining God. The use of the word lord could also be translated as master. Abraham is exhibiting the radical hospitality that is required of all people of his time and is still indeed a requirement in that region to this day. Abraham does all of this with no expectation of anything in return.
The story takes a turn when Sarah reenters the picture. Sarah can do nothing but laugh at the prospect of being pregnant in her old age. I mean, really, would not any of you laugh after being told Ellen Fredericks is going to be pregnant? We are meant to laugh with Sarah at this point in the story.
It is now in the story that the speaker is revealed as God. Sarah’s fear reveals that she must realize it is God who is speaking. This part of the story anticipates the birth of Isaac in chapter 21. Sarah should laugh, because her laughter leads to the fulfillment of God’s promises. The dream is no longer deferred.
St. Paul said that love is patient. Maybe he was thinking of Abraham. Even in his old age, Abraham continued to have faith in God’s promises. The Bible doesn’t say if Abraham loved God but by reading his relationship with God certainly indicates Abraham’s great love for God. God certainly loved Abraham. As children of Abraham, through Jesus Christ, we are heirs of this great love.
We now pray: Gracious God and giver of all good gifts, thank you for the gift of children; through them we learn more of your love and maybe even your frustration with us; give us patience to love our families and beyond them others around us, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Text: Genesis 18:1-15, 21:1-7 (NRSV)
18 The Lord appeared to Abrahama by the oaksb of Mamre, as he sat at the entrance of his tent in the heat of the day. 2 He looked up and saw three men standing near him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent entrance to meet them, and bowed down to the ground. 3 He said, “My lord, if I find favor with you, do not pass by your servant. 4 Let a little water be brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree. 5 Let me bring a little bread, that you may refresh yourselves, and after that you may pass on—since you have come to your servant.” So they said, “Do as you have said.” 6 And Abraham hastened into the tent to Sarah, and said, “Make ready quickly three measuresc of choice flour, knead it, and make cakes.” 7 Abraham ran to the herd, and took a calf, tender and good, and gave it to the servant, who hastened to prepare it. 8 Then he took curds and milk and the calf that he had prepared, and set it before them; and he stood by them under the tree while they ate.
9 They said to him, “Where is your wife Sarah?” And he said, “There, in the tent.” 10 Then one said, “I will surely return to you in due season, and your wife Sarah shall have a son.” And Sarah was listening at the tent entrance behind him. 11 Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in age; it had ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women. 12 So Sarah laughed to herself, saying, “After I have grown old, and my husband is old, shall I have pleasure?” 13 The Lord said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh, and say, ‘Shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old?’ 14 Is anything too wonderful for the Lord? At the set time I will return to you, in due season, and Sarah shall have a son.” 15 But Sarah denied, saying, “I did not laugh”; for she was afraid. He said, “Oh yes, you did laugh.”
21 The Lord dealt with Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did for Sarah as he had promised. 2 Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the time of which God had spoken to him. 3 Abraham gave the name Isaac to his son whom Sarah bore him. 4 And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, as God had commanded him. 5 Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him. 6 Now Sarah said, “God has brought laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh with me.” 7 And she said, “Who would ever have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.” [1]
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a Heb him
b Or terebinths
c Heb seahs
[1] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. 1989. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers.