Does anyone care what Sarah’s thoughts might be? Is anyone interested in what she might say, how she might respond to the promises of God? God makes big promises: The Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great.”[1] We know the story. We love it. We’ve heard it more times than we can remember. The story of the new beginning after Babel. The story of God’s persistent desire to have a covenant people to bless the world. The Lord said to Abram, “Go!” and Abram went and he took his wife Sarai. Did the Lord speak to Sarai? If so, nobody cared to weave it into the story. Sarai was barren; she had no child – and for all we know, she never said a word when the Lord said ‘go’ and Abraham went.
A few adventures later, God again spoke to Abram, and this time Abram pushed back, gently, saying, “You have given me no offspring, so a slave in my house is to be my heir.”
No, said the Lord, “No one but your very own issue shall be your heir. … Look toward heaven and count the stars … so shall your descendants be.”[2]
God makes big promises. “As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. I will bless her and … give you a son by her… and she shall give rise to nations; kings of peoples shall come from her.”
Abraham fell on his face and laughed and said to himself, “Can a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Can Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?”
“Sarah shall bear you a son, and you shall name him Isaac.” And the Lord was very precise, saying, “at this season next year.”[3]
Within a few verses, we arrive at the next scene, Abraham sitting at the entrance of his tent in the heat of the day. He sees three men, runs to meet them, greets them, invites them to stay, hastens into the tent to tell Sarah to make cakes, runs to the herd and takes a calf and gives it to the servant who hastens to prepare it – its a whirlwind of hospitality, and then Abraham takes the food and sets it before them and watches them eat. This was a very nice meal, the best he had to offer. Welcoming the three guests, he had promised a little water, rest, and a little bread – this was a feast: choice ingredients, freshly prepared, fragrant and plentiful.
“Where is your wife Sarah?” they asked. Perhaps before Abraham had been curious to know who his three guests might be, and where they came from, but now he had to wonder how they knew her name. “There, in the tent,” he said. Few words. Noticeably few, especially after the rush of words pouring from his lips when he welcomed his guests. Who were they?
“I will surely return to you in due season,” one of them said, “and your wife Sarah shall have a son.” Did anyone care what Sarah thought about the prospect of a pregnancy in the sunset years of her life? Did anyone even consider telling her about it? Clearly not. She overheard the words, listening at the tent entrance. “Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in age,” the narrator tells us, like we needed reminding. “It had ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women,” the narrator tells us, and we notice that we are being told the most personal details about her, but she doesn’t have a say in this conversation among men about her body, her womb, her role in the unfolding of the story of God’s promise.
She laughs – not out loud, no, she laughs to herself, wrapped in this cocoon of silence. She can’t believe what she just heard – and we realize that Abraham must have never told her about the divine promise that she would give rise to nations, that kings of peoples would come from her womb. Why is nobody talking to Sarah, except for Abraham who tells her to make cakes, but doesn’t seem to be the least bit interested in her reaction to the promise of a son?
And now the Lord speaks. “Sarah, come and join us. Forget about menopause. The years of waiting are coming to an end. Come, mother of nations. Is anything too wonderful for the Lord? Come, let us hear you laugh for joy!”
You know it’s not what the Lord said. The Lord speaks to Abraham, asking him why Sarah laughed, asking him if anything is too wonderful for the Lord, and repeating to him the promise, “At the set time I will return to you, in due season, and Sarah shall have a son.”
And Sarah, still only overhearing a conversation rather than having a voice in it, denies having laughed, out of fear. One scholar writes, “That God would descend to a ‘no, I did not’ / ‘yes, you did’ squabble hints that this narrative is supposed to be funny.”[4] Do you think it’s funny? Abraham falling on his face, laughing at the prospect of a trip to the maternity ward when mom is 90 years old and dad 100, that is funny. Sarah chuckling, that is funny, but her alone being questioned for her incredulous response, that is far from funny. That is wrapping the cocoon of silence a little tighter. That is fear invading a space where hope and joy are supposed to erupt. It feels cramped and suffocating. It feels like the Southern Baptist Convention telling female pastors and all women that God did not and will not call them to ministry, because God may have poured out God’s Spirit upon all flesh on Pentecost, except for the Spirit of prophecy, proclamation, and pastoral leadership – those gifts, according to the Southern Baptist Convention and a few other assemblies, are poured out exclusively on male flesh. Women are to stay in the tent and wait for their husbands to tell them about the promises of the Lord.
Is anything too wonderful for the Lord? The question waits for an answer, and invites those who might ponder it, invites us, not just once, but again and again, to respond with a confident ‘No! Nothing’s too wonderful for the Lord!’, to err on the side of trust, to err on the side of joyful expectation, to err on the side of wonder. Does anyone care what Sarah’s thoughts might be? Is anyone interested in what she might say, what perspective she might add to the conversation, how she might respond to the promises of God? And what about others whose voices and perspectives are habitually excluded: is anyone interested in what they might say, how they might respond to the promises of God?
Back in 2005, David Foster Wallace gave a now famous commencement speech to the graduating class at Kenyon College. He shared some thoughts about worship and slipping into default modes that have nothing to do with who or what we might think we worship.
There is no such thing as not worshiping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. … If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. … Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly.
On one level, we all know this stuff already. It’s been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness.
Worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out.
But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they’re evil or sinful, it’s that they’re unconscious. They are default settings. They’re the kind of worship you just gradually slip into, day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that’s what you’re doing.
The serious lack of curiosity about what women might be thinking or the refusal to pay attention to what they are saying – those are default settings, born of the worship of power, thousands of years old, and amply reflected even in our most sacred texts. But those ancient, sacred texts also challenge us to question those default settings in the light of God’s promises, the light of Jesus’ teachings and ministry, the light of the Spirit poured out on all flesh. Wallace said,
The so-called real world will not discourage you from operating on your default settings, because the so-called real world of men and money and power hums merrily along in a pool of fear and anger and frustration and craving and worship of self.[5]
I thought I would speak this morning about Jesus sending us into the so-called real world as messengers of the kingdom. We are sent to be compassionate disrupters, practicing a hospitality as generous as Abraham’s in our encounters with others, attentive to them, their needs, and their thoughts, seeking to keep the promise and truth of God’s coming reign up front in daily consciousness.
I thought I would unpack that some more, but not today. Today we stop by the maternity ward to celebrate, because the Lord did for Sarah as the Lord had promised. Sarah conceived and bore a son, at the time of which God had spoken. Now Sarah said, “God has brought laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh with me.”[6] The chuckles of incredulity, tinged with sadness and cynicism gathered up over the years, gave way to peals of laughter. And Sarah didn’t stop laughing and telling until she was done laughing and telling, in free, unbridled joy. And that’s how it’s supposed to be.
[1] Genesis 12:1
[2] Genesis 15:3-5
[3] Genesis 17:15-21
[4] Song-Mi Suzie Park, Connections, Year A, Vol. 3, 70.
[5] https://fs.blog/david-foster-wallace-this-is-water/
[6] See Genesis 21:1-6