“Faith
is not a reasonable act which fits into the normal scheme of life and
perception. The promise of the gospel is not a conventional piece of wisdom
that is easily accommodated to everything else. Embrace of this radical gospel
requires shattering and discontinuity.”[1]
-Walter
Brueggemann
Lesson Focus:
We sin because we fail to have proper faith in the
sometimes-nonsensical ways of God.
Lesson Outcomes:
Through this lessons students should:
1.
Recognize that faith sometimes means living in
ways that may not make a whole lot of sense.
2.
God works to fulfill his purposes for creation
even when we do not have proper faith.
Catch
up on the story:
God has promised to make Abram a great nation, through whom
all nations of the world would be blessed.
Up to this point we aren’t sure how this is going to happen because
Abraham and Sarah are barren. Sarah, in
attempt to try and have children vicariously, gives her servant Hagar to
Abraham. This situation only causes
discord. Later, God performs a covenant
ceremony with Abraham changing his name from Abram. God also give him the sign of the covenant
that is circumcision. Once again, God reasserts that he will make Abraham’s
children a great nation that will bless all the nations.
The
Text:
Our text begins during the heat of the day. Abraham, who has just had all of the male
members of his family circumcised as a mark of the covenant that God has made
with him, is sitting at the entrance to his tent. He looks up, and the text tells us he sees
“the LORD.” This first verse,
however, may function as a heading to the section. Scholars are divided when it comes to the
identity of the three men with whom Abraham interacts. What is important, at this point, is that God
is reminding Abraham and Sarah of his promise to them.
Abraham, while sitting in the entrance to his tent, spies
three men and runs to meet them. When he
arrives at the three men he bows down and addresses them. The text is unclear about what Abraham knows
about these three men. He may know that
these men are different in some kind of way.
Perhaps he knows that they are messengers from God. His immediate treatment of them gives us no
clue as to his understanding.
Providing hospitality for those who were traveling was one
of the most important, if not the most important, social rule of the day. To turn aside strangers or travelers, not
offering them food, water and shelter, would have been unthinkable. It would have also brought shame on the
family. Abraham’s offer of hospitality
will be contrasted with the hospitality (or lack of) that is offered to these
men in the city of Sodom.
So, Abraham addresses the men as if he were their
servant. His aim is to please these
strangers. Abraham offers them the things that traveling men most want; water
for drinking and washing, rest, and food.
The men do not refuse Abraham’s offer.
The narrative moves quickly as Abraham begins to instruct Sarah to make
bread from the best flour and his servants to kill and prepare a tender
calf. It would have taken some time for
the food to be prepared, but in the interest in moving the story along we cut straight
to the shared meal.
Abraham brings the food to his visitors and they engage him
in conversation. There is no small
talk. The men want to know where
Abraham’s wife is. Abraham responds that
his wife is in the tent. Sarah, as
almost certainly you and I would do in this type of situation, was listening to
the conversation between her husband and the three strangers. I’m sure her ears perked up when the
conversation turned to her.
The men offer a promise to Abraham and Sarah. To be sure this promise had been offered to
them some time before and now it seemed as if it would be impossible to
fulfill. The men declare that in due
season Sarah will give birth to a son. Let’s
remind ourselves of what has taken place so far. God came to a barren couple, a couple for
whom the possibility of life and future were non-existent. To be barren, in the biblical world, was to
be already in a sense dead. There will
be no one to carry on the name, no one to carry on the memory of the
family. God comes to this barren couple
and promises them a future filled with descendants that outnumber the stars in
the sky.
Time passed and Abraham and Sarah still did not have any
children. It was then that Sarah decided
to take matters into her own hands. She
would give her maidservant, Hagar, to Abraham as a wife. They would have a child through Hagar. It works, too. Hagar becomes pregnant and gives birth to
Ishmael. Abraham is content now with
what he has. After Ishmael is born God
comes to Abraham and Sarah once more.
Ishmael will not be the one through whom God blesses the world; he is
not the fruit of God’s promise to Abraham.
Sarah herself will have a son.
Abraham’s response is one of laughter.
How can this be? Abraham is 100
years old and Sarah is 90! The promise
that was originally offered will be kept.
Sarah will have a son.
We aren’t told how much time has passed between God’s last
conversation with Abraham and the three visitors. It is enough time, however, for the couple to
doubt that God will keep his promise.
Sarah hears the voice of the men proclaiming that she will have a son
soon. Like Abraham, her response to this
news is one of laughter. It is, however,
not the laughter that is born from the joy of good news. It is the laughter that comes from
disbelief.
It is the laughter that comes when a friend tells you that
he is finally going to go and talk to that girl he has been admiring for such a
long time, or the kind of laughter elicited when a Cardinals fan hears a Cubs
fan say, “This is our year!” “Haha! I’ll believe that when I see it!” Even though
both the NIV and the NRSV render the verse, “she laughed to herself,” the
original text indicates that the laughter that Sarah produces is not just a
polite little laugh, or even a silent chuckle to herself. It is, rather, a full out belly laugh
produced by the absurdity of an old woman giving birth.[2] Perhaps the laugh is also a way to cope with
the reality that what Sarah has hoped for has not come to pass. Even now that these men say that it will
happen, the wound is still sore; she believes it less now than she did
before.
Sarah wonders out loud how it is that someone of her age,
who has stopped menstruating, can have a child.
The question is then put to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh…Is anything to
wonderful for the Lord?” Here is the crucial part of the text, this question,
“Is anything to wonderful for the Lord?”
The question concerns Abraham and Sarah’s belief, or lack there of, in
God’s ability to fulfill the promise against all odds. It was nonsense to Sarah that at her age, and
in her condition, that she would be able to have a baby.
The question is asked to us, and to the aged couple in a
rhetorical manner, and it is asked with confidence. The question is left to linger in our
minds. It is left to challenge our
assumptions about the nature of our world and what is possible. Left up to us, a promise such as the one
these men make to Sarah is very laughable.
It just is not possible. For
Israel, whose story this is, and for us too, it is meant to draw us into
believing that the world in its broken state is not how the world should or ought
to persist. Indeed, it calls us to begin
to have faith, faith in the promise that the life, death and resurrection of
Jesus Christ has tangibly changed things.
At the end of the day,
“The story is constructed to present the tension
between this inscrutable speech of God (that comes as promise) and the
resistance and mockery of Abraham and Sarah who doubt the word and cannot
believe the promise. Israel stands before God’s word of promise but
characteristically finds that word beyond reason and belief. Abraham, and
especially Sarah, are not offered here as models of faith but as models of
disbelief. For them, the powerful promise of God outdistances their ability to
receive it.[3]
What might be even more remarkable is that God keeps
his promise despite their unbelief.
So
What…?
The narrative ends with this simple yet profound question
hanging in the air. It moves on to a
story about great evil in the world while Abraham and Sarah continue to wait
for the fulfillment of the promise. The
last words of the section, “Oh yes, you did laugh” should haunt us. How many times have we encountered a command
of Jesus only to laugh at it because of its impracticality? We laugh in the face of Jesus’ command to
turn the other cheek when someone wrongs us.
We laugh in the face of Jesus when he commands us to repay evil with
love. We laugh in Jesus’ face when we
pretend to serve God yet we are bound to making money. We laugh when Jesus tells us that in order to
truly gain abundant life we must first give it all away.
No doubt, many of us will deny our laughter in the face of
the foolishness (to us anyway) of the kingdom of God. We will say to ourselves and to others that,
perhaps, Jesus did not mean those things literally. Our laughter is a sign of our disbelief, and
that disbelief leads us into sin because we cannot fully trust the one who has
the power to bring us from death to life.
Last week, during the first week of Lent, we confessed that
our sin, our violence and wickedness causes God anguish and grief. This week, as we continue our walk toward the
cross, let us confess our lack of imagination and faith in our God who “gives
life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.”
(Romans 4:17) Let us ask that we might
have great, yet simple faith to follow in the path of Jesus.
Critical Discussion Questions:
- What does God look like in this text/Who is God in this text/What is God doing in this text?
a.
In this text God continues to be
faithful even when we are not. God,
faced with the laughing disbelief of Abraham and Sarah, does not stop to find
someone else who will do his will unquestioningly, but continues to remain
faithful to his promise. While our
disbelief doesn’t always disqualify us from relationship with God, it does
hinder us from fully enjoying and experiencing all of God’s life-giving
ability.
- What does holiness/salvation look like in this text?
a.
Salvation looks likes God’s
faithfulness in the midst of our unbelief.
Even though we laugh at the way and plans of God, God still is working
for us. This text does not directly show
that there are consequences to our unbelief, but to be sure, there are. Even after we have proven ourselves
unfaithful, or unwilling to be faithful, God ultimately provides us with chances
to respond to his gift of salvation.
Even though Abraham and Sarah have laughed in the face of God, God is
still going to work redemptively through them.
- How does an encounter with this story shape who we are and who we should become?
a.
This story calls us to answer the
question, “Is there anything too hard/wonderful for God?” The answer to this question can only be
spoken after we have witnessed and heard of God’s mighty and saving deeds. As we engage the story of God’s redemption in
the bible, and we listen to the stories of God’s people in our church who have
experienced God’s loving kindness, we are compelled to answer a resounding
“No!” We should then walk forth in faith
and obedience even when it makes no sense.
b.
While our faith may falter, and we may
not believe in God’s future for our world and our lives, God is still able to
work through us. If in the past we have
laughed at God’s plans because they seem inconceivable, there is still hope for
us. God desires to work through and with
us even at times when are not exactly willing.
Specific Discussion Questions:
Read
the text aloud. Then, read the text to yourself quietly. Read it slowly, as if you were very
unfamiliar with the story.
1. Familiarize
yourself with the story of Abraham and Sarah (Genesis 12, 15-17). What are the promises God has made to Abraham
(Abram)? How has God kept those promises
so far in the story? How have Abraham
and Sarah taken control of the situation for themselves?
2. The
men repeat God’s promise to the couple that they will someday have a son. Why do you think God chooses to remind them
instead of just making it happen?
3. Sarah
laughs at the news. Put yourself in her
situation (90 years old, barren for all these years, had ceased menstruation),
how would you have responded to such news?
4. Sarah’s
laughter is one of disbelief. The idea
that she will have a child at her age and condition is just too absurd to
believe. Yet, God chooses to use her
anyway. Why do you think that God
chooses to use us at times despite our disbelief?
5. The
question asked at the end of the story is, “Is there anything too wonderful for
the Lord?” (v. 14). Why do you think
this question was asked at this point in the story? How do you think Abraham and Sarah would have
answered the question at the very end of their lives?
6.
The question in verse 14 is meant for us
as well. What might be some of the ways
we respond to Jesus’ teaching like Sarah responded to the news of her
approaching pregnancy, that is, with a lack of faith?
7.
Are there times you just can’t see how
God’s desires for the way we should live make any sense?
[1] Walter
Brueggemann, Genesis, Interpretation,
a Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Atlanta, GA: John Knox Press,
1982), 158–159.
[2] “Commentary on Genesis 18:1-15;
21:1-7,” Working Preacher.org, accessed January 19, 2015,
https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1087.
[3] Brueggemann,
158.
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