4th Sunday after Pentecost
Genesis 18: 1-15 – Sarah Laughed
Dedication: Strong, Gentle Children #511
Invitation: Here I Am, Lord #452
Father --- beget, sire, procreate.
I. Image of fatherhood
A. In this culture --- Fred MacMurray, Brian Keith, Ozzie Nelson, Ricky Ricardo, John and Grandpa Walton, Ward Cleaver, Bill Cosby. --- compassionate but strong, completely trustworthy. Promise keeper.
B. Roman Catholic --- Russ Scheel “I’m not a father, I have children.” --- sadly, our stories from that microcosm of our culture remind us of the tragedy when father’s promise is broken, when fatherly trust is abused. A Man for All Seasons. Sir Thomas More's daughter Meg is begging her father to save himself by going back on a promise he made. More's answer helps us to understand why we need to keep our promises: "Ah, Meg, when a man takes an oath he holds his own self in his hands, like water, and when he opens his hands he need not hope to find himself again."
C. Lakota culture --- my beloved father.
A. Eastern culture --- story of the father eagle. “I give all of my time caring for you – when I am old, will you give all your time caring for me?”
II. Father Abraham
A. Abram’s fatherhood begins with a promise. A promise from God. He is asked to leave his father’s house Ur (Iran) and to travel and establish himself near the great oaks of Mamre (Israel).
B. Sitting at the entrance to his tent --- a sacred space, place of meditation.
C. The LORD appeared to Abram by the oaks of Mamre --- three humans. Eastern Orthodox art depicted this scene at first with Abram and Sarai and these three men, but as their Christology developed, they began to see this story as an introduction to the trinity. Eventually the art did not show Abram and Sarah, only the three humans sitting around a table.
D. Good Eastern hospitality --- the old man rushing about to serve the three men.
III. God’s promise
A. Where is your wife Sarah? And he said, “There in the tent” Then one said, “I will surely return to you in due season, and your wife Sarah shall have a son.”
B. Sarah, listening in the tent, loses it. She blows a gasket. She cracks up. She splits a gut. Guffaws. This is not a chuckle, this is not a muse. Explodes with a boisterous roar.
C. Laughter is a curious thing---a physical manifestation of emotion. George Carlin once stated that laughter is a product of shock. Professional comediannes work their language to put us at ease, then pull the rug out from under us with shock. We laugh through a thrill ride. We laugh loudest, sometimes, when we know it is inappropriate to laugh… laughing in church – especially a funeral.
D. Sarah’s laughter,although she soon understands was inappropriate for that social situation, was not fueled by that situation. (Why did you laugh? I did not laugh. Oh yes, you did laugh.) I suspect that Sarah’s roar of laughter came from a lifetime of frustration/shame of being childless.
E. When Sarah died, Abram negotiated a purchase of a field east of the great oaks of Mamre --- with a cave that faced the oaks where he met the LORD as three human beings, a place the indigenous people, the Hittites deemed as a choice place for burial.
IV. Tribute to the father.
A. Abraham was buried next to Sarah by Isaac and Ishmael.
B. Isaac was buried by Esau and Jacob.
C. Jacob was buried by Joseph and a very great company of Egyptians.
D. The lives lived by the bodies in a certain cave that faces the oaks of Mamre were not perfect. These patriarchs fall short of the images of fatherhood we prize. Yet there is honor and holiness to this place, deep love that transcends conflict and rivalry. Sacredness in the ordinary. When Bill Moyers invited us to read Genesis through the PBS series, he said, “When we look deeply into the stories of Genesis, we see the complex people of today.”