Is Anything Too Ridiculous For the Lord?

September 15^th, 2019    “Is Anything too Ridiculous for the Lord?”  Rev. Heather Jepsen

Genesis 18:1-15, 21:1-7

         This morning as we continue our journey through the narrative lectionary, we meet the patriarch of our faith, Abraham and his wife Sarah as they long for a family.  Decades before our reading Abraham was visited by the Lord, who promised that one day Abraham would be the father of a great nation.  Well, to be the father of a nation you have to be a father first, and although they had tried for years, Abraham and Sarah’s marriage remains a barren one.  No kids means no dynasty.  It can be hard to believe in the promise of God if it never seems to come true.

         Years ago Abraham and Sarah left their home country of Haran, that was part of the promise as well.  Today our reading finds them camping out by the oaks of Mamre, a good place to stop and stay awhile in their nomadic life.  While they are there, a group of three strangers approach.  This is before the time of rest areas, McDonalds, or Best Westerns.  Travelers from afar would have to rely on the hospitality of strangers to rest and eat as they journeyed.  Abraham sees this group coming and hastens to host them.

         There is an interesting thing happening with time in our reading.  We start slow, with Abraham sitting in the entrance of his tent in the heat of the day.  I can just hear the cicadas and see the sweat dripping off the old man’s brow.  But as soon as the strangers arrive, Abraham is all business. 

         Now everything happens very fast.  Abraham doesn’t see them coming from afar; they are just suddenly standing near him.  But once he does see them he gets busy.  He runs to meet them, he bows to the ground in welcome, he hastens to tell Sarah to make bread, he runs out to his herd to find the perfect calf, and his servant hustles to get it ready.  Rush, rush, rush and before long Abraham has laid a feast before his guests.  With food on the table (veal no less) and clean hands and feet, the group dines in peace and welcome.  I can just imagine Abraham saying a phrase I hear so often when I am in Africa, “You are most welcome, feel free.”  Hospitality was a big deal in the ancient world, and Abraham was good at it.

         Now time slows back down.  I imagine the group sitting in the shade of a tree.  The gentle breeze blowing the hair off their brows and the flies gathering, drawn by the odor of the fresh roasted calf.  As the men tear the meat away from the bones and chew the warm bread the conversation begins.  One of them turns to Abraham and asks, “where is your wife Sarah?” 

         Oh, this is something.  A stranger who knows Sarah’s name, even though she has spent the whole time in the tent.  Abraham is suddenly aware that this is no ordinary visit.  His response is simple, “she is in the tent.”  Then one says something amazing, and unbelievable, “I will surely return to you in due season, and your wife Sarah shall have a son.”  The promise, from years before, is spoken again.  And a hush falls over the men.

         But it’s not quiet in the tent.  Sarah can hear this conversation and at this announcement she can’t help but laugh.  A child at her age?  A child now, after trying so hard for so many years?  It’s ridiculous!  “After I have grown old, and my husband is old, shall I have pleasure?”  She’s not talking about the pleasure of a child; she’s talking about the pleasure that gets you pregnant in the first place.  It’s clear from her statement that she and Abraham no longer “know” each other in the Biblical sense, there can’t be any babies now.  To have a child now, post menopause, post intimacy, is ridiculous!  And so she laughs.  “You’ve got to be kidding me!”

         Our narrator pulls back the curtain now as he writes, “The Lord” turns to Abraham and says “Why did Sarah laugh and say “shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old?”  This is no everyday luncheon; this is the Lord at the table eating Abraham’s veal and bread.  I’m going to stop halfway through this quote and point out that God asks this question of Abraham, not Sarah.  Forever commentators have loved to criticize poor Sarah and her laughter but I think Abraham is also to blame.  Its takes two to make a baby, and according to Sarah, Abraham isn’t holding up his end of the bargain.  The Lord is asking Abraham why Sarah doesn’t believe in the promise of a son.  And lest we blame her for her nervous laughter, I would point you to chapter 17 verse 17 where God tells Abraham that Sarah will have a son and Abraham falls on his face and laughs.

         The Lord continues of course, beyond this question of why folks don’t believe saying “Is anything too wonderful for the Lord?  I will return to you in due season and Sarah will have a son.”  Feeling defensive Sarah denies her unbelief and her nervous laughter saying “I did not laugh” but you can’t hide from God, who replies, “Oh yes, you did laugh.”  Sarah might still be hidden in the tent but nothing is hidden from God.

We jump now to chapter 21 where the promise is fulfilled.  Abraham and Sarah do give it another go, and they do conceive and bear a son.  The Lord deals with Sarah as the Lord promised, and they name the child Isaac which means “he laughs”.  Abraham circumcises his young son and welcomes him into this budding covenant.  Abraham is 100 years old and Sarah can’t be far behind and yet their joy at finally having this promised child is contagious.  “God has brought laughter for me” Sarah says, and all others will share in my joy.  It is a promise fulfilled, a prayer answered, and a joyous miracle.  The laughter of derision and disbelief has become the laughter of joy and celebration.

         Most of us have heard this story before.  And even if we haven’t we are probably familiar with the saying “Is anything too wonderful for the Lord?”  The meaning of the word translated as “wonderful” is obscure.  The word “pālē” can also mean hard or difficult making the question, “Is anything too difficult for the Lord?”  This is not meant to be a rhetorical question, any more than the question about why Sarah laughs.  God does not ask questions that have pat answers given in return; God is seeking genuine conversation with Abraham.  This is a real question, “is anything too hard or too wonderful for God?”  Like a good philosophy class, we could discuss this for hours without coming to any conclusions.  But it is something to make us think.

         This story is all about God’s promises and our ability to believe in those promises.  It is clear in the visit that both Abraham and Sarah have stopped believing in the promise of a child because it’s such a ridiculous thing!  They are too old, they are no longer intimate, there is just no way.  What once seemed like a logical possibility now seems like a pie in the sky dream.  It would be great, but it can’t ever happen.  It’s just ridiculous.  But, is anything too ridiculous for the Lord?

         I’m not trying to offend, but when we read the Bible we find that God does lots of ridiculous things.  Merriam Webster defines ridiculous as “arousing or deserving ridicule: extremely silly or unreasonable”.  Synonyms for ridiculous are the words absurd and preposterous.  It is absurd that Sarah would bear a child in her old age.  It is preposterous that this couple would create life, as their marriage continues to age and fail.  The promise that the visitor will return and Sarah will have a son is deserving of ridicule, and that’s why Sarah laughs.  It’s crazy!  But God is always doing crazy things.

         Forming a covenant with a broken people? Crazy!  Welcoming us back again and again when we chase after other gods?  Unbelievable!  Leading the Israelites out of Egypt with a pillar of cloud and fire?  Absurd!  Coming among us as Jesus Emmanuel, a baby with dirty diapers?  Insane!  Feeding thousands of people with one loaf of bread? No way!  Rising from the dead?  Preposterous!  Forming a church that will last for centuries from a rag tag group of maybe believers?  Ridiculous!  But is anything too ridiculous for the Lord?!?

         I can’t talk about this crazy joy about all the strange and wonderful things God does, without pointing out how close joy is to sadness.  How close we are to laughing and crying at the same time.  We cry when we are sad and we cry when we are happy.  We laugh when we are sad and we laugh when we are happy.  I tell you there are a lot of jokes at my house right now about my own illness.  It’s how I deal with sadness and heartbreak.  If there’s a joke in there, I’m going to find it.  Sarah laughs because she is so sad, she laughs because it’s all she has, and even though she laughs when Isaac is born, I’m sure she cried too.  It’s how we respond to deep emotion.

         I apologize if you haven’t read it yet but in the wonderful book, ‘Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” there is a lot of fear.  There is a lot to be afraid of in the world that Harry is growing up in, and there are very real and threatening forces that put him in danger.  In that book, JK Rowling imagines a spell that helps the children conquer their fear, and the spell is “Riddikulus”.  There is a ghost like thing called a boggart that will take the form of whatever you fear most.  So when it approaches you, you see the most frightening thing in your world.  To conquer this fear, the wizard cries “riddikulus” and the boggart becomes something silly instead.  The fear and sadness are turned to laughter.

         I bring that up, because I think this idea of God being able to do, even being inclined to do ridiculous things can be a powerful antidote to the fear and pain we live with every day.  If we can laugh, if we can find humor in our pain, then we have something to lift us up out of the mire.  It’s a way to deal with things.  Just like the spell can zap away the frightening power of the boggart, so the laughter about whatever ails us, can take away some of our fear and worry.  It’s a way of gaining control again, over things that seem so out of control.  I’m not saying we should laugh at the pain of the world.  But I am saying that laughter is a key to hope.  For is anything too ridiculous for God?

         We love to say that Sarah laughed because she didn’t believe, that’s what all the commentaries say and that’s how everybody reads this, but I wonder if Sarah didn’t laugh because she did believe.  Because she had hoped for so long, because she still had faith, because it was a way of dealing with her disappointment, because it was a way of finding joy in the sadness.  The promise the visitor makes is absurd, that she would bear a child in old age.  And yet she hopes she will, and so she smiles and laughs.  Why not?  Is anything too ridiculous for God?

         As you go out into the world this week, I want to encourage you to imagine and embrace all the wonderfully ridiculous ways God is working in our world.  In the face of suffering and hardship, faith itself can seem ridiculous and absurd.  But we know we worship a God who does absurd, preposterous, and ridiculous things all the time.  We worship a God who will fulfill promises made.  We worship a God who longs to bring healing and wholeness to our world.  And our God will accomplish that through the ridiculous actions of a rag tag bunch of believers like us.  Whatever problem you face, whatever hopelessness you see, whatever place feels most broken to you, feel free to laugh and cry.  Then ask yourself, “Is anything to ridiculous for the Lord?”  I sure hope not! Amen.