Wandering - Week 2: Laughing At The Impossible

The Season of Pentecost & Summer Sermon Series

These stories aren’t about perfect people. They teach us to trust God even when we cannot see the path ahead.

Today, we are going to read about how Abraham showed hospitality to some strange guests and how they made him a promise that, in turn, made his wife burst out laughing.

Have you ever been in a hopeless space for so long that the idea that things could change and be made new seems utterly and ridiculously out of reach?  Maybe if someone told you in that space that newness was possible, you might laugh at them.  

GOD’S PROMISES ARE OFTEN BORN IN PLACES WHERE HOPE SEEMS EXHAUSTED

GENESIS 18:1-15; 21:1-7

• A little recap: How did we get here beneath some more trees?

• All the places where Abraham encounters God—under oak trees

Abraham had “put down stakes” by the oaks of Mamre. In the ancient world, trees often held sacred significance and were frequently associated with theophanies (visible manifestations of God). God previously appeared to Abraham at the oaks of Moreh in Shechem (Genesis 12:6–7) and the oaks of Mamre at Hebron (Genesis 13:14–18). Abraham responded to these manifestations by building altars as acts of worship.

1 The Lord appeared to Abraham by the oaks 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.

• The mysterious strangers are actually divine guests—Abraham gets this. 

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 measures 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.

• There’s so much comedic action—bowing, preparing food, and running.

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 be fruitful?”

• Then comes the message from God—a ridiculously hard thing to believe.

• Sarah laughs—what kind of laugh do we think it was?

The translation sanitizes the words a bit because the literal translation is "Shall I have sexual 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, “Yes, you did laugh.”

• The messenger gets offended, Sarah lies about it, gets caught.

• The God of impossible things doesn’t find it funny (ironic)

The passage ends with the fulfillment of the promise—a ridiculous promise and a name that reminds Sarah of what it means to truly laugh.

Some Thoughts

John Lewis, and not being able to see into the future, but working anyway.

On March 7, 1965, John Lewis was one of hundreds of protesters who marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, only to be confronted by police, who brutally attacked them.  The entire incident was televised live.  

Lewis was badly beaten and arrested, along with scores of other protesters.  

On the 50th anniversary of what was called Bloody Sunday, Lewis marched across the bridge once more, only this time next to the first black President of the United States.  

If you had somehow been able to visit him in his jail cell when he was a young man in 1965, and told him that one day he would have been there with the first black President, and that after his death people would try to name the bridge after him... what do you think he would have done in that moment?  

Laughed?  

My first Presbyterian committee meeting 

In 1998, I was a new member of a small Presbyterian church in Tallahassee, Florida, and someone invited me to be on the Christian Education Committee.  I had no idea what this was, what it was about, or what I was supposed to do.  

As the meeting began, I realized it was about hiring a part-time youth director and that I might have been asked to serve on the committee with an agenda in mind.  The thought of me working as a youth director was laughable.  I didn't laugh out loud, but I was definitely laughing inside. 

This was going to be a kind of hopeless task.  The church had no money to speak of. The pay was horrible.  There were only five bored kids in the group. It was not the kind of job that anyone in their right mind would take.  

And that's when I felt the hands on my shoulders.  It was the strangest feeling.  I felt the room kind of fade into the background, with hands on my shoulders and an overwhelming sense that this was something I was supposed to do.  

That moment changed my life.  For the next four years, I served that little church, always thinking that I would leave one day to go off and do what I thought I was supposed to do with my life.  

Where in your life are you facing ridiculous odds?  Where in your life are you experiencing hopelessness?  If I said to you today, "There's more on the other side of all of that," would you laugh?

GOD’S PROMISES ARE OFTEN BORN IN PLACES WHERE HOPE SEEMS EXHAUSTED