Fourth Sunday after Pentecost

Years ago my late brother, Mike told me about an encounter he had with his good friend, Phil Smith, who was our local pharmacist in town. He dropped by to see Phil at the drugstore one morning as he often did, and he said Phil seemed to be out of sorts. Mike said “Phil, what’s wrong? you seem depressed.” Phil replied. ‘Well Mike, of course I’m depressed. Don’t you watch the news.” Mike says immediately “You’re depressed about the news? Then don’t watch the news. I don’t”

I guess that’s one answer, but it doesn’t really work for me because I’m a news junkie. Of course over the years my experience following the news has evolved. Initially, I responded with interest. But then it sort of changed into irritation and frustration. These days, if I’m honest, my response more and more seems to be profound sadness. There is just so much going wrong in our world. Senseless violence, corruption, a broken political system, rampant drug overdoses, a rising teenage suicide rate. Sometimes as I watch the news the sadness sneaks up on me and I can do nothing but weep. With all that and the normal challenges of life, it is a temptation to give yourself over to hopelessness,

So, if you can relate to my distress, there’s no better story for us to revisit than this epic passage from Genesis. It’s a story that carries a deep, profound truth that speaks to many aspects of our lives as individuals and as a faith community as well. Now remember, God calls Abraham and Sarah away from their home to this life of searching for a new land, to become a new nation. God calls them to create a people, but they can’t create one baby. God promises them a zillion descendants, but after wandering in the wilderness for years they’re really old, like 99 and 100. What can they do? And as is often the case in the Old Testament they find themselves in the middle of nowhere. They are weary and the entire enterprise, this great plan, seems hopeless.

Abraham is sitting in the doorway of their tent and it’s hot and sweat is running down his nose, and this great adventure with God is just not working out. Have you been there? At the place like Abraham when you thought you had a feasible plan but now you’re hitting a wall and for lots of good reasons it's just not working out and hopelessness becomes the new normal. It’s a dangerous place because believe it or not, we can get comfortable and cozy with hopelessness.

But then God appears to Abraham. Abraham wipes the sweat out of his eyes and he sees three strangers nearby. And they’re near enough that he jumps up, runs out to meet them, and he bows down. Not a head bow or even a solemn bow, but he bows down to the ground. Scripture doesn’t say that Abraham recognizes that these three persons are the living God, but he must know that something is going on. He bows to the ground and addressing one of them says, “My lord, if I find favor with you, do not pass by your servant. Let a little water be brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree. Let me bring a little bread, so that you may refresh yourselves, and after that you may pass on—since you have come to your servant.” And the three strangers say “Sure...we could eat.”

So, Abraham runs back to the tent and he gets everyone busy. He starts barking orders like a chef, telling Sarah to make bread and some servant to kill a choice, fatted calf and prepare it. He gathers curds and milk and all this food and takes it and serves the three strangers and stands by while they eat their fill. And then, the three strangers ask, “ Hey, where’s your wife, Sarah?” Surely, there was a bit of awkward silence at this point. How did they know her name? And if you know the story in the preceding chapters of Abraham and Sarah, you'll remember that early on because Sarah was so drop dead beautiful that when they began traveling in foreign countries Abraham had come to Sarah and said, “Uh, honey, we need to talk. When we’re with these foreigners you need to say that you're my sister instead of my wife, because they have a form of no-fault divorce here called Kill
Abraham.”

So I suspect that tension was there with Abraham. But then something other than what Abraham feared actually happens. One of the strangers makes a birth announcement. He says, “Next time I come around, Sarah is going to have a son.” Sarah is eavesdropping and when she hears this she can’t help herself and she just laughs. Sometimes when you’ve gotten all comfortable with hopelessness, all you can do is laugh, laugh through your tears. She must have laughed loud enough that everyone could hear her because scripture says that not one of the strangers but the LORD SAYS, “What’s Sarah laughing at?” And then the Lord asks this question, which I think the entire story hangs on, the Lord asks, “Is there anything too wonderful for God?”

Walter Bruggemann is right when he says that this story is about much more than babies and birth narratives. This story is about everything in our lives. This story is about everything that God is calling us to do to change our lives and change this world. I believe that God calls each one of us to participate in ushering in God’s Kingdom, but at some point, it gets hard and just like Abraham and Sarah we are tempted to settle into the comfort, the security of our tents of hopelessness. But over and against that God returns to remind us with the question that is an invitation to claim the promise, “Is anything too wonderful for God?”

So I hope that when you get tired and weary, when you’re sitting there at the opening of your tent, that you’ll stand up and wipe the sweat and the tears out of your eyes, that you will look out across the landscape and see those three persons coming toward you. Each week the people of God gather together and like Abraham, we get busy preparing a feast. We gather at this banquet table, where God invites us to hope in the face of hopelessness, resting assured that Jesus the risen Christ is present here at this altar, waiting to heal, renew, and empower us to carry out God’s plan to change the world. Amen.

The Rev. Dr. Dennis Campbell