Genesis 18: 1-15 (links validated 5/21/23)
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Laughing at God
I had the opportunity to see again recently a production of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, one of my favorites of his works. Some of you might remember that my brother Todd specializes in classical acting (although he now is a professor of acting and teaches and directs more than he acts) - his focus and love is the work of Shakespeare, and so I’ve seen him in a number of productions over the years, including more than one production of Macbeth. I’ve always loved it. I’m not sure how many of you are familiar with the plot, but the gist is this (and sorry for the spoiler alert if you haven’t seen or read it yet, but it’s been out for a while now!): Macbeth is a leader who is given more power and authority by his king. His wife, creatively named Lady Macbeth, is eager for him to get even more power and position. Macbeth happens upon some witches who give him a prophecy that Macbeth will in fact become king, though his friend Banquo will be the father of kings. And on receiving this prophecy, rather than waiting to see how things will unfold, Macbeth and his wife scheme to make the part of the prophecy they want to come true come true faster - like right now - and scheme to avoid the parts of the prophecy they don’t like - even if they must murder friends and allies to make it so. They manipulate, they scheme, they plan, in order to claim what was told to them. Of course, Macbeth is a tragedy, so suffice it to say it doesn’t end well for the Macbeths. Maybe the story of Abraham and Sarah in the Bible isn’t quite the tragedy of Macbeth, but I couldn’t help but have Macbeth on my mind this week as I was reading our text from Genesis...
Illustrated Resources from 2016 to 2022
Proper 6A (2017)
In his remarkable book, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales, Oliver Sacks writes about Jimmie, who remains forever stuck in 1945. Jimmie is a likeable person with whom you can have a nice chat. But if you leave the room after even a two-hour conversation and then return a little later, he’ll greet you as if he’s never met you. This vacuum locks Jimmie into a fluid but finally meaningless present moment. Without anything to look back on and or look forward to, joy is simply impossible for him. But Sacks says there is one time when Jimmie shows something like joy, when something that looks like wholeness and calmness replaces the vacant look on his face. That’s when he receives the Eucharist.When Faith Turns a Smirk into a Smile
Laurens Vander Post, a South African explorer who lived among the Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert, realized that they would only tell “their stories” to him after months of living in their midst. First, they had to trust him. For to them, their stories possessed the secrets of their soul. To tell their stories was to risk their lives. If an enemy came to possess their stories, they would be destroyed. Like them, most of us are only willing to tell our personal stories to people we believe are trustworthy. We want people to laugh with us, not at us. We don’t want our stories to be distorted and spread around for others to trample upon. We are vulnerable as we share our stories.Sermon Starters (Proper 6A)(2020)
The picture of God walking up to Abraham’s tent and Sarah hiding behind the flap where she laughed at God’s promise reminded me of these lines from Francis Thompson’s immortal poem, “The Hound of Heaven.” I fled him, down the nights and down the days, I fled him, down the arches of the years, I fled him, down the labyrinthine ways Of my own mind, and in the mist of tears I hid from him, and under running laughter. Still with unhurrying chase And unperturbed pace Deliberate speed, majestic instancy, Came on the following Feet And a Voice about their beat, ‘Naught shelters thee, who wilt not shelter me.’Unexpected Visitors
A second "unexpected" depiction of the story is that by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. The part of the reading from Genesis 21 includes Sarah's overhearing the visitors' assertion that she and Abraham will be parents, even at their advanced age. In response to this announcement, Sarah laughs. (Remember, it is that laughter that will give Isaac his name.) Sarah's laughter is overheard, and one of the visitors confronts her.Beneath the Trees
Trees have been and continue to be important in Christians’ worship and spiritual lives. Some enslaved African Americans in the 1800s met to worship God under a canopy of trees commonly called brush arbors or hush harbors.[1] The faithful practiced Christianity in this holy and hidden manner. Many historically African American churches today trace their founding to believers gathering to worship God under these brush arbors. Today in Ethiopia, some Orthodox Christians worship God within “church forests.” Churches or monasteries sit in the center of a forest that ranges in size from five to a thousand acres. The clergy and laity believe the tree canopy shading them prevents prayers from being lost to the sky. Some of these churches are more than 1,500 years old...Holy Hospitality
They say that the Prophet Elijah, of blessed memory, has a magic box that he takes wherever he goes. Whenever he visits a poor man’s house, he leaves the box behind there. If the man behaves well, the box remains with him, but if he doesn’t, Elijah takes it back. Once Elijah came to a city and dropped in at a poor man’s house. “My good man,” he said to him, “take this box and let it support you. But be sure you also use its money to found synagogues and schools for Torah and soup kitchens for the poor, because otherwise I’ll take it away from you.” The poor man cried for joy and kissed the Prophet Elijah. Whenever the man asked the magic box for money, it gave him all he wanted, and paying heed to the prophet’s words, he founded synagogues, Torah schools, and soup kitchens too. Eventually, however, the man became extremely wealthy, and as often happens with rich men, he forgot all about his origins. All he thought of was his business and the synagogues and soup kitchens became a thing of the past. One day the Prophet Elijah remembered his magic box and decided to visit its owner. And so, dressed in old rags and wearing a pair of torn shoes, he came and knocked on the man’s door. “What do you want?” the rich man’s wife shouted at him. “I’ve come a long way,” said Elijah, “and I’m tired and hungry. Please let me rest here a bit and give me something to eat.” “This isn’t a poorhouse!” scolded the woman. “We’ve had enough of foolishly giving away our money. You’d better make yourself scarce before my husband comes home!” So Elijah went to the rich man’s store and said to him, “I’ve come to ask for my magic box back.” “But why?” asked the man. “Because now that you’re rich, you no longer remember the poor,” answered Elijah. So he took the box and walked along with it until he met another poor man...
Illustrated Resources from the Archives
Is Anything Too Wonderful for the Lord?
I read about Dodie Gadient, a schoolteacher, who decided to travel across America. She wanted to see all the things about which she had been teaching. On her trip, she drove a truck and pulled a camper. One afternoon, she was driving on Interstate 5 near Sacramento in rush-hour traffic. As she rounded a curve, her water pump blew. She was tired, scared, and alone. Traffic backed up behind her, but no one stopped. Leaning against the trailer, she prayed, "Please God, send me an angel…, preferably one with mechanical experience." Within minutes, a huge man on a big Harley stopped. He had long, black hair, a beard, and tattooed arms. His black leather jacket proclaimed "Hell's Angels—California." He jumped off his cycle. Without even glancing at Dodie, he started to work. Then he flagged down a larger truck, attached a tow chain, and whisked the whole rig off the freeway onto a side street where he could continue to work undisturbed. Dodie was too dumbfounded to talk. As the man finished the repair, she found the courage to say thanks and to carry on a brief conversation. The man saw that she was frightened. He looked her in the eye and said, "Don't judge a book by its cover. You may not know who you're talking to." With that, he smiled, closed the hood of the truck, and straddled his Harley. With a wave, he was gone as fast as he had appeared...Is Anything Too Hard For God?
One of my favorite children's sermons was the time I had three suitcases sitting at the front of the sanctuary. One was empty, one had six bricks in it and one contained four very dense steel bars. I could barely lift the one with the steel a foot off the floor. I asked the children to take turns lifting the first suitcase. "Easy!" One lad said as he showed his prowess and put the suitcase over his head. Naturally, I invited him to try the second suitcase. He grunted and groaned and managed to get the thing an inch or so off the floor. "How was that?" I asked. "Hard!" He said. A few of the children tried the second suitcase and the idea of cooperation arose and they were able to lift the suitcase with the help of a friend or two. The third suitcase was a stitch. Try as they might, none of the children could budge the heaviest suitcase. Not even when three or four tried together. "That's hard!" "This is too hard -- no one could lift this!" "Some things," I told the children, "are hard, but we can do them. Other things are very hard and we can do them with lots of work. But, there are some things that are just too hard and we need help with them."...No Other Plan
Once upon a time, long long ago, before time even began God had a plan. It was to create a world, a beautiful place, with mountains and oceans, rivers and valleys, and right in the middle a garden. And there would be animals: bunny rabbits and elephants, puppy dogs and mountain lions. There would be birds: eagles and robins, hawks and chickadees. There would be sea creatures: blue whales and rainbow trout, dolphins and starfish. And, last but certainly not least, God was going to create human beings and they would all live in peace and harmony in this wonderful garden. Well, as you know, something happened and the angels came to God and said “God, we think you goofed. That world you have created is a mess. The animals don’t get along and the people are always fighting with each other.” “Oh,” said God. And God thought for a bit and said, “I have a plan. I am going to find one family that doesn’t fight and get them to build a boat, then they and two over every animals will get in the boat, there will be a flood that will wash it all clean and they can start all over again.” “Good plan,” said the angels and that is what God did. Well it wasn’t too long and the whole world was a mess again...Proper 6A (2008)
Just a week ago Thursday, in the fabled cloisters of Harvard, J.K. Rowling, the author of the wonderful “Harry Potter” series of books, spoke out at the commencement exercises about the importance of imagination. Rowling urged the Harvard grads to use their influence and status to speak out on behalf of the powerless. After talking about how she found herself at a very low ebb after college, and how she thought of herself as a failure, she went on to say, “You might think that I chose my second theme, the importance of imagination, because of the part it played in rebuilding my life, but that is not wholly so. Though I will defend the value of bedtime stories to my last gasp, I have learned to value imagination in a much broader sense. Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power that enables us to empathise with humans whose experiences we have never shared. “We do not need magic to transform the world,” said Rowling. “We carry all the power we need inside ourselves already; we have the power to imagine better.”Is Anything Too Wonderful?
("An older doctor was ready to retire, and hired a young doctor to assist him in his practice, take care of long established patients, and prepare him to assume his practice at the time of the older doctor's retirement....")Leavening the World
("So, why does Jesus choose this metaphor of yeast for teaching about the kingdom of God? Several reasons… First of all, yeast is invisible. That little lump of dough from yesterday's baking you throw into today's batch doesn't look any different from the fresh dough — but if you forget to fold it in, your bread will never rise. Matthew passes on to us a very interesting word, a word Jesus himself probably used. The word is enkrypto, to hide away...")
Other Resources from 2019 to 2022
Other Resources from the Archives
Is Anything Too Wonderful for the Lord?
I read about Dodie Gadient, a schoolteacher, who decided to travel across America. She wanted to see all the things about which she had been teaching. On her trip, she drove a truck and pulled a camper. One afternoon, she was driving on Interstate 5 near Sacramento in rush-hour traffic. As she rounded a curve, her water pump blew. She was tired, scared, and alone. Traffic backed up behind her, but no one stopped. Leaning against the trailer, she prayed, "Please God, send me an angel…, preferably one with mechanical experience." Within minutes, a huge man on a big Harley stopped. He had long, black hair, a beard, and tattooed arms. His black leather jacket proclaimed "Hell's Angels—California." He jumped off his cycle. Without even glancing at Dodie, he started to work. Then he flagged down a larger truck, attached a tow chain, and whisked the whole rig off the freeway onto a side street where he could continue to work undisturbed. Dodie was too dumbfounded to talk. As the man finished the repair, she found the courage to say thanks and to carry on a brief conversation. The man saw that she was frightened. He looked her in the eye and said, "Don't judge a book by its cover. You may not know who you're talking to." With that, he smiled, closed the hood of the truck, and straddled his Harley. With a wave, he was gone as fast as he had appeared...