Three Strangers: Proper 11, Year C


Readings for the Day:
Sermon:


Today in Genesis, we get an interesting picture of Abraham entertaining 3 strangers. It seems like a normal setting. Abraham sees these 3 people coming and is hospitable to them. Nothing unusual or out of the ordinary in this passage. Until the end, when one of these men tells Abraham that in due season, his wife Sarah will bear Abraham a son.

This reading is just a snapshot of the entire story of Abraham. Since the beginning of Abraham’s story, when his name was just Abram, he was told by God that Abram would be made into a great nation. And yet, one of the issues that Abraham continues to face is that he, and his wife Sarah, continue to be without child.

In fact, Abraham has several conversations with God about his lack of children. About who will care of his legacy.

The first time Abraham expresses his concern, God promises him that Abraham and Sarah will have their own children. And that satisfies him for a while. But Abraham gets older, and Sarah gets worried, so she gives him her servant, Hagar, to help produce a child for Abraham. Ishmael.

And Abraham again talks with God. And he says that he hopes God will accept Ishmael as his heir.

And God says He will help Ishmael. That Ishmael will be blessed. That God will continue to look after him. But Ishmael is not what God has promised. So he will not be the heir to Abraham. He will not be Abraham’s legacy.

God has an idea far beyond what Abraham could conceive. And He will fulfill it in His own way. Not necessarily in the way in which Abraham thought He would.

And so we get to our story for today. Abraham is past 98 at this point, and Sarah is not far behind. The days of child rearing are long past.

And yet, these strangers, the ones who come just after our narrator tells us that “The Lord appeared to Abraham.” The ones who are often depicted as a representation of the Trinity. Strangers who are, in fact, God.

God finally comes to Abraham to tell him the promise will finally be fulfilled.
The in spite of the impossibility of it all, Sarah will have a son.
And Sarah, after this reading, reacts in the way many of us would. She laughs at the ridiculousness of this all.

And yet, it all comes true. Isaac, named for this laughter, is born to Abraham and Sarah in their old age. And from Isaac comes Jacob and from Jacob’s sons, all of the Tribes of Israel.

God fulfilled His promise to Abraham. Just not in the way in which Abraham expected it.
Because even though Abraham wanted this promise fulfilled now. Even though he fathered Ishmael in hopes that God’s promise would come through this child, God worked in His own time. Not in the time we might demand of Him.

And God fulfilled the promise not through ordinary means. He waited until this task, the hope of the new born, seemed impossible. To the point where only God could have fulfilled it. He didn’t give Isaac to Abraham and Sarah while they were still young and fertile. He waited till they were old and seemingly barren.

Abraham’s story is a helpful one for us today. We know the promise that God has made to us. Namely that we will be able to share the Good News of God’s love through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ on the cross. That love and saving grace that brought us out of sin and death and has raised us to new life in Christ Jesus.

We are at a transition now. Like Abraham, we are not sure how it will look like exactly for God to continue fulfill this promise to us. The promise to let us serve Him. And like Abraham, it may come in ways we may not expect.

And also like Abraham, we have hope. We have hope in a legacy for ourselves. Not just in our young families. Not just in our young new clergy. Not just in our children, or the fact that there are still children baptized in this area, and often even in this church.
We also have hope because we have weathered hard times and good. We have survived as one of the oldest churches in this Diocese. we have come through the years stronger and we will continue to do so.

We don’t know what the future will bring. We don’t know how God will fulfill His promise to us. But we do know that He will. That He will fulfill His promise. AND in His own time.

And so we are called to live in hope. To wait and see. And we are called especially to listen, as I have been saying these past several weeks. We are called to pause and hear what God is saying to us. And to wait patiently to see what He will work in us, through us, and for us to better serve Him. And we know, that like Abraham, we will one day hear God say “now is the time for fulfilling my promise to you. And in that day, we will be able to truly say, as we can say now for the hope we have in our Lord, Thanks be to God!