If God Did It for Sarah, Why Not Me?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLQGLWSJFvg

First Reading

A READING FROM THE BOOK OF GENESIS

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. 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. He said, "My lord, if I find favour 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, 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." And Abraham hastened into the tent to Sarah, and said, "Make ready quickly three measures of choice flour, knead it, and make cakes." Abraham ran to the herd, and took a calf, tender and good, and gave it to the servant, who hastened to prepare it. 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. They said to him, "Where is your wife Sarah?" And he said, "There, in the tent." 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. Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in age; it had ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women. So Sarah laughed to herself, saying, "After I have grown old, and my husband is old, shall I have pleasure?" The Lord said to Abraham, "Why did Sarah laugh, and say, 'Shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old?' 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." But Sarah denied, saying, "I did not laugh"; for she was afraid. He said, "Oh yes, you did laugh."

GENESIS 18:1-15

Sermon: The Rev. Dr. Maryann Amor

How many of you turn to the Bible for help? Go to its many stories and think to yourself, “Well, God did that then, God will do it now?” And how many of you end up disappointed when things don’t work out like they do for the characters in the Bible?

Our first reading is one where we see God acting in a way that contradicts many of our own experiences, where we don’t get the longed for outcome.

As we heard, Abraham welcomes three visitors to his tent, and we know that they are divine messengers. Sarah, Abraham’s elderly wife, who has never been able to get pregnant, overhears the men talking with Abraham and saying that she will have a child. In response, Sarah laughs. Then, as the story continues beyond what we heard today, God fulfills the promise and Isaac is born.

This story focuses almost entirely on Sarah's infertility...she has spent her whole life hoping to have a baby, but she never conceives. The text also says that “it had ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women.” In other words, she is in menopause. This detail intensifies the issue...it reinforces the sense that Sarah’s situation is beyond hope. The story leaves the impression that Sarah is the problem, that it is her body preventing pregnancy. Abraham has nothing to do with it; there is no problem with him. So God has to act, to miraculously open Sarah’s post-menopausal womb, in order for the couple to have a baby.

One scholar writes: “Infertility, in the biblical text, therefore, can feel, at points, less like a real problem that these female characters face and more like a theological conundrum, easily resolved when God intercedes and miraculously ‘opens’ these women's wombs. This vision of infertility as mainly a women's problem, which is easily fixed as soon as God intervenes, sets a rather problematic precedent for modern readers of the Bible, especially women who struggle with similar problems today.”

This scholar is exactly right. Sarah’s infertility functions primarily to show God’s power -- God takes a woman who is biologically incapable of becoming pregnant and causes her to have a child. Yet this kind of miraculous pregnancy does not reflect the experience of so many women today who pray, hope, seek treatment, and long for a child, only to find that the miracle never comes.

And infertility is only one example. Many of us carry prayers that seem to go unanswered. We pray for healing, reconciliation, relief from suffering, a way forward through grief, and nothing appears to change.

So Sarah’s story can leave us wondering: if God did that for her, why not for me? Why don’t I get a miracle too?

And as we wait for something…anything…to happen, something changes in us. We learn how to keep going, but we also learn how to carry disappointment. And maybe we can imagine that the same was true for Sarah. As she spent her life waiting for a child, then reaching menopause without one, her heart would have been filled with deep disappointment. And this disappointment helps us see to Sarah’s laughter in a different way.

Traditionally, when Sarah laughs, after the messenger says she will have a baby, it is understood as doubt. One of the messengers even asks, “Why did Sarah laugh?... Is anything too wonderful for the Lord?” Her laughter is often taken as evidence that she does not believe God can do what God promises.

But maybe Sarah’s laughter is not doubt...maybe it is the laughter of someone who has lived with disappointment for so long that hope feels impossible. Sarah hears a promise that touches the deepest wound she carries. She hears that she will have a child despite years of infertility and her present biological reality. As that pain rises to the surface, a laugh bubbles up. She laughs not because she doubts God’s power, but because she knows disappointment.

It is the kind of laughter many of us have experienced. The laughter that comes when grief becomes too much to carry. The laughter that escapes when we are exhausted, burdened, and have no tears left to cry. Sometimes laughter is simply what happens when pain has nowhere else to go.

And when this happens to Sarah, when she laughs...notice that God doesn’t pull away from her. God does not say, “Well, you laughed, so no baby for you.” Instead, God hears Sarah laugh and maybe God sees the truth beneath it...the grief, the disappointment, the years of longing and loss that have now escaped her lips.

And none of this drives God away. God remains with Sarah and God remains with all of us too. While we might not get the miracle Sarah gets, this does not mean we are abandoned.

The point of this story is not that God will solve every problem for us the way God solves Sarah’s problem. Maybe the point is not that what happens to biblical characters will necessarily happen to us, that we will get all the miracles we hope for. Instead, maybe the point is that God does not abandon people in their suffering—and that God’s faithfulness to us is not measured by whether every prayer is answered as we hope. The miracle belongs to Sarah’s story. But God’s faithfulness belongs to all of our stories. The God who never abandons Sarah is the same God who never abandons us.

So, maybe this story isn’t showing us that God will answer all our prayers the way God answered Abraham and Sarah’s. Maybe it is showing us that God’s care, concern, and love are not dependent on whether we are hopeful or hopeless, faithful or disappointed. God’s love is not dependent on whether all we can do is laugh bitterly at the pain of our lives. This story shows us that God stays. God stays with us in our deepest, darkest places. And because of this truth, hope remains possible even if we never receive the miracle we long for.

Amen.