JUNE 12TH 2005 LAUGHING WITH GOD Genesis 18:1-15 Matt 9: 35 - 10: 8
It may just be that on rather too many occasions, I have run out of petrol. Indeed, on one birthday my wife gave me a container to fill with petrol at the nearest garage should I run out of petrol again. Anyhow I do rather like the story about a nun who was so eager to reach her destination that she drove past a garage with an array of petrol pumps, only to come to a halt a mile down the road. The nun walked back to the garage where the attendant explained that he would like to help her but unfortunately he had no container in which to put the petrol. Feeling sorry for her, he agreed to look in an old shed for something that might help. Anyway, the only thing he could find that could hold the petrol was an old bedpan. The grateful nun said that would be fine and so she made her way back to the car, taking great care not to spill any of the petrol. Reaching the car, she began to carefully pour the contents of the bed pan into the petrol tank. Just as she was doing so another vehicle came alongside. The driver rolled down the window and looked at the nun with incredulity before, gasping, ‘Sister, I sure wish I had your faith.’
That may have made you laugh - or not! However, there is laughter in our Old Testament reading this morning. It begins with a rather painful note. Abraham and Sarah have felt the pain of not having children t a time when this was a situation that meant exclusion. Some years before Abraham had been promised that his descendant would be a nation. With Sarah’s consent he had sought to move things on by making her slave Hagar pregnant with his son, Ishmael. But the Divine promise has been repeated with the emphasis that its fulfilment is to be through Sarah. Not surprisingly Abraham has laughed at the prospect of fathering another child when he is close on 100 years old and Sarah is already 90. Something a little crazy going on here!
And so it reads to us today. From time to time we hear of men fathering children at advanced ages - Des O Connor being one who has made the news in such a way recently. And to me it certainly is not strange for I would not be here if my grandfather had not fathered my mother how was his last but one child, at the ripe age of 72 years old. But even with our modern scientific discoveries, the idea of a woman having a child at 90 is beyond our experience. No wonder, when Sarah hears the mysterious strangers speak of her having a child within the next year, she laughs. I think the wonder is that she was not totally hysterical!
But it is going to happen. A bundle of joy is on the way in Isaac whose name fittingly translates as ‘He laughs.’ And so this is a story of God transforming a situation which in that time at that place, was a desperate situation which many would have judged as being a sign of God’s disfavour to something very different indeed. No longer does Sarah laugh at the ridiculousness of the Divine word. Now in her joy she is laughing with God. For as one of our praise songs puts it, we find that God has;
Turned our sorrow into dancing.
And this morning, I would invite you to see that God continues to transform the situations of hopelessness. For God is an ever present in our lives. I suspect that when Abraham first offered hospitality to the three mysterious visitors, he did not realise that he was entertaining God in the process. Indeed, the Scripture dances between a discussion with three men and a discussion with God. Perhaps, here we are being reminded that God is present with us at the moments when we least are understanding of it. But certainly, even if we have not experienced anything on the level with Abraham, I suspect many of us have heard the voice of God speaking through the mouths of people whom we have known. Only recently I read a sermon by Beth Quick, an American minister whose lectionary notes I read each week, with the title, ’The Voices in my Life.’ It tells of the ways in which God has called her into the path of the ordained ministry and how she has often heard God’s voice through friends and acquaintances. And I for one would say AMEN to that!
For indeed, God is still calling us to laugh with God. The Christian people have always seemed unequal to the tasks of the age. Even is the greatest days of the church in our country, those who have gathered for shared worship have been a minority. And yet to us, that minority, God entrusts us with the continuation of the work of the Divine. The story of the Church begins at Pentecost with a roomful of people, many of whom had failed Christ so badly just a few weeks before. But to such as these broken people, was entrusted the responsibility to take the story of and the teachings of Christ, across the entire world. And to day, the inequality between our resources and the calling, are as immense as ever. The words of Christ continue to echo;
The harvest are plentiful but the workers are few.
But still comes the challenge to let God move us and our world from despair to hope, from sorrow to joy.
The big story in the next few weeks will be the G8 summit at Gleneagles. At that summit, millions will be watching to see if the leaders of our world are going to make an adequate response to the needs of Africa which have been so effectively articulated by the Make Poverty History Coalition. We know that to respond adequately, means more than slogans and takes us into the world of difficult decision making. BUT to the cynical and to say that the challenge is insurmountable is no response for in Africa, extreme poverty and HIV/AIDS are responsible for in terms of the loss of human life, the equivalent of a daily tsunami! If ever the words Something must be done meant something it is in response to this challenge and that something certainly does not mean a continuation of a situation in which during the past 4 years according to today’s Observer, UK arms sales to the continent have quadrupled to reach the obscene total of £1 billions worth.
The stories in the Bible tell us of a God who brings hope from the most desperate of circumstances, a God who
- forms a nation out of two people who would be at the senior end of any Derby and Joan Club by granting them their heart’s desire
- who builds hope in a people whose leaders have for half a century been in exile whilst those left have been poor and without direction
- who brings a Saviour out of a stable and from a birth that was tainted with disgrace
-who uses motley crowd of ill educated hot heads to tell of that Saviour to the great centres of their world
- who transforms the agony of a criminal’s death upon a Cross to be a sign that that cross is the gateway to endless possibilities including the gift of eternal life.
The story of Abraham and Sarah speaks of the God who changes things. It speaks of the God for whom nothing is too hard. It speaks of hope for our world.
In a few minutes, we will approach the Table. There we will receive the tokens of bread and wine and as we receive we will be reminded that in these tokens we meet God. Ridiculous, the scoffers might say and laugh they surely will. And yet as find God’s love and acceptance in bread and wine, we find the harmony of God that enables us to then go into the world, laughing with God. For as we then go out into the streets, we can with joy proclaim;
The God who can do all things is with us
And at that, we can be filled with joy and laugh the laugh of joy.
AMEN.
This sermon was preached at a Holy Communion Service at Bideford
That may have made you laugh - or not! However, there is laughter in our Old Testament reading this morning. It begins with a rather painful note. Abraham and Sarah have felt the pain of not having children t a time when this was a situation that meant exclusion. Some years before Abraham had been promised that his descendant would be a nation. With Sarah’s consent he had sought to move things on by making her slave Hagar pregnant with his son, Ishmael. But the Divine promise has been repeated with the emphasis that its fulfilment is to be through Sarah. Not surprisingly Abraham has laughed at the prospect of fathering another child when he is close on 100 years old and Sarah is already 90. Something a little crazy going on here!
And so it reads to us today. From time to time we hear of men fathering children at advanced ages - Des O Connor being one who has made the news in such a way recently. And to me it certainly is not strange for I would not be here if my grandfather had not fathered my mother how was his last but one child, at the ripe age of 72 years old. But even with our modern scientific discoveries, the idea of a woman having a child at 90 is beyond our experience. No wonder, when Sarah hears the mysterious strangers speak of her having a child within the next year, she laughs. I think the wonder is that she was not totally hysterical!
But it is going to happen. A bundle of joy is on the way in Isaac whose name fittingly translates as ‘He laughs.’ And so this is a story of God transforming a situation which in that time at that place, was a desperate situation which many would have judged as being a sign of God’s disfavour to something very different indeed. No longer does Sarah laugh at the ridiculousness of the Divine word. Now in her joy she is laughing with God. For as one of our praise songs puts it, we find that God has;
Turned our sorrow into dancing.
And this morning, I would invite you to see that God continues to transform the situations of hopelessness. For God is an ever present in our lives. I suspect that when Abraham first offered hospitality to the three mysterious visitors, he did not realise that he was entertaining God in the process. Indeed, the Scripture dances between a discussion with three men and a discussion with God. Perhaps, here we are being reminded that God is present with us at the moments when we least are understanding of it. But certainly, even if we have not experienced anything on the level with Abraham, I suspect many of us have heard the voice of God speaking through the mouths of people whom we have known. Only recently I read a sermon by Beth Quick, an American minister whose lectionary notes I read each week, with the title, ’The Voices in my Life.’ It tells of the ways in which God has called her into the path of the ordained ministry and how she has often heard God’s voice through friends and acquaintances. And I for one would say AMEN to that!
For indeed, God is still calling us to laugh with God. The Christian people have always seemed unequal to the tasks of the age. Even is the greatest days of the church in our country, those who have gathered for shared worship have been a minority. And yet to us, that minority, God entrusts us with the continuation of the work of the Divine. The story of the Church begins at Pentecost with a roomful of people, many of whom had failed Christ so badly just a few weeks before. But to such as these broken people, was entrusted the responsibility to take the story of and the teachings of Christ, across the entire world. And to day, the inequality between our resources and the calling, are as immense as ever. The words of Christ continue to echo;
The harvest are plentiful but the workers are few.
But still comes the challenge to let God move us and our world from despair to hope, from sorrow to joy.
The big story in the next few weeks will be the G8 summit at Gleneagles. At that summit, millions will be watching to see if the leaders of our world are going to make an adequate response to the needs of Africa which have been so effectively articulated by the Make Poverty History Coalition. We know that to respond adequately, means more than slogans and takes us into the world of difficult decision making. BUT to the cynical and to say that the challenge is insurmountable is no response for in Africa, extreme poverty and HIV/AIDS are responsible for in terms of the loss of human life, the equivalent of a daily tsunami! If ever the words Something must be done meant something it is in response to this challenge and that something certainly does not mean a continuation of a situation in which during the past 4 years according to today’s Observer, UK arms sales to the continent have quadrupled to reach the obscene total of £1 billions worth.
The stories in the Bible tell us of a God who brings hope from the most desperate of circumstances, a God who
- forms a nation out of two people who would be at the senior end of any Derby and Joan Club by granting them their heart’s desire
- who builds hope in a people whose leaders have for half a century been in exile whilst those left have been poor and without direction
- who brings a Saviour out of a stable and from a birth that was tainted with disgrace
-who uses motley crowd of ill educated hot heads to tell of that Saviour to the great centres of their world
- who transforms the agony of a criminal’s death upon a Cross to be a sign that that cross is the gateway to endless possibilities including the gift of eternal life.
The story of Abraham and Sarah speaks of the God who changes things. It speaks of the God for whom nothing is too hard. It speaks of hope for our world.
In a few minutes, we will approach the Table. There we will receive the tokens of bread and wine and as we receive we will be reminded that in these tokens we meet God. Ridiculous, the scoffers might say and laugh they surely will. And yet as find God’s love and acceptance in bread and wine, we find the harmony of God that enables us to then go into the world, laughing with God. For as we then go out into the streets, we can with joy proclaim;
The God who can do all things is with us
And at that, we can be filled with joy and laugh the laugh of joy.
AMEN.
This sermon was preached at a Holy Communion Service at Bideford
posted by Rev Paul Martin at 1:20 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home