The Old Testament reading for today is Genesis 17:
15-27. It is the story of God making the
promise to Abraham that his wife Sarah will bear him a son; and through this
son Abraham will be the father of many nations.
I want to try to picture the context of this scene. Abraham is old, so is Sarah. It is not clear where precisely God appears
to Abraham (in his house, in the wilderness), but we know God appears, and the
only audience is Abraham. Abraham is
said to be ninety-nine at this point, so it has almost been 25 years since he
was first called to leave his homeland.
God is now going to give them
a son? And it gets crazier: God is now
commanding that Abraham and every male in his household be circumcised. It is to be an outward sign of the Covenant
God is making with Abraham and Sarah that they will be the father and mother of
many nations; that through their joint line the Covenant will be fleshed out
through history. For any man older than
an infant, circumcision is quite a request, but faithful Abraham will comply
(and so will his household…probably not as eager as Abraham).
But what of Sarah? Sarah, poor Sarah, has been barren. In all this time God has been promising
Abraham to be the father of many nations, but there is still no heir. Sarah, in desperation, and in her love for
her husband, offers Hagar, her beautiful Egyptian maid, to bear Abraham a son
(we hear things start falling apart when Hagar gets pregnant, but that is
another story). But now, in this
encounter with God, we have an old Abraham being told by God that Sarah in her
old age will have a son and be the mother of many nations. Abraham's response is so human: he falls on
his face (showing reverence and awe), but then laughs. Then, God tells Abraham that he is to name
his and Sarah’s son “Laughter” or Isaac.
And so we have the formation of another Covenant. I imagine the formation of this covenant to
be almost ridiculous to the outsider. An
old man suddenly is making all the males in his household get circumcised; and
then he is heard whispering (or ranting?) that his old wife is going to have a
son. It sounds almost as ridiculous as
an executed man saving the world. Why
does God choose the absurd? Or perhaps
why do we always view these things as absurd?
Perhaps because it forces us outside our normal formulas and boundaries
of thinking and awareness. A barren old
woman being the mother of nations…this phenomenon forces us to look beyond our
own mundane expectations of this world and life. God does that. Even in the absurd, God is not
capricious. Where does God surprise me
today? Where does God surprise you
today? And how does this all make give
birth to “Isaac;” to Laughter?
