Memorial United Methodist Church

Memorial United Methodist Church
White Plains, New York 10605

The Age of Sarah

A Sermon by Joe Agne, Pastor
Based on Genesis 17:1-17
March 1, 2009 (Not edited or proofread)

It’s Lent – time to step back and take a look at our relationships with God. We need help to detach from the usual and connect to our deepest places. Today’s Biblical story of Abraham and Sarah can help us. 

The Biblical Story
They begin the story as Abram, 75 years old, and Sarai, about 10 years younger. They are highly successful, in many ways, in Haran. God makes a covenant with them. They are to leave their community, their friends and their success and head somewhere else, they don’t know where. In exchange God will make them the parents of many nations and generations. Without knowing where they are headed they have quite a journey. They sojourn in Egypt and, to save their lives, they pretend to be siblings. Sarai becomes the wife of Pharoah, who discovers Sarai is married to Abram. Pharoah gives them permission to get out of the country if they leave immediately
Sarai still didn’t have a child and couldn’t get pregnant. When Abram is 86, Sarai offers her husband one of her slave-woman as a wife. Abram and Hagar have a son, Ishmael. In this way Abram can be the father of many nations and generations. 
In today’s story, Abram is 99 years old. Sarai is 89. God changes their names to Abraham and Sarah. Even God’s name changes to El Shaddai, “God of the mountains.” God offers to them the land where they are aliens. It is to be theirs perpetually. Abraham’s part of the covenant is that he and all of the men in his household, slave and free, will be circumcised. Sarah will have a child. Abraham falls on his face laughing. He wonders if a man who is 100 years old and a woman who is 90 can have a child. Later Sarah will laugh also. They name their child “Isaac,” which means, “laughing.”
Sarah becomes disapproving of Hagar and exiles Hagar and Ishmael to the desert to die. An angel saves them. Ishmael becomes the ancestor of Muslims and Isaac the ancestor of Jews -- two religions with the same grandfather and differing grandmothers.

Some thoughts for Lent about this Biblical Story
*We are a people who make mistakes and have wounds. We do some things we wish we had never done. There are some things we never get done that we really want to do. People hurt us deeply and sometimes we wonder whether we can survive what has happened to us physically or emotionally. We hurt others. Abraham and Sarah are not models of moral behavior. They are faithful. It is hard for us to differentiate these categories. We find it difficult to imagine immoral or less-than-moral faithful people. The Bible is filled with faithful people who would never meet our moral litmus tests. Do we keep these litmus tests as we want our failure to excuse us from the risks of being faithful? Let’s be honest about ourselves this Lent and try to figure out ways we can faithfully keep covenant with God. None of us is too-mistake ridden or wounded to take our part in the community of God.
*The lectionary reading for the day left out verse 17 which says that Abraham laughed when God told him he would celebrate his 100th birthday and the birth of his son in the same year. Laughter in this situation expresses doubt. Later Sarah would laugh also. They doubt that God can turn potentially dried-up seeds and a barren womb into the birthing partners of a human being. We have doubts also about what is possible in life. In this time of economic crisis it is easy to focus mainly on what we assume cannot be accomplished. I have a friend, Wes Yamaka. His main role in my life and in the lives of many is to say, “Oh”? or “Why not”? These responses come whenever we venture in front of Wes that something is impossible. A sentence that begins, “I can’t do (something) because…” is interrupted with “Oh”? or “Why not”? God met the laughter of Abraham and Sarah with “Oh”?
*It is such a temptation to spiritualize out faithfulness. We even say “our spirit is willing but our flesh is week.” I remember professors in college refusing to participate in civil rights demonstrations saying, “I can’t go, but my spirit is with you.” As Wes Yamaka might say, “Oh”? Verses 9-14 are left out of the lectionary reading for today. What is in this section? We don’t find out Abraham’s part of the covenant. He and all the males of his household are to be circumcised. At another time I am willing to discuss the meaning of circumcision for men and women. It is a discussion worth having. In this place of scripture it means that our covenant with God involves our body. A covenant is not just spiritual. It involves our whole selves. We are part of an “enfleshed” faith. Jesus did not say on that last day with his friends, “This is my spirit broken for you.” Christianity is an incarnational religion. It matters what we commit our bodies to. Spirit alone, is not enough. This Lent we have a chance to consider to what are willing to give our whole selves.
*Sometimes we at Memorial UMC think we are on the forefront of inclusiveness. We aren’t. Look at this Biblical story. It is an interfaith story including origins of two religions of the world. Even in the midst of patriarchy, grandmothers are lifted up – Sarah and Hagar. Feminism and womanism is part of our story from the very beginning. Not only Abram and Sarai get a new name in the story. So does God. God becomes El Shaddai, God of the mountains. The God of Abraham and Sarah is the God who will later liberate slaves from Egypt is the God who created “all that is” in 6 days. Creation theology begins in the earliest part of out story. Lent is a good time to reflect on the integral role of inclusiveness that has always been part of our story.

The Age of Sarah
What would be a good name for our era? Is this the age of the end of greed? The age of cutting back? The age of crisis? We are in tough times. It is so for our nation, world, church and each of us. But our circumstances do not define us. They are real. They will change us. We will be different. They don’t have the power to decide who we will be. We don’t live in an age defined by hurt, wounds, mistakes, doubt, spiritualization of all that is or marginalization. These are all real but they don’t define us. We are defined by our hope. We have been granted by this crisis a chance to live in new ways. For whatever reasons, we were not able to choose to live in new ways. Now we are being forced to do so. Newness is coming just like new life came to Abraham, a century-old man, and Sarah, a nine-decade old woman. Sarah gave birth. This was beyond anyone’s expectations or predictions. What is a good name for our times? -- The age of Sarah.