Good Morning. Whenever I have the opportunity to preach or teach from a biblical text, I always wonder how God wants to speak to me from the Scripture. I figure it usually isn’t a coincidence when I’m asked to speak from a specific passage.

I read with curiosity my assigned text, wondering what God wants me to hear. For today, I read the passage and discovered that it was about a woman, an older woman, a woman pretty much past her childbearing years, and God tells her that she’s going to get pregnant and have a son. And the woman laughs.

Well, so much for being open to God. Don’t care to be pregnant again. I’ve been there, done that. And, I wouldn’t find it particularly funny.

Fortunately, I don’t think that is what God is saying to me from the text, but I do think God has much to offer all of us in this rich passage of Scripture. I hope as we explore these verses together, we will encounter and respond to God’s living Word.

Read: Genesis 18:1-15

This section of Scripture contains a wonderful story – and a story filled with surprises -surprises that come from God. However, before we explore the story and what the surprises might be, I think it is important to place these verses in the context of the bigger story of God calling Abraham.

We’ve already seen how God has called Abraham initially in chapter 12, promising to make from Abrahams descendants a great nation. Two weeks ago Dan preached out of chapter 15 where we see God reaffirming the promise. When Abraham tells God he is childless and perhaps a slave born in his household will end up f being the heir, God says, in effect, "no the son will come from you, Abraham."

Then last week, chapter 16, we see how Abraham and Sarai decided to take the promise into their own hands and have the son come through Abraham, but through Hagar, Sarai’s slave-girl.

The chapter right before this one, chapter 17, God, once again comes to Abraham and speaks to him about this promise of having a son.

God tells Abraham that his wife Sarai will be renamed Sarah (which means princess) and Sarah will have a son. Her descendants will give rise to nations - kings will come to her.

Abraham laughs and says, in effect, "Don’t you think it would be a better idea to go with Ishmael as this son – after all he is already born?" And God tells Abraham again, “No, this promise is to be through your wife Sarah.” In fact, to make sure Abraham finally gets it, God repeats himself, and for the third time tells Abraham that this promised son is to come from Sarah. It is after these repeated reminders to Abraham that his son will be Sarah’s that we arrive at Chapter 18.

You know when you are reading a book or seeing a movie and the narrator of the book or movie tells you something, gives you a perspective of the story that the people in the story don’t have? The narrator lets you in, gives you an insiders view of what is going on. That is what we have here.

This narrative opens with the line, “The Lord appeared to Abraham” Now this, in and of itself, isn’t unusual. After all, God has previously appeared to Abraham a few times already, so here comes another time God appears to Abraham – but Abraham doesn’t know that yet.

Abraham is by the oaks of Mamre – why would that be mentioned? There is one other place in Genesis where the oaks of Mamre are mentioned and that is chapter 14. There we are told that Abraham lived by these oak trees.

I think that this is mentioned here to remind us that Abraham is at home. He isn’t wandering at this point. He is at his house-tent. He is at home. It sets a scene that is pretty calm. In contrast to the previous chapters in Genesis where Abraham has been on the move, now he’s not. He’s at home sitting outside the door of his home, at siesta time. Seems like a pretty mundane, calm setting; nothing out of the ordinary, nothing very surprising about hanging out at home.

But what initially is seen as stable and predictable is suddenly interrupted. The passage tells us that Abraham looked up and saw 3 men standing there.

(As a footnote here, let me say that various folks have interpreted who these 3 men were – early on some Christian scholars saw them as the trinity, other scholars see them as messengers/angels sent from God, others see the 3 as 2 messenger angel types on 1 somehow being the Lord in human form – whatever interpretation you make – we know that somehow the Lord was here – as the opening sentence tells us.)

Abraham, in his peaceful state, saw the 3 men but he didn’t see them from afar gradually coming up. They suddenly were near him, and the peaceful, tired scene, now shifts to a flurry of activity.

As Abraham extends his hospitality to these visitors, notice the way the scene is described. There is a sense of hurry and urgency to it:

• Abraham ran to meet them.
• He hastened to tell Sara to quickly prepare food.
• He ran to herd to get a calf and the servant.
• He hastened to prepare it.

There is also the indication that this is one fine meal.

• He told Sarah to use choice flour for cakes.
• Serving meat was a big deal, not done that often, and here Abraham serves a calf, tender and good.
• He also adds curds and milk.

This is an abundance of fine food. The cultural norms at the time did include being hospitable to strangers, but this kind of lavish service wasn’t that normal.

And when the meal is served, Abraham stands by. From the rush of meal prep to the food offered, we get the idea that Abraham knows something special is going on here. He may not be sure exactly what it is, but he is expectant - Abraham is waiting, waiting for something to happen.

Feel the anticipation of the story? What is going to happen here? And, now that the meal is finally done, and it is time for dinner conversation, what are the guests going to say? Where are they from? What do they want? Why are they here? Abraham probably wonders when will they speak to him?

In verse 9 we finally hear from them and they ask Abraham a question: "Where is your wife Sarah?"

It is a startling question. A surprising question. Why would they care? As a wife in that culture she was to stay in the background, not to be seen.

And yet, their question isn’t directed towards Abraham, about Abraham. It is about Sarah! Can you imagine Abraham’s surprise?

This is where the conversation and tone of story changes. This is what the narrative has been building towards. From this question, we learn that these visitors didn’t come just for Abraham, they came for Sarah.

And, the narrator lets us know that, because after this question, after Abraham answers that Sarah is in the tent, no longer does Abraham speak, from here on in Abraham doesn’t say a word. And, from here on, instead of referring to the 3 men, now the narrator refers to the visitors in the singular – the one – the Lord God and what the Lord has to say.

But, in contrast to being set up that this was going to be about God and Abraham, from here on in, the only other person that speaks besides the Lord, is Sarah.

It turns out that this is primarily an encounter between Sarah and the Lord. It is a conversation between Sarah and the Lord.

Now we read what that the Lord supposedly talks to Abraham, after all, Sarah is not visible – she is behind the door where she should be – but notice that Abraham isn’t the one who responds to these comments and questions, he never does.

And, in verse 10, the narrator makes sure we know that Sarah is listening to what is being said – All this is to let us know, as readers, that in this exchange, Lord isn’t interested in Abraham’s responses, in contrast to other times the Lord is with Abraham), this time Abraham says nothing, he remains silent, the narrator wants us to pay attention to Sarah and the Lord.

What is this exchange between Sarah and the Lord all about? The Lord wants to tell Sarah that she will conceive and have a son – the Lord tells her this twice – once in verse 10 and once in verse 14.

So far in Genesis, we’ve read God telling Abraham he will have a son and he will have a son through Sarah, but this is the first time God gives the promise directly to Sarah. Now it is her promise as well. It is not just Abraham who gets the promise. It belongs to Sarah as well.

And, what a surprise it is that God would go to the special effort to speak to her about the promise – after all, she is only Abraham’s wife.

Not only is it surprising that God would pay this much attention to Sarah, it is also surprising that she could/would conceive at her age. She is barren. How can life spring from barrenness?

Notice all the attention given to how old she and Abraham are. In verse 11 the narrator reminds us of how old they are – in effect repeats the truth 3 times – Sarah and Abraham were old, advanced in age, Sarah was in menopause. Then, we read Sarah says to herself, "I’m old, Abraham’s old, how can this be?"

The gist of all of this is to highlight Sarah’s, old, really old, Abraham’s old, really old, and this idea of Sarah getting pregnant is a wee bit surprising.

In fact, Sarah laughs at the news – think of when we laugh – it is often when we are surprised at something, something absolutely unexpected, seemingly out of the blue happens, and we laugh.

Sarah was surprised at this news, the news that new life would come from her barren womb.

Finally, in this story, there is the ending of the exchange, where finally the Lord speaks directly to Sarah. After the Lord questions why Sarah laughed, she denies it and– the narrator tells us the reason she denied laughing was because she was afraid. The conversation ends when the Lord responds, in effect, “ No (Sarah) you did (too) laugh.”

I think the Lord is being kind to Sarah here. God knows Sarah is scared, that she doubts His word, and he says in effect, with a glimmer in his eye, perhaps, as a member of my homegroup suggested, a wink as well. God is saying, Sarah, "I heard you, I know what you are thinking and feeling."

God’s statement isn’t a reprimand, it is saying, in effect, "Sarah, I understand you, I get you, I am on this wild ride with you."

Sarah is scared. She doubts. She doesn’t understand what all is going on. And yet, even though she doesn’t have it all together, lying out of fear even, surprisingly, God is still is going to work through her, fulfill his promise through her.

Let’s now take a closer look at what is surprising in this story. We are surprised by who God works with, where God works, and by how God works.

Who does God work with? Work through? In this story, God works with and through Sarah. Remember what Tim said last week about the Patriarchal culture Sarah lived in. Women, wives, didn’t have much status – and, what little status they had came indirectly through marriage - their husbands and children, especially sons.

But God surprises here, by paying such close attention to Sarah, talking directly to her and letting her know directly that she is to play a major role in God’s work in the world.

God acts in surprising ways, and continually surprises us, having folks participate in his work that we’d probably dismiss as incapable of such participation. God clearly valued Sarah and wanted to make a special point to let her in on her participation of the fulfillment of his promise.

This wasn’t just an aside on God’s part, a by-the-way - I better tell Sarah. The drama of the unfolding of the story tells us this is a big deal. This is a big deal to God. Yet, Sarah wasn’t a big deal to others. She was in her place in the home - in the tent. Others dismissed Sarah. God didn’t.

We need to ask ourselves, who are those folks we dismiss, we look down upon, and can’t imagine God including in his great work? Who are those folks for you? I’m going to be really vulnerable here and perhaps alienate a few of you in the process. As I was thinking about this question for myself, I realized there was a group of folks that I don’t esteem, and have a hard time imagining God giving them much credit.

I don’t like little league baseball coaches. Now, let me say that my boys did have some good coaches in the bunch, but by in large, little league baseball coaches fit my stereotype of macho men trying to live out their frustrated, thwarted dreams of baseball fame vicariously through these 8 to 10 year old boys. And Winning’s everything.

And, I might add, they frequently had less than astute judgment in game strategy. For example, I have yet to figure out why, when your team is in the bottom of the 6 th (equivalent to bottom of the 9 th), you are 2 runs behind, have 2 outs with a runner on second with a hitter up at the plate – why in the world would you signal to the runner on 2nd to steal 3rd?.

Every time it happened, the runner would get tagged out and the game was over. They’d lose. What possible advantage would it be even if the base runner did manage to make it to third base? The guy at the plate still needed to score to at least tie the game. Go figure.

In my frustration with sitting through these painful experiences, I decided I’d be the team scorer, to help the time go by more quickly. I thought it would be a good distraction to spend time filling in the little score boxes with drawings and numbers, passing the time of the long games (and little league baseball games are the longest games in the world).

I might add the coaches appreciated my work. They liked being able to review every single play of the game. They liked me. Unfortunately, when I looked at my completed score pad, I could recognize the coaches calls that drove me nuts. Turns out this scoring only fueled my wonderfully condescending attitude, but at least I was serving the coaches in the process.

Well, you can imagine my surprise, when I encountered a little league baseball coach who saw his role as a call from God.

"No," I thought, God wouldn’t possibly want to work through little league coaches. Yet this called- by- God coach felt strongly that God wanted him to spend the hours coaching He saw what wonderful life lessons he could help the kids through – most specifically – he said, helping them learn how to lose well. Here was a coach who wasn’t all about winning. He wanted to help the kids learn to lose – a huge life lesson.

It took that coach to convince me that perhaps God actually included little league coaches as participants in his work in this world, working out his purposes even through them.

Now you probably don’t have the problem with little league coaches, at least I hope you don’t, but what about you? Who are the little league coach types in your life?

Who do you look at and can’t imagine God using for his purposes? Who are the people in your life that you dismiss?

• Folks you know that are uneducated?
• The young and inexperienced?
• The mentally disabled?
• The men at a homeless shelter?
• A CEO?

Remember, God was surprising when he worked through Sarah in the time of Abraham. God might surprise you in using whom you’d least expect, to carry out God’s purposes in this world.

We’re surprised by where God works. We’re also surprised by where God works.

God enters into the barren places in our lives, and brings life out of this barrenness. In this case the quite literal barrenness of Sarah’s womb.

Today is Mothers Day. I am very aware that this day can be a painful one for women who desire to be mothers and aren’t. Growing up I hated the emphasis on Father's Day.

As many of you know, my dad died before I turned 2. Father’s Day always reminded me, yet again, of what I didn’t have. I was initially resistant when I saw I was to preach today, given I didn’t want to somehow communicate insensitivity to those of you that have experienced this barrenness - especially preaching from a text where God miraculously makes Sarah pregnant.

Yet, hopefully not minimizing the pain of maternal barrenness, I do think this passage applies to all of us, whether we’ve had children or not, because all of us have experienced places of barrenness, places of emptiness in our lives. And, the message to us from this text is that God brings new life from those places.

I periodically have the opportunity to do some speaking or facilitating of prayer retreats. Usually when the invitation is extended, I am excited for the opportunity, eager to share some thoughts.

However, what can happen is that as the time of the event draws closer, I’m not in the same place spiritually or emotionally as I was when I said yes. I’m burnt out, tired, weary – prayer life is flat – I feel like I have absolutely nothing to offer. Barren. Empty. And yet, what I’ve found is that as I’m honest with God about this – don’t pretend to be something I’m not – as I wait and pray – frequently, I admit with a bit of panic – I am amazed that God does somehow manage to bring life out of my emptiness and provide what is needed.

We need to remember that our God is a God who is capable of bringing new life in those dead, empty places. I’d encourage you to ask yourself what might be a barren place in your life right now? Unemployment? Loneliness? Emptiness in your marriage? Sickness? I’d encourage you to be open to where God might be with you in that place, and be open to how God might be in the process of bringing new life.

Finally, remember God’s process and timing of bringing life out of barrenness may be quite different than what we think is right – but this passage reminds us, that in the midst of this barrenness, we are invited to ponder the question: “Is anything too hard for God?” How might God be surprising you by bringing new life in places of barrenness?

God surprises us by working through folks we may dismiss, God surprises us by bringing new life in our barren places, and God surprises us by fulfilling his promises even when we are confused and afraid and filled with doubt – even when we don’t get what is going on. God surprises us by how he works, working his purposes even with the messiness of our lives.

From our text, we know that Sarah was frightened. I can’t help but think even though Sarah knew something out of her control was going on, and it had something to do with God, she still doubted, was still confused. We don’t see any grand awareness or trust on her part. And yet, God worked in her in the midst of this fear and uncertainty.

I love this about God. We don’t have to have it all together and understood for God to work through us. Peterson’s latest book is titled, the way of Jesus – the way of Jesus is the term he uses to describe a life of faith in Christ. As he speaks about living this life of faith, he says, “we may be stuck, incapacitated, lost, depressed, angry, puzzled, confused, (and I’d add fearful and uncertain), but we are still on the way” – the way of Jesus.

I think Sarah experienced all these things and remember the writer of Hebrews in ch. 11, the chapter on faith, still affirmed her faith.

The Bible is filled with such fallible people. We are no different. I think we all experience fear, confusion, doubt in our lives of faith, and we need to be reminded that in the midst of all of that, we are still people God uses to make his presence known and promises fulfilled.

In spiritual direction, I see people who want to be used by God. And, they think that in order to be of use in God’s Kingdom, the messiness in their lives needs to get straightened out, their broken places need to be fixed, because it is only then that they’ll be in a position to honor and serve God – and so they work hard to fix their lives to get to that perfect place.

This is not how God works. God wants them to recognize his working through them, fulfilling God’s purposes - in the messiness. I see this need to be fixed mindset, especially with college students at SPU. They can be so hard on themselves, thinking that it is in perfection that God works.

One of my favorite things about spiritual direction is getting to see how God surprises them, shows them how he is working in and through them in the midst of their imperfection, their messiness.

God acted in surprising ways in Genesis 18. Sarah was dismissed yet God honored her with a powerful role in his promise... Sarah was barren. Yet God brought new life out of her barrenness. Sarah was scared and confused. Yet God’s purposes and promises were fulfilled through her. God works in surprising ways.

Who might those people be in our lives that God is working through? Where might God be bringing new life out of barren places? And how, in our fears and confusion, might God’s purposes be fulfilled?

May we all be open and attentive to our surprising God.

Let us pray.