How many of us have watched the TV programme ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’ How many of us have done some research into our family history? For those who have researched their family histories, how far back have you been able to go? What has been the most interesting thing that you have discovered? How many of us have known our grandparents? Our great-grandparents? Our great, great grandparents? What is that we find interesting about ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’ Why is that we need to know so much about our past?
There can be many reasons why it is interesting to research our family histories; we may track down relatives about whom we knew nothing and broaden our extended family, for instance, or we might come to understand ourselves better by knowing about family traits and characteristics which have been passed down across the generations.
I doubt that any of us have traced our family histories back to Abraham and Sarah but our Bible reading today suggests that we can (Genesis 18.1-15). Abram and Sarai, as they were originally known, were very old and very sad because they had no children. But one night, out in the desert, God made Abram a special promise. God said:
“Look up and count the stars – if you can. That’s how many people there will be in your family one day. Think of the sand on the seashore. How many grains can you count? I’ll bless you and give you such a large family that one day they’ll be as many as the stars in the sky or the grains of sand on the seashore.” (Genesis 15.1-6)
As a sign of that promise, God changes Abram’s name to Abraham and Sarai’s name to Sarah. God’s promise comes true when Sarah finally does have a baby, called Isaac, when she’s very old. The great-great-great-(lots of greats)-grandchildren of this family are the members of God’s family here today, so we’re all actually members of the same family; Abraham and Sarah’s family, which is also God’s family.
As a result, we’ve got millions of brothers and sisters of all ages and colours in every land all over the world. In fact, just like on ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’, when we realise that we are Children of Abraham, we also realise that we have some unexpected relatives because Jewish and Muslim people are also Children of Abraham.
We can see through all this that although God’s promise starts out with small things it can become incredibly massive. Sarah laughed when she heard what God had planned. Just like Sarah we can be sceptical, cynical and mocking about what it is possible for God to achieve through us but, in the story, Sarah’s cynical laughter turns to joyful laughter when her son Isaac is born and the same can be true for us too as we learn to trust that God can use us and achieve great things through us.
We know the difference between cynical laughter and joyful laughter don’t we? Who can give me a cynical laugh? Who can give me a joyful laugh? Sarah’s story shows us how we live life joyfully and hopefully. Patricia De Jong has described what happened to Sarah like this:
“Here is Sarah, at age 90, saying to God: Look, I'm old, I'm tired, I have arthritis and even a little osteoporosis; are you sure we want to get into something new like this now?
But this is when we encounter the marvellous wonder of God, at that very vulnerable moment - when the improbable is mistaken for the impossible, at that moment when we actually believe that our spirits are wasting away, as our bodies are, and God couldn't possibly have any more surprises in store for us, at that moment when we have settled in to things the way they are, instead of things the way they can be through the hope of God …
And yet what better way to live than in the grip of a promise? To wake in the possibility that today might be the day ... To take nothing for granted. Or to take everything as granted, though not yet grasped. To handle every moment of one's life as a seed of the promise and to plant it tenderly, never knowing if this moment, or the next, may be the one that grows.
To live in this way is to discover that God is always blessing us ... This is what Abraham and Sarah found out late in life ... This is what the psalmist had in mind when he wrote, "so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's." (Psalm 103:5) This is the spiritual path we embark upon when we place our hand in the open palm of God ...
Abraham and Sarah believed in God's promises and dared to hope. As Paul reminds us, "hope does not disappoint because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which is given to us." (https://whosoever.org/a-laughing-hope/)
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Bruce Cockburn - Listen To The Laugh.
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