June 21, 2020: Between Want and Fulfillment
Between Want and Fulfillment
Genesis 17:1-8, 15-17; 18:11-14a
When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram, and said to him, “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless. 2 And I will make my covenant between me and you, and will make you exceedingly numerous.” 3 Then Abram fell on his face; and God said to him, 4 “As for me, this is my covenant with you: You shall be the ancestor of a multitude of nations. 5 No longer shall your name be Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you the ancestor of a multitude of nations. 6 I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you. 7 I will establish my covenant between me and you, and your offspring after you throughout their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you. 8 And I will give to you, and to your offspring after you, the land where you are now an alien, all the land of Canaan, for a perpetual holding; and I will be their God.”
15 God said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. 16 I will bless her, and moreover I will give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she shall give rise to nations; kings of peoples shall come from her.” 17 Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said to himself, “Can a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Can Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?”
11 Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in age; it had ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women. 12 So Sarah laughed to herself, saying, “After I have grown old, and my husband is old, shall I have pleasure?” 13 The Lord said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh, and say, ‘Shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old?’ 14 Is anything too wonderful for the Lord?
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Nobody likes to wait. But we find ourselves waiting a lot. Life forces us to wait. We wait at red lights. We wait at restaurants. We wait for packages to be delivered. Doctor’s offices have entire rooms dedicated to waiting. And the worst of all may be waiting in line. But I’ve got a trick for that these days—just start coughing uncontrollably and say, “It’s OK, I’ve been tested for COVID; I should get the results back any day now.”
Waiting. Something a lot of us aren’t very good at. But we’re not alone.
Take Abraham and Sarah. “Father Abraham” is 75 when we first meet him in the book of Genesis. Sarah is roughly ten years younger at 65. At Sarah’s first mention, we learn that she is childless. Her barrenness seems to be her defining characteristic—no surprise in a culture that primarily values women for their ability to produce male offspring. So at the ages of 75 and 65, Abraham (then known as Abram) is called by God to leave his home and his country—everything he knows—to go to a land that will be shown to him. “I will make you into a great nation,” God promises Abram. At 75. Did I mention Sarah is 65? “A great nation.” OK, God. Whatever. So Abram takes his wife and his nephew, all of their possessions, including who knows how many slaves, and they set out. That’s Genesis chapter 12.
Fast forward several years and a couple of chapters to chapter 15. Abraham is settled in Canaan, the land that God showed to him in keeping with God’s promise. But God’s promise that Abram would be a “great nation” is still unfulfilled. Still no children. No heirs. Abraham is frustrated, tired of waiting. “You have given me no children,” Abram complains to God. God takes Abram outside at night and instructs him to count the stars if he can. “So shall your offspring be,” God promises Abram.
By the time we get to chapter 16, Abram is 86-years-old which makes Sarah 76. Still no children. You don’t have to be an M.D. to know that Sarah is a couple of years past child-bearing age. She’s tired of waiting on God to fulfill God’s promise of an heir. So she takes matters into her own hands, and gives her servant, Hagar, to Abram. Not being the man of valor we would hope for in our patriarch, Abram decides that’s a great idea. Abram must have eaten his Wheaties, because even without the help of our modern little blue pill, Hagar ends up pregnant, and a son, Ishmael, is born to Abraham. But not to Sarah. This is a big problem. Sarah ends up hating Hagar; Hagar and Ishmael will eventually be sent away—banished because of Sarah’s disdain. It is widely believed that Ishmael became the father of the Arab nation and eventually a forefather of the prophet Muhammed; the centuries-old conflict in the Middle East may very well trace its roots back to Sarah and Abraham losing faith and taking matters into their own hands.
There are consequences when we fail to wait on God’s promises. We want something, and we want it now! And then we take matters into our own hands.
So many of our ills as a people are because we don’t like to wait, for instance:
Consumer debt . . . we can’t wait on stuff for ourselves.
Obesity . . . we can’t wait to stuff ourselves.
There’s a famous study from 1970 called the “Stanford Marshmallow Experiment.” Researchers put kids alone in a distraction-free room with a treat of their choice on a table. The children were told they could eat the treat, but if they could wait 15 minutes without giving into temptation, they would receive two of their chosen treats. There are some really cute videos, copies of this experiment, that show kids covering their eyes, singing songs to themselves, almost anything to keep from looking at the temptation on the table. The researchers followed up with the kids for years. This study in delayed gratification suggested that the kids who could wait longer for two treats tended to have more desirable life outcomes like: SAT scores, educational attainment, body mass index, etc.
Delayed gratification. I don’t think it’s our forte as a culture. We want our marshmallow and we want it now! In the middle of a pandemic unlike anything we’ve seen in our generation, we’ve been told we must wait for a vaccine. A year maybe if we’re really lucky. A year and a half would be pretty quick still. Two years would be more in line historically. We must wait for a vaccine—but until that day comes, we must be careful. Social distance. Masks. Stay away from crowded bars.
Ha! So much for that! Pinellas County released a picture of a jam-packed bar that was taken last Saturday in St. Pete. Social distance? Phhht. Masks? Nary a mask to be found. We want our nightlife and we want it now! Those folks looked like they were having a great time! I hope they’re still having a great time in fourteen days. But I get it. Waiting for a vaccine is no fun. There’s no way I’d wait fifteen whole minutes for two marshmallows if I could have one right now.
We want it and we want it now! But what do we do between want and fulfillment?
It seems to me that we have two choices.
On one hand, we can take the pessimistic view. We can be jaded. Cynical.
In the scripture texts we read together, we’ve fast-forwarded to chapter 17. Abraham is now 99, about to turn 100, and Sarah is 90-years-old. God promises once again that they will indeed have a son. Both Abraham and Sarah laugh, but it’s not a joyful laughter. It’s not a happy laughter. It’s a cynical laughter. They don’t believe. Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said to himself, “Can a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Can Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?” Ok, to be fair, this is pretty unbelievable. Think about it. How many ninety-year-old women do you know who have had children? Not too many! Sarah’s laughter was just as cynical, “After I have grown old, and my husband is old, shall I have pleasure?” Now that’s an interesting way to phrase that.
It’s been 25 years since God promised to make of Abraham a great nation. Abraham and Sarah had probably longed for children some 45 or more years before that. That’s 70 years of waiting, and waiting, and waiting. You can’t blame them too much for their cynicism.
You know what cynicism is . . . it’s one part disappointment, one part hopelessness, two parts anger, add a dash of bitterness, sprinkle a little contempt on top and bake for a lifetime. Its aroma fills up the air we breathe until we grow nose-blind to it. It’s a cloud that lingers, penetrating even our happiest moments with thoughts like, “this isn’t real,” or “this is too good to be true,” or “it’s all going to end.” Cynicism. The laughter born of cynicism isn’t happy—it’s bitter and cutting, telling Joy she has no place in the conversation.
“We’re going to have a son? Ha. Yeah, right.” You can almost taste the bitterness and disappointment in their laughter.
But then.
Get the blue cigars ready, because fast-forward a few more chapters to Genesis 21:1-2 and look what happens:
Now the Lord was gracious to Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did for Sarah what he had promised. Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the very time God had promised him.
Move over cynicism. Hello faith! Hello hope! Hello joy! Hello genuine laughter!
And that’s the name they gave to the boy: “Laughter.” “Isaac” in Hebrew means laughter.
In this life there is disappointment. Hopes are dashed. Plans thwarted. Grief takes up residence in our hearts.
But we have a choice. We can let those disappointments make us bitter and cynical, or we can hold on to faith and hope, believing in God’s promises that all will be made well.
This week I was cleaning out a closet when I came upon some old photo albums—including a scrapbook from my senior year of high school. My thirteen-year-old was looking at it with me, laughing at his mother’s fashion choices. There was a page or two in the scrapbook dedicated to a church camp I went to that year, prompting my teenage son to ask, “You were religious back then too?” Laughing at myself a little, I said, “Yes, I suppose so.” He prodded, “Why are you so religious?” I said, “Well, faith is important to me because I believe people need hope.”
I need hope. Maybe you need hope too.
We have that choice. We can grow jaded and cynical, we can grow weary of waiting and take matters into our own hands to our probable detriment. Or, we can embrace a hopeful realism. We can recognize that we live in liminal space, between want and fulfillment, between what is and what is yet to come. We don’t have to bury our head in the sand and pretend that everything is hunky dory dory (see last week’s sermon). We take reality for what it is and look to the future believing that it’s all in God’s hands and that God is working in ways we cannot see to redeem all of creation, even this present situation.
So friends, what are you waiting on? A vaccine for Covid? Reconciliation with a family member? An “all clear” from the doctor? A new job? A new home? That trip that got postponed? Maybe you’re just waiting on a break. Whatever it is you’re waiting on, never give up hope. And never forget that God is with you in the waiting.