SCRIPTURE: Genesis 18:1-15, (21-17)
TEXT: 6Now Sarah said, “God has brought laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh with me.” THEME: God of surprises provides signs along the way to keep us on track. INTRODUCTION As an Ordinary Time, lectionary theme, we will be looking at the passages that focused on food, guest and table. We are moving from the Gospel of Matthew to the readings found in Genesis around the family of Abraham and Sarah. In today’s lectionary offering, we see three unexpected table guest who are an encouragement along their journey. SCRIPTURE This story has unexpected guests, thin walls, an overheard conversation, and laughter. Sort of how God sees things, orchestrating a chance meeting for encouragement, for those on a journey of faith and hearing just what we need to hear to continue on. Let me give us a back story. When God creates in the beginning of Genesis it is ‘good,’ with the potential for doing more good or not. We were not declared as ‘perfect’ beyond improvement or change, so being sinless was never an expectation of our goodness. So, the story of Adam and Eve in the garden is actually about coming of the age and taking responsibility for their actions. They are to fess up for their actions good or bad and bear their consequences. When they don’t, God does not stop loving them, but replaces fig leaf loincloths with garments of skins and teaches them how to farm. Later Genesis fills in more stories until we get to our ancestral family; Abraham and Sarah. They are given a promise of descendants as many as the stars in the sky, land and a nation, but they are old and don’t have any children. So the least they can do is to travel towards the land God has for them. Mamre is a stop along the way in that journey, when Abraham sees three men standing near him and invites them in for refreshments. He orders up a few veal gyros as they asked about Sarah. These strangers are an encouragement to Abraham and Sarah to keep on course and presents a tangible timeline of when a promise will be fulfilled. Although Sarah is on this journey too, when she hears their prediction, she laughs. Caught off guard, surprised, relived, and happy. On a study on laughter, found that what makes us laugh has elements of surprise, whimsy, and a turn towards the unexpected, caught off guard, we let out a chuckle. When what follows is a series of events that take us down a road of adventure, laughter, unstoppable laughter ensues. APPLICATION What surprises is God showing us through signs, words of encouragement, promises, visions from the past, or visitors? How do we see beyond what we think is possible, to something new, or unexpected? Jann and I met up with the group going to General Synod from Hawaii in SFO connecting to their flight to Indianapolis. We got in at 6 in the morning. Exhausted we checked into our hotel and fell asleep. Later that evening we met for dinner. My unexpected table mate was Andy Bunn, the Executive Director of the Hawaii Conference Foundation. He is a former attorney from ChunKerr, the firm we hired to help us with the Mission Grounds Affordable Housing Project. His former responsibility at ChunKerr was on sub dividing property for condos and his former protégé is our current attorney. I was able to ask him a few of our questions about the Site Control Document that the Council has been wrestling with. Basically he said that although the language seems to be talking about selling the property its is not and we are able to retain ownership of our property and section off a portion for this project. He has also offered to talk to our Council. This was a conversation over dinner that was an encouragement along the way of the journey we have been on. At the airport leaving Indianapolis, Dorothy Lester, our former ACM was on the flight. She was seated next to Robin Lunn, the former pastor of Makawao Union. I found out that before becoming a pastor Robin had been a structural architect. We had a discussion about different uses churches in the Salem Oregon area and how some churches in close proximity of each other are collaborating their efforts, to share and utilize resources like how we have been talking. I said to her, why didn’t we have lunch together while you were on Maui? She also was an encouragement along our journey so I got her email. CONCLUSION I mapped out scriptures and sermon topic that I wanted focus on before I left for General Synod. When I sat down to write this sermon, I felt like Abraham sitting on the porch of my tent, in a lawn chair, when strangers of encouragement suddenly arrived. The laugh I gave out was sort of gave out a kind of a ‘huh’ sound. A laugh of sorts that said, “We’ll see where all of this ends up.”
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