sermon notesA collection of resources, background information, and periodic reflections on the scripture readings in worship from Pr Josh Ehrler. Archives
July 2018
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Strong Women of Scripture: Sarah6/6/2018 During the summer of 2018, Trinity Lutheran will be meeting and interacting with a variety of strong women found in scripture. Some will be familiar, other will be new acquaintances. This reflection is meant to introduce a new woman each week and provide thoughts on how we might be inspired by her strength and faith in God.
Our reflection is for Genesis 18.1-15 We launched our summer series on strong women with Hagar, a dynamic women trapped in an abusive relationship with a couple. If you’d like to read more about Hagar, click here. The challenge we face this week is that we need to spend time with one of those troubling people, Sarah. She owned Hagar, an Egyptian (African) slave-girl and saw fit to use her as she wished. After the promise given to Sarah and Abe from God wasn’t falling together as they wanted it to, Sarah sought outside means to fulfill the promise. Though some scholars have tried to argue that her tactics loosely parallel surrogacy, those parallels are a thin veil meant to excuse Sarah’s behavior. Surrogate mothers offer themselves to a couple, often with a clearly and justly constructed legal document. The surrogate mother is compensated and the awaiting parent(s) follows the process to the end to ensure the mother’s well-being along with the child’s. There is no evidence of this relationship being just, equitable or in any way beneficial for Hagar. After conception, Hagar is berated and flees the tent of Sarah for her safety and liberation. In chapter 21, Hagar is kicked out for good by Sarah in a jealous rage. Not a strong introduction for sister Sarah, though, without making excuses for her acts, if we’re able to go back and read Genesis from chapter 12, that Sarah is not seen or treated well by her husband, father Abraham. Hitting remind for a moment, in chapter 12 we learn that Abe and Sarah have been sent on a quest by God because they have been chosen. As was discussed in our study here at Trinity Lutheran this past week, it is easy for us to exalt Abe and Sarah because of their status in hindsight. In the moment, at the time, they were simply a troubled couple headed out and based on Genesis, one of their first stops is Egypt (sidebar: remember that Hagar is Egyptian; also, remember the Israelites are enslaved by the Egyptians by the end of the book of Genesis). Before encountering border patrol, Abe tells Sarah to lie and say they aren’t married, their sister and brother. That’s not weird. Actually, Tikva Frymer-Kensky, contributor to Women in Scripture, writes that “Abraham is fearful that the Egyptians will kill him…a brother was somewhat of a protector.” (150) Fair point, and yet, as Frymer-Kensky notes, “Sarah [becoming] a slave in Pharaoh’s house serves to foreshadow Israel’s later bondage in Eqypt.” (151) This experience, no matter how positively we look at it 2000 years later, must have marked Sarah, if not her marriage. Fast forward no to the reading at hand in chapter 18 and we find sister Sarah where she often is near Abe, in the shadow, behind the scene. This moment of the three visitors of Abraham is significant to Christian tradition. It is believed to be a revelation of the Trinity (Father, Son, Holy Spirit), at least by Christo-centric believers. Pointing this out provides further proof that Sarah has significant obstacles to get any sort of notice in the Bible on her own. Wherever she shows up, her husband is near or she’s interacting (poorly) with Hagar. Which gets us to the heart of the problem with Sarah. Can we pull her free of the overwhelming odds and see her as her own woman? Returning to Frymer-Kensky for a concise description of this, “The miracles that God performed for Sarah in Egypt have not taught [Abraham] her importance.” (150) We could apply that same argument to ourselves in the 21st C. It is difficult for us to see Sarah as Sarah without her presence being crowded out by the circumstances and people around her. One piece of Sarah’s character that is very much her own is her sense of humor. Even in our Bible study at Trinity we struggled with her laughter, assuming it was an offense to God. Who would dare laugh at God’s plans for us? It is a fair question. The Harper Collins Study Bible offers an interesting twist on this event and the exchange between God and Abraham (note: God doesn’t talk to Sarah directly; again, overwhelming odds against being seen) by offering the notion it was all humorous. God notes the laughter. Sarah denies the laughter. God denies the denial (HCSB, 2017 Digital Ed., pg 127) See, that’s comedy gold. In a sense, the HCSB is good to take this down a different path from the typical, Western, guilt-laden and God-dreading path of uprightness. God is obviously serious and yet, God can handle a good joke. The HCSB defends this thought that God and Sarah (through Abraham) share a moment of silliness by reminding its readers that their heralded son to come, Isaac, is named for laughter. His name means “to laugh” because this entire episode, the covenant, the couple, their brokenness, God’s regular reminders, and the eventual birth, is cosmically ridiculous. It simply should not happen. And it does. And it happens through our sister Sarah. We still have to set her free, though. Returning to the free form, undocumented women’s Bible study of this local congregation, we kept on that challenge and came to a simple conclusion: God chose Sarah. God spoke to Sarah. If it had not been for Sarah, there would be no lineage, no nations, no silly camp song about Father Abraham and his many sons (never mind the daughters). Sarah deserves some credit for putting up with her less than optimal husband and his sleeping around the entire tribe of his making. She deserves some morsel of Grace for living in a promise from God that was physically and emotionally impossible by any human measurement. She deserves some words of praise for persevering, even if with bad behavior, along a quest that had no clear end and ends with her silence. She deserves a nod of gratitude for being human and laughing out loud in the presence of God when many of us today would stifle our character and assume a false pose. Sarah is Sarah, in all her glory and ghastly mistakes. She is a broken, fallen human who casts her sin upon her nearest slave and shows no remorse for her abusive words and deeds. She is also, dare we confess, forgiven by God and allowed to continue in God’s Grace. Sarah is transformed by her encounters with God, Isaac being the most obvious manifestation of God’s compassion in the midst of sorrow and woeful behavior. Sarah can be our light when our hope is dim and our shadows, some of our own making, crowd out our hope. God does not give up on sister Sarah. God, despite all Sarah says and does in her life, even goes so far as shares a smile, maybe a not-so-secret inside joke, lest she think that her life has gone unnoticed.
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