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| Andrei Rublev, ""The Hospitality of Abraham" / "The Trinity" |
"Is Anything Too Wonderful for God?"
Genesis 18:1-15 and 21:1-7; Matthew 9:35-10:23
Easter was late this year. So--because of how the lectionary works-- we
entered the story of Abraham and Sarah in the middle today, and we missed
hearing the beginning. We don’t have enough time to catch you up on all the
details now. If you haven’t read the story of Abraham in the book of Genesis
for a while, I invite you to spend a few minutes and read through it, beginning
in chapter 12. I don’t think you’d be bored. I really think the story of the Patriarchs in
Genesis would make quite a TV mini-series.
Had Easter been earlier this year, we would have heard the
story of the call of Abraham in Genesis 12, how God calls Abram and Sarai to leave
homeland and kin and go to a land they have never seen. God makes a three-fold promise to them. Abram will have many descendants and will be a
“great nation.” Several times in the chapters leading up to today’s
lesson, God promises that Abram and his descendants will inherit the land of
Canaan, and that they will be a blessing to the whole world.
Now, there’s a major problem with this scenario: Abram and
Sarai have no children. We don’t know a lot about the couple before this, but
we do know that his wife Sarai has been barren, and that she’s getting up in
years. It’s hard to have many descendants and be a “great nation” if you don’t
have even one child.
So, by the time we get to Genesis 18, Abraham and Sarah have
decided to solve the problem on their own. They have “given” Hagar,” Sarah’s
handmaid, to Abraham as a concubine. She has borne a son to Abraham, and they
have named him Ishmael. So, problem solved.
Or maybe not. God was more specific in making promises in
Genesis 17. “As for Sarai, your wife, you shall not call her Sarai, but Sarah
shall be her name. 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.
Well, that’s an amazing promise. Especially when you
consider that by this time, Sarah is 90 years old. Talk about having a new
chapter in your golden years!
Apparently, Abraham thought this promise was too wonderful,
too amazing, even for God. When we heard it, Abraham fell on his face laughing
and reminded God that they’ve already worked out things on their own: “O that Ishmael might live in your sight!”
God has a different
vision of how things are supposed to be and tells Abraham, “No, but your wife Sarah
shall bear you a son, and you shall name him Isaac,” which means, “he laughs.” God promises that Ishmael will become
the father of a great nation, too. But God’s covenant will be with Isaac.
Which brings us to Genesis 18. Abraham is sitting at the entrance of his
tent near the oaks-- more accurately “terebinths”
of Mamre, resting in the heat of the day. He sees three men standing near him
and runs out as fast as his 99-year-old legs allow to meet them, and bowed
down. He says, “My lord, allow me to have a little water brought, and wash your
feet, and rest yourselves under the tree. Let me bring a little bread, that you
may refresh yourselves, and after that you may pass on.”
Abraham hurries into the tent to Sarah, and asks her to whip
up a good meal, and he runs out to the herd to pick out a good calf for a
servant to prepare. He serves the guests curds and milk and meat, and then he
stands under the tree while they eat.
The guests ask Abraham, “Where is your wife Sarah?” And he
says, “There, in the tent.” Then one of the guests said, “I will surely return
to you I due season, and your wife Sarah shall have a son.”
Sarah is listening, and now, it’s her turn to laugh. Abraham
and Sarah are both old. We hear that “it had ceased to be with Sarah after the
manner of women.” So, Sarah laughed to herself.
The LORD said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh, and say,
“Shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old? Is
anything too wonderful for the LORD?”
Sarah’s afraid, and she says, “I didn’t laugh.”
The LORD says, “O yes, you did laugh.” I imagine a twinkle in the LORD’S eye.
There’s a lot to chew on in this passage. If we were in a
Bible study, we could look more closely at how Abraham is visited by the one
LORD, as three separate people, and how the text alternates between referring
to them in the singular and plural.
As I meditated on this text during the week, I also spent
some time learning about the Christian icons that have been inspired by it,
commonly known as “The Hospitality of Abraham.”
Those of us who don’t come from an Eastern Orthodox, Roman
Catholic, or Anglican tradition probably haven’t been very familiar with icons
as a form of devotional religious art that is meant to invite us deeper into
the truth and to help us pray.
Probably the best known religious icon in the world is an
icon painted by Russian monk and iconographer Andrei Rublev in the fifteenth
century known as “The Hospitality of Abraham” and also known as “The Trinity.”
The more you gaze at this icon and meditate on it, the more
you see. In the icon, we see three
angels, but also the Trinity. In her little book, The Circle of Love: Praying with Rublev’s Icon of the Trinity, Ann
Persson points us to some of details.[1]
Rublev has intentionally given the three “angels” similar
faces, figures, and hairstyles, and differentiates them only by their clothing,
to show that each of the three has equal importance. The faces are youthful,
yet there is a quiet maturity. They are neither male nor female. Their haloes
show their holiness. Other details in the colors in their clothing and in the
background point to who they are. Each one holds a staff, which shows that each
has authority. They are similar, yet different. They are in eternal communion.
As Ann Persson points out, very often in other, earlier icons the three figures sit in a line, facing
the viewer. Rublev was the first iconographer to use a circle in his
design--the symbol of perfection, unity and eternity.
Some of those who study and meditate on this icon point to
what appears to be a little rectangular hole painted on the front of the table.
According to Fr. Richard Rohr, some art historians say that the remaining glue
on the original icon indicates that there may have once been a mirror glued to
the front of the table, though that would have been highly unusual.[2]
In any case, Rublev designed this icon with a space
in the circle, as if you or I could step into the space that is offered and
enter the circle of love. He showed that
there’s a place at the table for us.
I love the way Fr. Rohr puts it: “At the heart of Christian
revelation, God is not seen as a distant, static monarch but…a divine circle
dance, as the early Fathers of the church dared to call it (in Greek perichoresis…. God is the Holy One presenced in the dynamic and loving action of Three. But even this Three-Fullness does not like to
eat alone. This invitation to share at the divine table is probably the first
biblical hint of what we would eventually call ‘salvation.’”[3]
“Jesus comes forth from this Eternal Fullness, allowing us
to see ourselves mirrored, as a part
of this table fellowship--as a participant at this banquet and as a partner in
God’s eternal dance of love and communion.”
So, how are
we called to live, as partners in God’s dance of love? How do we
proclaim the good news of God’s love in our time?
In today’s gospel lesson, we heard how Jesus went about all
the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the good
news of the kingdom, and curing every disease and every sickness. When he saw
the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and
helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The
harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore, ask the Lord of the
harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.
Then Jesus summoned his twelves disciples and gave them
authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to cure every disease and
every sickness….to go out, proclaiming the good news. The kingdom of heaven has
come near. Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. And travel light.
To a lot of us, this may sound overwhelming…impossible. But
we worship a God who became incarnate to reveal the image of the invisible God,
which is the logical conclusion of God’s love affair with creation.
What might our dance with God look like, as we live more
fully into God’s kingdom?
I love the way Shirley Erena Murray words it in a song we’ll
sing later:[4]
For
everyone born, a place at the table,
For everyone born, clean water and bread,
A shelter, a space, a safe place for growing,
For everyone born, a star overhead.
Can
we trust God to keep God’s promises? Can we trust God, through the Spirit, to
guide and empower us? Can we trust God, in Christ, to be with us always?
Is anything too wonderful for God?
Can we imagine dancing with God,
working in partnership with God, and being a blessing to others?
And God will delight when we are creators of
justice,
And joy… compassion and
peace.
Yes, God will delight when
we are creators of justice…
Justice and joy!
May it be so!
Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor
Littlefield
Presbyterian Church
Dearborn,
Michigan
June 18, 2017
[1]
Ann Persson, The Circle of Love: Praying with Rublev’s Icon of the
Trinity (The Bible
Reading Fellowship, 2010), Kindle version, location 530-545.
[2]
Richard Rohr with Mike Morrell, The Divine Dance (Whittaker House, 2016), page
31.
[3]
Ibid.
[4]
Shirley Erena Murray, “For Everyone Born”, in Glory to God hymnal (2013).
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