Sunday, June 14, 2026

Third Sunday after Pentecost Year A

Old Testament Reading: Genesis 18:1–15, (21:1–7) (NRSVUE)

A Son Promised to Abraham and Sarah

¹  The Lord appeared to Abraham by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the entrance of his tent in the heat of the day. ²  He looked up and saw three men standing near him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent entrance to meet them and bowed down to the ground. ³  He said, “My lord, if I find favor with you, do not pass by your servant. ⁴  Let a little water be brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree. ⁵  Let me bring a little bread, that you may refresh yourselves, and after that you may pass on—since you have come to your servant.” So they said, “Do as you have said.” ⁶  And Abraham hastened into the tent to Sarah and said, “Make ready quickly three measures of choice flour, knead it, and make cakes.” ⁷  Abraham ran to the herd and took a calf, tender and good, and gave it to the servant, who hastened to prepare it. ⁸  Then he took curds and milk and the calf that he had prepared and set it before them, and he stood by them under the tree while they ate. ⁹  They said to him, “Where is your wife Sarah?” And he said, “There, in the tent.” ¹⁰  Then one said, “I will surely return to you in due season, and your wife Sarah shall have a son.” And Sarah was listening at the tent entrance behind him. 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 be fruitful?” 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 ? At the set time I will return to you, in due season, and Sarah shall have a son.” ¹⁵  But Sarah denied, saying, “I did not laugh,” for she was afraid. He said, “Yes, you did laugh.”

The Birth of Isaac

^21:1  The Lord dealt with Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did for Sarah as he had promised. ²  Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the time of which God had spoken to him. ³  Abraham gave the name Isaac to his son whom Sarah bore him. ⁴  And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, as God had commanded him. ⁵  Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him. ⁶  Now Sarah said, “God has brought laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh with me.” ⁷  And she said, “Who would ever have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.”

Commentary

There may be lots of familiarity with this passage that culminates in the birth of Isaac to very old parents. But before we get to Sarah’s laughter, and then her denial, and then the birth of the child who was promised, we encounter a delightful scene of hospitality.

Abraham sitting at the entrance to the tent welcomes the divine visitor. “The Lord appeared” to Abraham but when he looked up, he saw three men.  God arrives in plurality, not singularity, and we are never told why. The multiple divinity is not so important as providing appropriate hospitality to the divine visitation. Abraham scurries around to get water, bread, meat – a desert feast is assembled with the help of servants and Sarah. And, as it turns out, God is really interested in conveying a message – “Where is you wife Sarah?” Listening at the tent flap, Sarah is astonished at what is being promised by God: “I will surely return to you in due season, and your wife Sarah shall have a son.” We know well Sarah’s reaction – she laughs! And apparently the laughter is hearty and loud. God hears her, wonders why she laughed, she denies (rather, she lies!) that she laughed and so ensues a playful bit of divine-human interaction.  “Is anything too wonderful for the Lord?” Indeed, hospitality is divinely expanded as Isaac is born, Abraham and Sarah open the aged arms and receive the holy gift. And Sarah sums it all up: “God has brought laughter for me (Isaac’s name); everyone who hears will laugh with me.”

God is not seen until welcomed. Process panentheism emerges here in narrative form: the divine becomes available to creatures through their relational openness.  While God may seem to be omnipotent at first glance – “Is anything too wonderful for the Lord?” (v.14) – there is a dynamic of openness to the future here, not ultimate power. What is wonderful will come about through the divine – human relationship.

I always wonder what to make of the three visitors who are seen to be God. Though we want to be careful in a pluralistic world to not superimpose Christian meaning onto Hebrew scriptures; still we can proclaim that long before any Trinitarian doctrine, a process understanding of God is social.

Preaching this delightful text might focus on hospitality, surprise, laughter, all coming together in divine gift and interaction (human-Holy) leading to the reality of a new becoming in the moment. Isaac is not pre-existent in God’s mind; anticipated but new in the moment like Sarah’s hearty laugh.