God's Absurd Promise - Relfections on Genesis 18:1-15, Third Sunday after Pentecost, Year A

by John C. Holbert on Friday, April 3, 2026

         Genesis 18 offers to us one of the Bible’s most delightful and most important tales. The stories of the patriarchs and matriarchs of ancient Israel allowed the writers to employ the full range of their vivid imaginations. Stories like these probably survived orally for centuries, shared around campfires and inside tents, told and retold as the foundation of the ongoing lives of the people. They are far more than historical accounts, but comprise rich narratives filled with humor, pathos, and delight, unforgettable with each new telling. Ultimately, of course, they were written down, somewhat fixed in their final places in the sacred text that became our Bible. Despite their seeming “fixedness,” however, they retain a complexity that continues to lend them opportunities for multiple interpretations. My own reading is certainly not the only possible hearing of the story; you are bound to have your own. And that is all to the good. Nothing is more dangerous than any reader who imagines her own reading is the only one possible. A rabbi friend of mine once said to me, “The problem with you Christians is that you have too low a tolerance for ambiguity.” I happen to think that is exactly right about some of us; we need to open our hearts and minds much wider as we explore the options for the construal of these magnificent texts.

         “YHWH appeared to him by the Mamre oaks, while he sat at the tent flap during the day’s heat. He raised his eyes and, what do you know, three men were standing close by. He saw and ran from the flap to meet them, and fell on his face in the dirt” (Gen.18:1-2). The tale begins with rich detail. The narrator tells us that YHWH has come to Abraham, but when Abraham, perhaps dozing at the flap of his tent in the day’s searing heat, gazing sleepily at some movement in the shimmering haze of the desert, sees not YHWH, but “three men.” However, with no hesitation, this quintessential Middle Easterner swings into action. “He saw and ran to meet the strangers, falling before them with his face in the dirt.” This is the literal Hebrew, suggesting that Abraham treats these men as highly honored guests. The verb about “falling in the dirt” is commonly employed to indicate an act of worship, but here I think it more simply means that any desert strangers are to be treated as near-royalty.

         And so Abraham’s subsequent actions suggest as he urges them not to “pass by your servant” (placing himself in the subservient role in the encounter). Then he offers water for their dusty desert feet, always the first act of hospitality, followed by “rest under the tree.” And while you rest, he says, “I will bring a little bread” (the word “bread” may also mean “food”). It is customary in these acts of welcome to underplay what one is about to do for the visitor. “A little bread” turns into three seahs (a fully accurate modern equivalent is beyond us, but it is easily several quarts) of choice flour to make cakes with. Abraham himself runs (that verb occurs three times) to the stall to fetch his finest and most succulent calf (meat in the ancient world was served only quite rarely). He adds curds (a kind of yoghurt) and milk and carries the feast back to the three strangers. “A little bread” has become a great feast!

         Then things get decidedly weird. “Where is Sarah, your wife?” all three say (Gen.18:9). In chorus? How do they know that? After Abraham tells them she is in the tent, one of them then says, “I will without doubt return to you in the time of life (“in due season” NRSV), and your wife Sarah shall have a son” (Gen.18:10). From here the fun and hilarity begin, though in the midst of the laughing crucial elements of the tale occur. “Now Abraham and Sarah were old, years had come on them; the way of women had ceased for Sarah” (in other words she had stopped menstruating, making birthing impossible) Gen.18:11. Listen carefully to the next lines. “So Sarah laughed to herself, “After I have shriveled up, shall I have any pleasure; my husband is so old!” (Gen.18:12). The word Sarah uses, “pleasure,” is delightfully ambiguous. It can mean “luxury” or even “delight or even “fertility.” I think Sarah is saying that she and her man are no longer capable of a delicious sexual tumble, since she is shriveled and he is so old. No tumble, no son!  

         But YHWH overhears Sarah’s silent laughter, and asks Abraham why she laughed, claiming that her extreme old age forbids her both sexual pleasure and the  bearing of any more children. “Is anything beyond YHWH? At the set time, I will return to you, at the time of life, and Sarah will have a son” (Gen.18:14). And the genius of the story is, of course, the wonderful pun that is the name of that son, Isaac, based on the Hebrew word for “laughter.” Isaac is nothing other than the son of laughter. (Abraham has already had his laugh at Gen.17:17.) Thus is the promise of God fulfilled in the most absurd of ways. Oh, and I neglected to add another wrinkle in the story, tossed into a genealogy in Gen.11:30: “Now Sarai was barren; she had no child.” Even before the weird visit of YHWH to the tents of Abraham and Sarah, even before their extreme old age precluded the gift of a child, we were told that Sarai was barren! There is clearly no way in the world that this woman will give birth. Yet, she does. “Is anything beyond YHWH?” 

         For those of us who live in this perilous time, supposedly led by a poorly-educated, greedy, narcissistic dolt of a president, who has plunged us into a foolish war with Iran, and who seems to care absolutely nothing for any human life save his own, it is crucial for us to have a God in our lives for whom nothing is impossible. It is not to believe in magic to hold such a claim; it is the certain conviction that we are not doomed to lives of hopelessness and fear. There remains hope for us with a God who can act in ways beyond our imagining, in ways that offer to us hope beyond hope. Despite the horrors we now face; despite the idiocy of our so-called leaders, hope abounds in a God who loves us and forever will care for all of God’s creation.