God Hears Your Dirty Jokes
A Sermon On Genesis 18
Genesis 18 is divided into two stories: God’s visit to Abraham, and Abraham interceding for Sodom and Gomorrah. This sermon will focus on the first half—God’s visit to Abraham.
In the narrative, God appears to Abraham “in the heat of the day, under the oaks of Mamre.” This is God’s third appearance to Abraham and it’s quite different than the other two—this one is a lot more casual. Abraham could’ve missed this one, as we will discuss a bit later—and the author of the book of Hebrews tells us to pay attention to this narrative.
God shows up in a pillar of smoke, then in a black nightmare fever, and then casually in the appearance of three strangers.
Abraham rolls out the red carpet for these strangers and throws a party.
Then God begins to talk to him and re-affirm His commitment to him through the strangers:
9 They said to him, “Where is Sarah your wife?” And he said, “She is in the tent.” 10 The Lord said, “I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife shall have a son.” And Sarah was listening at the tent door behind him. 11 Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in years. The way of women had ceased to be with Sarah. 12 So Sarah laughed to herself, saying, “After I am worn out, and my lord is old, shall I have pleasure?” 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 hard for the Lord? At the appointed time I will return to you, about this time next year, and Sarah shall have a son.” 15 But Sarah denied it, saying, “I did not laugh,” for she was afraid. He said, “No, but you did laugh.”
The narrative takes a turn when Sarah overhears God’s promises to Abraham and makes a joke in her head about the way in which God will fulfill His promise. The Hebrew is quite crass—I’d get kicked out of a pulpit for doing the word morphology—but here is a screenshot from the Logos word study overview:
