Out of the Cocoon, When God Invites Change; from Sarai to Sarah

Genesis 17:15-22

We are talking about change, when God invites change and the journey to spiritual maturity.

Our text continues to be Ephesians 4:15: “Speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ.”

For a biblical case study, today we will talk about Sarah, Abraham’s wife, and the dramatic changes that she experienced.

However, before we get to Sarah and her husband Abraham, let me offer a personal observation. Look out for the old people!  That is right, be very, very careful of old people.

Young people have a notion, they can’t help it, they just don’t know any better, but young people have the idea that once we arrive at a certain age, life becomes static and changes quit happening and spiritual growth is no longer an option and while the creaky old body may still be shuffling around, the soul has essentially grown rigid in preparation for death. If you are an older adult, you may even remember being fooled by that incredibly wrong idea.

For young and old alike, today I have some good news. The growth of the Spirit does not stop until you die and I have it on really good authority that it does not stop then! In fact, our time of maturity is a time for remarkable change and growth.

The issue has become freshly personal in recent days. This last week, I had a birthday that marks me as a “Mature Adult.” The past few years have been a time of remarkable and sometimes painful change. They have been a time in which God has begun to reshape my spirit for another time in the journey of life. And I know that the next few years will also be a time for dramatic personal change and I find myself asking God, what’s next?

God has not given a clear answer. God seems to be saying to me as he said to Abraham so many years ago, “I will lead you to a place that I will show you.” But I do remember the story of another pastor. He was an Italian and his name was Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli. He was born into a family of sharecroppers. As a young man, he served as a sergeant in the army and in the Chaplains Corps. As a pastor-priest, he was talented and, over time, assumed more and more responsibility in the church. And then at the age of 76, long after he should have retired according to conventional wisdom, at the age of 76 he was elected to the Papacy and became Pope John XXXIII. 

The common assumption is that he was elected as a “stop-gap” Pope. In Baptist language, we would call him an interim, a pastor who was supposed to serve between the times when the “real pastors” would lead the church. Simply because of his age, the only expectation was that this kindly, warm and gregarious old man would hold things together until he died and they expected him to die soon.

About the length of his service they were right. He served only 4 years, 7 months and 6 days before dying. But, in those few short years, he convened a little church meeting called “The Second Vatican Council” and that meeting totally transformed the Roman Catholic Church, which in turn totally transformed the way that the Catholic Church relates to other Christian Churches and the result is that the entire world of Christianity has been transformed.

Look out for the old people. Be very, very careful. They are still growing. They are still changing. And they are still very capable of responding to the call of Christ. The journey to maturity in Christ is still under way and that journey will lead some to change the world at some very ripe old ages.

Is there a biblical precedent? Let’s look at a biblical case study.  Do you remember the story of Sarah and Abraham? Actually, their names were Abram and Sarai when God first spoke to them and Abram was about 75 years old. The story begins with God saying something like this to Abram, at the age of 75, and to Sarai, “Pack up your belongings and get ready to move. I will lead you to a place where I will show you.” Even in our mature years, except for heaven itself, it is frequently true that we do not know where God will lead or what God has in store. We just go the place where God will take us.

Abram must have asked, “Why would I want to do that?” And God made a promise. God told Abram that God would make him the father of a great nation. His children would be as numerous as the stars in the sky.

I am certain that Abram asked, “Where will we end up or where are we going? Sarai wants to know.” But God’s answer was “I’m not telling. Just follow me.” And they did, from the land of Ur to the Promised Land. One day, one step, one experience at a time, they followed where God led.

Sarai must have been a gorgeous woman. When they were traveling in Egypt, Abram looked around and decided that having Sarai as a wife was a dangerous thing, so he told her to act like his sister. She did and was taken into the “Pharaoh’s palace and Abram was rewarded with lots of good things until they discovered that Sarai was Abram’s wife. This is not a family values story. But it does tell us that the journey was filled with fear and temptation and that Abram and Sarai did not always respond faithfully. This time old Abe took the coward’s way out.

God clearly chose a group of fearful, even cowardly and sinful, folk to become God’s people. The reason for that, I suspect, is that sinful people were the only people that were around with whom God could work. The obvious truth was then and is now, that if God wants to do anything in this world, God will have to do it with people who begin as sinful and faithless people. It is the only kind of people there are!

Abram and Sarai came to a time in their lives when it appeared impossible for God to fulfill the promise. Sarai was too old to have children and they were still childless. So in a season of despair, she told Abram to take Sarai’s servant woman Hagar and have a child with her. And wouldn’t you know it, Hagar immediately conceived. She was pregnant and proud and with that “Look” that only women can generate, she said to Sarai, “I have your husband’s baby and you don’t!  “So Sarai decided that Hagar had to die.

When God chose to work with the human race, there was a serious shortage of spiritually mature people. Even the parents of the chosen people, Abram and Sarai, were spiritually flawed. But God stayed with them and they stayed with God. It seems that God sees faithfulness not simply as some kind of spiritual or moral perfection but as a willingness to stay with the journey. Jesus said that those who endure to the end will be saved. Perseverance counts!

I suppose that this runs counter to the current culture where all things are supposed to happen like email, instantly. For most of us the journey to maturity is a long one that involves lots of mistakes, lots of corrections and lots of second efforts. In our relationship with God, staying the course has great value.

After Hagar’s son, Ishmael, is born, God renews his promise to Abram and Sarai. This time the covenant is marked by circumcision.  And God says to Abram, your name will no longer be Abram but Abraham and I am telling you again that you will be the father of a great nation. And the mother of the nation will be Sarai who, from now on, will be called Sarah. And Abraham laughed. “We’re too old,” he said. “It cannot be done. Not even God can do this!”

And in the next chapter, God himself, in the form of a traveler, visits with Abraham and Sarah and he tells them, before this time next year, Sarah will have a child and this time, Sarah laughs. Sarah laughs to herself knowing that it is impossible for old people to generate new birth. Not even God can do that! And within a year, she gave birth to Isaac, whose name means laughter. Guess who is laughing now.

Out of this pair of old pilgrims, new life has been born!  Nothing is impossible with God!

Now I can hear some of you saying, “That’s fine for Abraham and Sarah, but at my age I don’t want any more children…thank you very much!” The good news for you is that God doesn’t want you to have any more children, so take a deep breath and relax.

What you and I need to hear is that nothing is impossible with God!  There is no time in life when God is excluded from bringing new life. And God’s new life is always the right life for you in your current time and place. It is what God needs from you now!

For Abraham and Sarah, the new life took the form of a son. For you and me, it could be a new delight in the events of the day. It may be a new vocation that is just right for our time and place. I think of our friend Paul Kondy who retired from pastoral ministry to become a Nebraska cowboy. He became a ranch hand and as a ranch hand found a new enjoyment in life and all of his skills and commitments as a pastor were integrated into his new relationships. “Go to the place that I will show you,” God said to Abraham.

Last week as I was listening to one of the sports shows, I heard a coach complain about his players. He said that they were “thinking too much.” Now I generally consider thinking to be a good thing and I think that I understand his meaning.

The coach wants his players to understand the fundamentals of the game so well that when something happens on the court, rather than having to think about what comes next, they just do it. It becomes an automatic response. The coach wants his players to understand their assignments so well that when something happens on the court, they do not have to get out the play book and they do not have to consult with one another and they do not have to remember their place in the scheme of things. Instead, instantaneously, they just do it. Not only have they learned it in their minds, they have learned it in their hands and feet and their hands and feet move before their conscious mind thinks. They just do it!

Jesus called his friends disciples. They were the students in his class room. They were the players on his team. He is the teacher. He is the coach. And I think that Jesus’ hope and dream for us is that we will know his lessons so well, we will know the basics so well, that in certain life situations, rather than having to agonize over the response, we just do it. We just do it because over time it has become embedded in our hearts and minds and in our hands and feet. It is a sign of our maturity in Christ.

But that only happens over time. It only happens as we spend time with Jesus and as we deliberately learn his lessons. It happens as we practice the fundamentals of life as he teaches life. It happens over time through the years, as we grow towards maturity in Christ.

New life from God can come at any time and it comes in every time, but today I want to say, “Look out for the old people. Look out for those who have spent a lifetime with God. Look out for those who have lived in the classroom with Jesus year after year and decade after decade. Look out. In the name of Jesus, they just might change your world.”