Tedd Pullano
Genesis 18:1-15

Is Anything Too Hard?

I tend to be pretty direct about things -- sort of a "cut to the chase" person. And as a person and a pastor, I like to ask the hard, provoking question -- to sort of get underneath everything and get to the core. So, this for me this passage from Genesis is great because it does just that. You see, it raises a critical question for any person of faith -- a question of what we believe about God. It is a question which we have to struggle with every day, whether we know it or not, as we think about our everyday activities and situations -- the good and the bad. It can be a hard part of our faith, but one I believe is central to how we think, talk and act. I believe answering it makes us understand whom we have chosen to trust with our lives. And so I ask each of you: "Is anything too hard for the LORD?" (Solicit responses).

Okay, thank you for your genuineness of answers. It can be a difficult question to answer. "Is anything too hard for the LORD?" It really goes to the heart of who we are and how we act in this world. Considering it challenges us to know just how much we trust this God of ours. Just ask Abraham and Sarah. They were faced with the question in a very real way. When we find them today, they were faced with the question of what they would believe about this God who had entered their lives 25 years ago. If you remember the scene from last week, they were both about 75 years old and Sarah was barren and yet were longing for children. So, into that scene pops this God who promises them not just children, but heirs to fill and bless the world. Basically, God promises to bring new life to where there is death. So, Abraham and Sarah were given this awesome promise which even initially seemed improbable and unreasonable: even though you are 75 years old and have no children, you will the father to a great nation and bless all the people of the world. So they got all excited and waited. 25 years they waited. 25 years after the promise and nothing. 25 years puts them at about 100 years old. That is where we find them today. So, at this point, it is no wonder they are a little skeptical of the promise and the power of God. It has been 25 years since the promise was made. That is a long time to hold out hope. I mean, there is clearly a window for a child and that window was closed. It was an impossible situation -- there was nothing in the reality of this world that pointed to the promise being fulfilled. It made no sense, had no basis in reality. According to the ways of this world, what they had been hoping for and what they had been promised could not happen. The expectation was for new life to come out of barrenness. That is absolutely crazy. So they laughed. And yet, in the face of this situation, they are asked, perhaps unreasonably, to hold faithfully to the promise of God. With the question: "Is anything too hard for the LORD?" God implies "Trust me."

So, what eventually happens here? We are not going to read Chapter 21, but God does indeed fulfill his promise. Sarah gets pregnant, has Isaac, and we are aware of "the rest of the story". Promised fulfilled. Into that situation of deadness, God walked bringing new life. Amen! God goes outside the realm and possibility of this natural world and continues the process of creation. And God can do this because ours is the God of hope and the God of impossible situations. So let me ask again, in a little different way, Is that your God? Is that really your God? Do you hold fast to the promises of God to do the incredible? Is this the God who is central in your life? Or do you limit God? Do you not pray for help because you don't think God can do that thing? Is anything to hard for the LORD? I don't mean to go to the same well too often, but again I appreciate what Walter Brueggeman says regarding the Genesis text. He writes the following: "Once again, this story shows what a scandal and difficulty faith is. Faith is not a reasonable act which fits into the normal scheme of life and perception. The promise of the gospel is not a conventional piece of wisdom that is easily accommodated to everything else." Our God is a big God. God is the source of our energy and trust to open up the future for us. The possibilities for the future, or even the present, for us, as Christians, are not based on our senses, on our own abilities, our own capacities or the realities of science, nature and math. They are based on God. That is not conventional or reasonable, but it brings new life out of death. No situation can stymie the Divine purpose. God brings hope where there is none. This is the God that Annie Dillard refers to when she says: Does anyone have the foggiest idea of what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies' straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets! Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews! For the sleeping God may awake someday and take offense, or the waking God may draw us to where we can never return. Is that the God you have in your life?

Well, the waking God awoke to Abraham and Sarah and brought life, and life abundant, to them. So what about you? Where in your life do you need the new life that God promises to you? Where is the barrenness and brokenness and pain, the "stuckness" and dryness you are facing? Is there some sin in your life that is keeping you from fullness of life? Is it drugs, alcohol, food, anger, money -- what is it for you -- that is keeping you from the fullness of life that God promises? Whatever that thing is, I want to affirm, based upon this morning's passage, and really the whole testimony of the Scriptures, that God can breathe new life into the area of barrenness and death in your life. I cannot tell you how or when, but I can tell that she can do it. I have seen it happen, I have felt it happen. I believe that God is able to do anything God chooses to do. Nothing is outside the capacity of God.

Now, let me clarify that I do not believe that God's ability to do the impossible reaches into the areas that some people want. It is not some random capacity that means God will give you a nice new house or cool car just for the asking. It is much deeper and different than that. And sometimes more difficult. You see, God does not always go out of the way to make life easier. That is not the promise. Sometimes there will be pain in your life, pain that is not pleasant. Ask Abraham and Sarah as they waited for the promise to be fulfilled. Ask the Israelites who wandered in the desert for 40 years. Ask Jesus who said to God in the Garden of Gethsemane, can you take this cup of pain and death from me, to which the answer was no. I do not totally understand how God works in relation to these things, but I do affirm with the Psalmist that God has a plan and it is a plan for our good. We are asked to trust in that, like Abraham and Sarah, like Jesus as he approached the cross.

The God of new life. That is whom we serve. The God who can breathe hope into hopelessness. The God who brings peace into violence. The God who can breathe new life into death. After all, that is exactly what he did with Jesus Christ. That is what we celebrate on Easter every year -- new life out of death. And that is where we are called to live in, and out of -- this power of new life. God is calling you today, asking you trust him that when you commit yourself to him, he will take care of you -- he will have your best interests in his hands as he leads you along your journey. It may not always be easy, but it will be full of the life and love of God.

My friends, we are a resurrection people. If we choose to claim to live in that place, we will be able to overcome those things which keep us from a full life with God. We won't have to live in our sinfulness anymore. We can just live in our fullness. I urge to trust in God and claim the promise that he holds out to you -- a claim of peace for the journey. I urge you to let God be God in all her fullness and glory.