Freedom Month
June 18th, 2023
Year A; 3rd Pentecost
Genesis 18: 1-15
Psalm 116: 1, 10-17
Matthew 9: 35-10:8
Genesis 18:1-15
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. 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. He said, “My lord, if I find favor with you, do not pass by your servant. Let a little water be brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree. 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.” And Abraham hastened into the tent to Sarah, and said, “Make ready quickly three measures of choice flour, knead it, and make cakes.” Abraham ran to the herd, and took a calf, tender and good, and gave it to the servant, who hastened to prepare it. 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.
They said to him, “Where is your wife Sarah?” And he said, “There, in the tent.” 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. Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in age; it had ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women. So Sarah laughed to herself, saying, “After I have grown old, and my husband is old, shall I have pleasure?” The Lord said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh, and say, ‘Shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old?’ 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.” But Sarah denied, saying, “I did not laugh”; for she was afraid. He said, “Oh yes, you did laugh.”
Homily by the Rev. Megan Limburgh
In the name of the Holy Three. Amen.
Tim and I were talking yesterday with new neighbors, folks who have bought the lot next to us and plan to build a weekend house in the coming year. They drive here from Maryland and spoke of how the traffic has just exploded in the past week; graduations are over, school is out, and summer vacations have started, and the roads are busy!
And our weather continues to be so beautiful, all the summer activities and holidays are inviting, rather than 90 degrees and high humidity!
Just in the month of June we can gather for so many reasons and enjoy time with family and friends: Father’s Day today, Juneteenth tomorrow, the summer solstice later this week, and throughout June, Pride Month events, celebrate the LGBTQ+ community.
AND, most importantly of all, the College Baseball World series is this week in Omaha Nebraska, in which UVA plays this afternoon at 2pm!
As we enjoy the festivals of summer, our readings both speak of stepping out and taking a risk.
In our reading from Genesis, Abraham is now 100 years old and Sarah now 90; 25 years have passed since last week’s reading in which they, then known as Abram and Sarai, heard God’s call to go, to step out and leave home and family and homeland. A first big risk. And God calls us, and opens a door for us and promises to be with us, but God does not promise that calls are easy. And things indeed have not gone smoothly for Abraham and Sarah, they have experienced famine and trouble, and pain between the two of them, and the call is not done yet.
And now, in the sleepy heat of the day, under the oak trees, strangers appear from nowhere, and come to speak to Abraham.
Strangers we must remember were on the list that appears repeatedly in the Bible, with widows and orphans, those in great need, and danger, as they travel and are away from help and family and community, all three groups have no safety net to catch them.
Abraham might have felt first an instinct to shy away, to hide from strangers. But he looks at them, he risks looking at them, and in the looking he sees something holy in them, and runs to bring them refreshment, water to wash their feet, and good food to feed them.
The strangers ask about Sarah, and they proclaim that within a year she will be give birth to a son.
And Sarah, listening in the tent, snorts with laughter, and likely rolled her eyes.
Absurd and ridiculous! And for goodness’ sake, she must have thought, this call thing has been going on for 25 years, and now this?!
Indeed, when we get old, in years or in spirit, we can lose our ability to imagine, to see with God’s eyes all that is possible. And pregnant is WAY beyond what Sarah, weary and 90, can imagine. And she laughs!
And suddenly God is there and asks about Sarah’s laughter.
God asks Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh?” And goes on to say that beautiful, hopeful phrase “Is anything too wonderful for the LORD?”
But Sarah is afraid, as we all are when we get caught by hope in our cynicism. And she covers up her laugh and lies to God, saying no, she did not laugh. You must be mistaken.
But God knows us so much better than we will ever admit, and God says to her: “Oh, yes, you did laugh.”
This encounter is often seen as a reprimand from God.
But I hear more of a new invitation to risk. God hearing and understanding Sarah’s snorting laugh, and leading her away from the lies we tell to cover up how we really feel, and instead, tells her again, in a year you will have given birth to a son. I heard you laugh, but listen to me now.
In our gospel reading, the disciples are being told by Jesus that rather than the risk of welcoming strangers, they will be the strangers, taking a risk and going out alone and without a safety net.
Jesus is sending them out to tell folks about him and to offer healing to all in need. He says go and heal those harassed and helpless folks, those wandering, homeless sheep.
The risk of being the stranger and the risk of accepting the stranger, welcoming them, getting to know them.
How can these passages speak forward to us in this warm, beautiful, and festive June in 2023?
The month of June holds two celebrations that invite us to join in rejoicing with folks that we might have perceived or might still perceive as strangers.
At the heart of our sin as humans, is a sin that keeps us far from our brother and savior Jesus, who had compassion for the crowds as they were harassed and helpless, and greatly in need of compassion and care.
The sin we fall back into over and over is the sin of creating the other, those who are less, the unacceptable, and the next step is less human, and then we enslave one another, we use and divide and hurt, and we are far from home, and lost.
Tomorrow June 19th, is Juneteenth and is now, finally, celebrated as a national holiday here in the United States.
This day, also called Freedom Day, gets its name from combining June and nineteenth, thus Juneteenth, and remembers when enslaved people in our country, after generations of families being born into slavery, and living and dying in slavery, for over 200 years, imprisoned as slaves in our country, finally the Emancipation Proclamation was signed in 1863.
The Smithsonian Museum explains:
“On “Freedom’s Eve,” or the eve of January 1, 1863, the first Watch Night services took place. On that night, enslaved and free African Americans gathered in churches and private homes all across the country awaiting news that the Emancipation Proclamation had taken effect. At the stroke of midnight, prayers were answered as all enslaved people in Confederate States were declared legally free. Union soldiers, many of whom were black, marched onto plantations and across cities in the south reading small copies of the Emancipation Proclamation spreading the news of freedom in Confederate States.
But not everyone in Confederate territory would immediately be free. Even though the Emancipation Proclamation was made effective in 1863, it could not be implemented in places still under Confederate control. As a result, in the westernmost Confederate state of Texas, enslaved people would not be free until much later. Freedom finally came on June 19, 1865, when some 2,000 Union troops arrived in Galveston Bay, Texas. The army announced that the more than 250,000 enslaved black people in the state, were free by executive decree. This day came to be known as "Juneteenth," by the newly freed people in Texas.”
Remembering long delayed, long prayed for freedom on Juneteenth.
And in Pride month, for our LGBTQ+ siblings, celebrating no longer hiding, no longer pretending, finally free to be fully themselves, their beautiful self that God created.
Celebrating freedom, both Juneteenth and Pride month, and yet both groups feeling the unease of attack in 2023, as hate crimes against both black Americans and LGBTQ+ folks continue to rise in our country.
And with attack, the shadow of being the stranger again in one’s own country, with the widows and orphans, without a safety net.
Can we as Christians take a risk, in seeing the holy in all our brothers and sisters, all our siblings in Christ?
In this gorgeous balmy June, can we celebrate not just our freedom but freedom for all, no longer strangers but friends?
Our closing hymn will say it so well:
“In Christ there is no East or West, in him no South or North, but one great fellowship of love throughout the whole wide world.”
Amen.