There
was a certain game which my father played with all of us when we were children.
It was a game without a name but I will name it for today, "What Happens
Next?" It went something like this: My father would read a story or watch
a movie with us, say the Wizard of Oz. And when he had read the last page
or we had watched the last scene, when Dorothy wakes up wondering if she
had truly been to Oz or if it had all been some kind of a mystical dream,
just then... just when we expected my father to say "THE END"... he would
say something else.
"Well, that cannot be the end of the story," he would say, "What do you think happens next?"
And, in the case of the Wizard of Oz, we might start imagining what it would have been like for Dorothy to go back to school or how her dream which was all in color -- the dream that might not have been a dream -- how that might have changed the rest of her black and white life. But my father was very good at this game. He would reel us in (so gently) from our wild imaginings and say, "Good ideas, but what is the very next thing that happens? What do you think happens right after this ending?"
Then he made sure that the characters came alive: "Did Dorothy get up from the bed and brush her teeth? Did she run to a friend's house to tell what had happened? Did she start writing it down so she would never forget how she made it home? Or did she make herself busy so that she could forget that she had traded the colors of Oz for the black and white of the Kansas prairie? What is the very next thing that happens?"
In the book of Genesis, we find Abraham sitting where there is some shade from the hot sun. He is just about 100 years old. Too many years had passed since God had told Abraham to look up at the night sky and promised him that his ancestors would number as many as the stars. Promises, promises. All these years later. Abraham has, in his wallet, a membership card for the AARP but no children or grandchildren to show off. Not a single one. Old Abraham wonders what went wrong.
And then, faster than you can say Geritol, there are three visitors standing in front of Abraham. He pulls himself up and he offers these men hospitality -- an invitation: "Wash here, stay and drink, eat, visit with us." And even before Abraham comes into the tent, Sarah knows that she will do the work. She rolls her eyes. It is always this way. And as she prepares the food, she can hear the men making small talk and she finds herself wondering, like Abraham, "What went wrong?" They had longed for children, God had promised but none had come. It was a subject that she and Abraham never discussed. Promises, promises.
More Promises
Sarah still has not seen the faces of these mysterious strangers, but as she works away, she hears one of them say to Abraham, "Where is your wife, Sarah?" It echoes in her ear. "Did he say, Sarah? How could he know my name?" And before she has another second to think, he says it-- "I will surely return to you in due season, and your wife Sarah shall have a son." At first, Sarah freezes. Promises, promises. She had heard it all before -- Abraham talking to God, to a stranger, to the stars... Abraham, at 100 years old, talking to himself... Sarah has had enough. And so, she responds to the stranger's word, just as we might.
It is impossible for her to have a child. He is her husband, but at 100, they are no longer lovers. Even after God had promised descendants enough to light the skies, no children came. And so, Sarah laughs, so much so that she is unable to hold her June Cleaver homemaker act together. She speaks to the stranger, "After I have grown old, and my husband is old, shall I have pleasure?" She laughs. She'd heard it all before. If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Promises, promises.
She laughs to keep from crying, to hide the pain, to keep it down. Her losses had been mounting, her disappointments adding up. Her dreams had slipped away, her hopes were drowned and her husband still stared at the skies... waiting for something, it seemed. Promises, promises.
And here my father might ask, "So, what happens next?"
We think we know
We always think we know how a story goes, especially the story of our own life, in a way. We see our lives within a narrow band of possibility. We know what is possible and what is not possible. Next Christmas might be a little worse or a little better than last but about the same. The job that bores me.... will bore me still. Our marriage is a certain way, should I stay or should I go? Maybe I can bear it a few more years. The bad back, the cataracts, the boredom... that's life, we guess. What will happen next is, more or less, what happened before. The best we can do (we say) is to try and appreciate what is good and to protect ourselves from the worst. We, like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, have traded all our color for black and white. That, I am afraid, is not much of a life.
God has promised us so much more. Maybe you are kicking and screaming your way into a new phase of life but maybe, just maybe, on the other side of what feels like death, there is a resurrection... a life, a life where love is made new, where there is no job but a calling... maybe to the same work in a new way or maybe to new work. In the economy of God, what happens next is not necessarily what has happened before. What is too good to be true, can happen.
Glimpses of God
The promises of God start with a promise that life is more than it seems. What God can see, that we can only glimpse, is a life for us full of color, full of mystery and love. If Christ is born into your life today, then today is a new Christmas. And if you say that I am a star-gazer and dreamer, I confess. But we are all sons and daughters of Abraham... star-gazing and dreaming is in our blood. Remember Sarah, before you laugh at the promises of God.
As the strangers go on there way, maybe Sarah wonders if maybe, just maybe, the strangers words are too good not to be true. Maybe the stranger is no stranger at all. Maybe Sarah wanders back into the tent. Maybe she doesnt know that Abraham watches her every move. And maybe she cradles an imaginary child in her arms. Maybe she hums a lullaby to the child she does not have. It is time that hope floats.
And Abraham, Old Father Abraham, sees Sarah again. He sees her like it is the first time. There are stars in his eyes and a stirring deep within him which he has not felt for a long, long time. It is a feeling he had forgotten until just now. What happens next? What happens next... is that a very old man and a very old woman lie down to make love under the stars, hoping in the promises of God to do what seems impossible...
The first move, the promising, is always God's move. The second move -- the hoping, the believing, and the waiting -- that is always our move. God gives us a glimpse of something wonderful, something that makes our hearts race... We dream of owning our own business or home and of raising a family. We hope for good health, meaningful work, and a chance to see some of the world. We look up at the stars and hope that our marriage might be made new... that we might see our spouse afresh, that we might be seen afresh. We think of old adversaries, old wounds, old mistakes..., and we hope for forgiveness, for healing, and for a new start.
And if we find ourselves laughing at these promises, from which we draw our deepest hopes, we will be wise to remember Sarah. That word from the stranger (who was no stranger) turned out to be a true and lively word. With the colors of Spring came the birth of a son to old Sarah and Abraham. Sarah rocked a real baby in her arms and life was forever changed. Sarah and Abraham were forever changed. Promises, promises. They named the baby Isaac which, in Hebrew, means (of all things) "laughter."
James Adams is Episcopal Chaplain at Dartmouth College and Assistant Rector at St. Thomas Church. He is author of the book, The Prince Mammoth Pumpkin~A Parable, an adult fable published by Paulist Press and available from Faith@Work. He lives with his wife and three daughters in Hanover NH.