A question for you, and one I want you to take a moment to consider deeply: Have you ever been laughed at? In a high moment, when you were at the top of the world and feeling good about yourself or proud of an accomplishment, has someone pulled the rug out from under you by laughing at you? In a low moment, when you were already at your most vulnerable, have you been laughed at? For roughly half the population—the male half—there is nothing worse. Author Margaret Atwood once famously said while a woman’
Lest we misunderstand, this is the experience that Sarah has in the Genesis reading today. Sarah is a prominent woman, the spouse of Abraham, who has become an affluent, nomadic trader in Canaan. Abraham and Sarah are leading citizens, we might say, with all the social cache that comes from their position. And yet, Sarah bears a heavy burden, a deep sorrow that is well-known in the community but never spoken. Sarah is, and has been all her life, barren. She cannot bear children. Whether she is unable
In our world, with fertility treatments and global adoption options, families have infinitely greater opportunity to remedy childlessness. And in our world, women have agency not to have children and create a different kind of flourishing life. Sarah’s world is not our world. In a culture in which there is no social safety net, children are the insurance of well-being in one’s old age. In a religion that has not yet developed an idea of the afterlife, children are the assurance of immortality, that one’s