More laughter… this time from Sarah-ah-ah-ah-ah.
In conversation we often exchange sounds that aren’t actually part of the information exchange. I hear it happening twice in this chapter.
No I didn’t…
Yes you did…
This sound exchange exposes the mixed emotions that its sounders have. More so, it reveals the possibilities of this relationship. Sarah the venerable, is being told off but I hear humour and love at the back.
Similarly Abraham’s bargaining with God, is as a child. He is testing his boundaries. The listeners to the story know that Sodom and Gomorrah won’t survive. Hearing this to and fro reveals the relationship that Abraham and God are growing into. A child and its parent have all kinds of sound exchanges like this.
God is here because…
the outcry… is so great
that I will… see
if what they have done is as bad as
the outcry that has reached me.
This echoes with the listening, seeing God we heard of, in Hagar’s story. Though light is quicker, it is the sound that alerts first.
This brings us to how the bible treats light and sound in the environment of God. Just a few thoughts:
- Light is created stuff in Genesis but what of sound?
- Light seems ‘outside’. Sound seems to come from within and reaches within.
- Is sound somehow more ‘natural’ to the person of God while light somehow more ‘creaturely’? Why can God hear from heaven while he comes down to his creation to see?