Genesis 18:1-15, 21:1-7
“He
who laughs last, laughs longest.” “Laugh
and the world laughs with you; cry and you cry alone.” “Laughter is the best medicine.” “Laugh to keep from crying.” “A good laugh and a good sleep are the best
cures for anything.”
We
live in a world that embraces laughter.
After all, we have birthed the likes of comedians Charlie Chaplin, Robin
Williams, Steve Martin, John Belushi, Lily Tomlin, Phyllis Diller, and Carol
Burnett. We laughed our way though films
such as “City Lights”, “Mrs. Doubtfire”, “Planes, Trains, and Automobiles” and
“Animal House.” We nurtured our laughter
(canned and real) on Saturday Night Live, I Love Lucy, Rowan and Martin’s Laugh
In, and The Gong Show.
Yes,
we live in a world that embraces laughter – except when it comes to church and
religion. Then we seem to turn our backs
on it and tumble into stiff-necked seriousness and endless frowns. A good number of the folks “out there” beyond
these four walls think that we “in here” are all about appeasing a God who is
just itching to find an excuse to smack us down and smite the world. And, besides, who wants to spend a summer
Sunday morning being reminded of one’s folly, shortcomings, and endless
sins? No wonder our churches are so
empty!
Seriously,
how are pastors usually portrayed in literature and films? The ones who are not pushovers and doormats
are characterized by their grave solemnity and distasteful disdain for and
impatience with the human race.
People
“out there” often presume that a pastor’s favorite sermon topic is like that of
the Puritan preacher Jonathan Edwards who told his fear-filled and quaking
Massachusetts congregation in 1741: “The God that holds you over the pit of
hell, much as one holds a spider or
some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked. His wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon
you as worthy of nothing else but to be cast into the fire.” That sermon is appropriately entitled
“Sinners in the Hand of an Angry God” and, I suspect, involved a lot of
agitated hand gestures and pulpit whacking.
And yet, the Bible is full of
laughter. The Psalmist sings of it. “Our mouths
were filled with laughter,
our tongues with songs of joy.” The
author of Ecclesiastes reminds us that laughter is part of the rhythm of life
itself. “For everything there is a
season: A time to laugh…” The Apostle Paul
refers to joy/laughter as one of the gifts of the spirit, and Jesus speaks of
it in some translations of the Beatitudes as the reward for those who
weep.
And then, of course, there is the story
of Sarah laughing her head off in the family tent when she eavesdrops on those
strangers come to call who share the news with her husband, Abraham, that she
will bear a son.
It all began under the oak trees of
Mamre on a sultry afternoon when the desert sun shone down mercilessly. The only thing to do on a day like that was
to take a nap until the evening breezes came.
And that was exactly what Abraham was doing when God appeared to
him.
Even though Abraham was known to have
had conversations with the Almighty previously - on the topic of land (how
God/Yahweh would give him some) and descendants (how God promised a son to
carry on the family line – a promise that had thus far gone unfulfilled), Abraham
did not recognize his God before him now. He
saw only three strangers, one of whom had apparently nudged his outstretched
foot, disturbing his pattern of gentle snoring.
Abraham lazily opened one eye, and then sat bolt upright.
Travelers in the heat of the day like
this? Folks walking in the blazing desert with no shade to speak of? Now that was laughable, if not downright
foolhardy.
Abraham struggled to his feet – his
ancient knees creaking and popping - as quickly as one could expect a 99 year
old man to get upright. He rocked side
to side to stretch his back – the old lumbar region was acting up again. Once up, however, it took only a fraction of
a second for all of Abraham’s Bedouin upbringing to kick in, and hospitality to
become the instant norm.
“Come. come closer. The shade of
the oak trees is cool, and here you are traveling in the heat of the day. Take
a load off. Let me get you something to drink. You must be thirsty. Can you
stay for dinner?”
Barely
waiting for an answer, Abraham hustled them under the spreading oak trees out
of the sun. He then moved as quickly as
his old body would allow him to the cattle pen where he oversaw the slaughter
of a calf for dinner – but not before he had stuck his head in the kitchen where
Sarah already busied herself.
“Psst! Sarah!
Hurry. Get three cups of our best flour; knead it and make bread. We have guests.”
Sarah
finished up the hummus she had started earlier in the day, sighed as she put
olives in a cut glass dish for the strangers, and then dutifully baked her
bread.
A few
hours later, the makeshift feast was ready.
All in all, it was a pretty good spur-of-the-moment dinner. There was the fat and tender roasted calf
steaks, milk, curds, and Sarah’s offerings of bread, hummus, and olives. Abraham and the three strangers enjoyed it
under the oaks, picnic-style, while Sarah did the dishes inside the tent.
She
was not really eavesdropping, but she could not help but listen when she heard
her name spoken. I mean, who would not
be a wee bit curious? You see, one of
the men asked Abraham, “By the way, where is Sarah?”
“Oh,”
Abraham replied, a bit surprised that anyone should wonder about Sarah in the
first place. It was not that Abraham did
not think of his wife fondly. It was
just that he did not think that much about her at all. She was always around – his best friend
really. Maybe he did take her for
granted sometimes, but, well, if a woman’s place was in the home, where did
these strangers think she would be?
“She’s
there in the tent doing the dishes,” he replied a bit testily.
It
was at that precise moment that one of the strangers, presumably speaking on
behalf of all of them, made his outrageous declaration out-of-the-blue. “I’m coming back about this time next year.
When I arrive, your wife Sarah will have a son.”
(LAUGHTER)
Now,
Sarah just so happened to have been standing inside the tent behind the man who
had spoken, so she heard every word.
Menopausal Sarah snorted with disbelief and whispered to herself.
“An
old woman like me? 90 years old? Get
pregnant? With this old man of a husband?”
Or
– as another translation paraphrases it, “Now that I am old and worn out, can I
still enjoy sex? Will I now – after all
these years - be gushing with pleasure?
And besides, my husband is older than I am. Can he even still have sex?”
Sarah
thought of her show white hair, her wrinkled skin, and the arthritis forever
creeping deeper into her joints. And
then she thought of Abraham’s shock of gray hair, his wrinkled skin, and bad
back, and arthritic knees. She shook her
head and could not help but again snort with laughter – the laughter of
cynicism, of promises unfulfilled, of dreams long gone, of disbelief.
The
stranger who had spoken heard her muffled guffaw – and maybe sensed a bit of
the pain that lay nestled within it. He
called her bluff and asked to whomever might be listening, “Why did Sarah laugh
saying, ‘Me? Have a baby? An old woman like me?’
The
stranger paused for a moment, and the silence deepened as silence does just
before something important is revealed.
“But I say,” he went on. “Is anything too hard for God?”
Called
out of her hiding, Sarah denied the whole thing. She lied and said, “Who? Me? I
did not laugh.”
The
stranger smiled and gently replied, “Yes, you did. You laughed. But that is OK. God is about laughter. God is about joy. God is about promises fulfilled and dreams
come true. Is anything too hard for
God? You watch. You will be laughing again in a year’s
time. You will look into a baby’s eyes,
and you will laugh.”
And
Sarah did – but that second time she laughed with joy. She laughed until the tears rolled down her
face. She laughed in faith this time -
faith in a God who is so good, in a God who keeps promises, in a God who dreams
dreams that one day, when we least expect it and in ways we might never expect,
come true. And Sarah insisted that the
baby be named Isaac, which means “laughter” in Hebrew – because, well, because: Is anything too hard for God?
Be careful how you
answer that question, of course! As
Mennonite Ben Patterson blogged: “Answer
yes (God can not do everything) and the world is shut down, the universe is
closed, and God is no longer God: benevolent, maybe; kindly and concerned,
perhaps; but as powerless as we.
Answer “No, there is nothing that is too
hard for God,” and you and the world are in (God’s) hands and the possibilities
are endless. (God) is radically free to keep (God’s) promises, despite the odds
against it.”
Personally, I think God loves a good laugh, a good
joke. I think God loves putting
something over on humanity, tossing something into the mix that is so
outlandish, so incongruous that we almost can hear God snorting with mirth in
the background.
The best example, of course, is as Episcopal priest Jonathan
Currier reminds us: “Frederico Felini could not have come up
with a stranger cast than the oddball crew God chooses to star in the story of
salvation…Think of Peter, the bumbling, big-talking, backwater fisherman who
became first among apostles and bishop of the church at Rome. (And, of course,) any God who chooses a
carpenter from the one-horse town of Nazareth as the redeemer of the universe
certainly has a sense of (laughter).”
And let’s not forget Sarah – and the magical night she must have had
with Abraham – two old codgers once bound for the old age home now choosing the
color (it’s gotta be blue, right?) for a nursery.
“Is there
anything too hard for God?” No – I do
not think so – with one proviso. You
see, I think God calls on us to play a substantial part in realizing our hopes
and dreams – and the hopes and dreams of the world. After all, Abraham and Sarah had to disappear
into their tent for a night of bliss in order for Isaac to be born. It did not just happen.
It is like the story of a very religious man
once caught in rising floodwaters. He climbed onto the roof of his house and
trusted God to rescue him. A neighbor came by in a canoe and said, “The waters
will soon be above your house. Hop in and we’ll paddle to safety.”
“No thanks”
replied the religious man. “I’ve prayed to God and I’m sure God will save me”
A short time
later the police came by in a boat. “The waters will soon be above your house.
Hop in and we’ll take you to safety.”
“No thanks”
replied the religious man. “I’ve prayed to God and I’m sure God will save me”
A little time
later a rescue services helicopter hovered overhead, let down a rope ladder and
said. “The waters will soon be above your house. Climb the ladder and we’ll fly
you to safety.”
“No thanks”
replied the religious man. “I’ve prayed to God and I’m sure God will save me”
All this time
the floodwaters continued to rise, until soon they reached above the roof and
the religious man drowned. When he arrived at heaven he demanded an audience
with God. Ushered into God’s throne room he said, “God, why am I here in
heaven? I prayed for you to save me, I trusted you to save me from that flood.”
“Yes, you did,
my child,” replied God. “And I sent you a canoe, a boat, and a helicopter. But
you never got in.”
Our God is a
God of laughter. Our God is a God of the
improbable and the impossible. Our God
is a God of promises fulfilled and dreams come true. But our God is also a God who expects us to
participate in the creation of our blessings.
Like Sarah, we have all
suffered crushing disappointments. Like Sarah, we have waited for dreams that seem
to have long since faded. Like Sarah, we easily resort to cynicism.
But,
like Sarah, may we still find it in us to laugh – at the enormity of it all and
the incongruity of life. May we be like
Sarah and find it in us to laugh at that niggling hope and tiny bit of endless
faith deep within us that maybe, just maybe, our hopes and dreams will one day,
with the help of the God of laughter coupled with our own faithful action, be
made real.
And
then we, like Sarah, will have our answer to that ancient question: “Is anything too hard for God?”
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