Genesis 18.1-15; (21.1-7)
Researchers
in England sought to find the world’s funniest joke based on feedback from
people around the globe.
The
study found that Germans were the most easily amused, as they rated more jokes as
being “very funny” than people from any other nation. One of the favorite jokes
among the Germans was: “Why is television called a medium? Because it is
neither rare nor well-done.”
People
in France liked this one: “‘You’re a high-priced lawyer! If I give you
$500.00 will you answer two question for me?’ ‘Absolutely! What’s the second
question?’”
Folks
in Sweden liked this joke: “A guy phones the local hospital and yells,
‘You’ve gotta send help! My wife’s in labor!’ The nurse says, ‘Calm down. Is
this her first child?’ He says, ‘No! This is her husband!’”
But
the Laughlab determined that out of the 10,000 entries, the following joke
generated the most laughs:
[Sherlock
Homes and Watson camping.]
The
passage this morning is about laughter. Actually it is about two types of
laughter. The laughter at the absurd, and the laughter of utter joy. And the
passage is about how God can turn the one into the other.
The
absurd that brings laughter to Sarah is the very idea that a 99 year old
woman, many decades beyond menopause, would become pregnant and have a
baby. (The other absurdity was that this would be her and that it wouldn’t kill
her when it happened!) The laughter of joy happens when she does indeed
have a child, a son, as God had promised. And she named the boy, Isaac,
which is the Hebrew word for “Laughter.”
This
passage works on several different levels. One of the things we notice in the
passage when we read it carefully is how fast Abraham does everything.
When
Abraham saw three men he ran from the tent to meet them. Then he hastened
into the tent and tells Sarah, “Make ready quickly three measure
of choice flour.” Then Abraham ran to the herd and took a calf,
gave it to his servant who hastened to prepare it.
For
an old guy he moves pretty quickly. But this is setting up a contrast to where
the story is going. Abraham bends over backwards to show hospitality to the
strangers. When the men go to Sodom and Gomorrah, Lot will bend over backwards
to show hospitality to the strangers as well. In contrast, the men of Sodom and
Gomorrah will do just the opposite. They attempt to set upon the men and
brutalize them with a show of force designed to strip all their dignity.
But
we know already that Abraham is a righteous man, by the very fact that he is in
Canaan, rather than his homeland of Ur, what is now Southern Iraq. God told him
to leave his country and security behind, and Abraham packed up his family and
became a “wandering Aramean,” as Jewish liturgy puts it.
Abraham
was promised an heir through which Abraham would become the father of a great
nation, and one that would bless the earth. But Abraham and Sarah got old, and
it didn’t look like this was going to happen.
Abraham
tried to fulfill the promise by adopting his servant Eliezer, but the Lord told
him this wouldn’t do. Sarah also tried to fulfill the promise by giving Abraham
her slave-girl. The results were disastrous, and God said that this wouldn’t do
either. This promise wasn’t for them to fulfill, it was to be the action of
God. (fertility god & war god)
But
after everything had failed, and they had gotten old, Abraham too laughed at
God. Before this story when God had restated his promise to an aged Abraham, it
says that he “fell on his face.” In other words, he was (roflol) rolling on
floor laughing out loud.
Sarah,
however, is much more restrained than her husband. Hers is a private laugh,
behind the scene, in the tent. Then for the first time in the story, instead of
“them” speaking, or “one of the men” speaking, it says “The Lord said to
Abraham …”
And
the question was … only a question God could have known to ask … “Why did
Sarah laugh?” And then Sarah blurts out from the tent, “I didn’t laugh!”
And the Lord said, “Oh yes, you did laugh.”
One
of the things about this story that has always struck me is that God does not
seem offended by the laughter of disbelief from Abraham and Sarah. It is almost
as if the whole thing amuses God to some degree as well. After all, God could
have given them a son 50 years earlier, but held off, waited until if it
happened, it could only be attributed to God. So, in the story God creates the
absurdity, and doesn’t seem angry when Abraham and Sarah laugh at the absurdity
God created.
Laughter
is often our response to news that seems absurd. In Walt Disney’s Dumbo the
crows laugh and sing a mocking song at the notion that an elephant can fly, an
idea about as ridiculous as the promise that a 99 year old woman could birth a
child.
But
Sarah had to learn that when you’re dealing with God and God’s promises, the
seemingly impossible becomes possible. Indeed, Abraham and Sarah become the
parents of three faiths which all, in
my opinion, sometimes seem to be absurd.
We
also need to learn this when confronted with what seems a dead-end street or the
crucifixion of dreams and hopes, just when there seems to be no way out of an
impasse, along comes God – though we might not realize that it is God at work –
and things turn out better. Good Friday gives ways to Easter in the story of
the man whom we call God’s Son.
With
our dim faith we cry, “I can never forgive them for that!” or “How can I go
on?” Or how about “Jews and Arabs will never live together peaceably!” “A black
man could never be a serious candidate for president.” “Communism would fall
and the Soviet Union would give way to a democratic Russia (at least until
Putin came along). From small matters to big international concerns the words “never”
and “impossible” cloud our minds, blinding us to hopelessness,
threatening to take away the one thing that can sustain us in impossible
situations: faith.
At
such times it is well to remember that once war between the Soviet Union and
the United States seemed inevitable, apartheid could never be ended without a
blood bath, Jim Crow Laws were the way of nature and American Law. And how
ridiculously funny would it have been 30 years ago to think that communism
would fall and Russia would be a democracy? – and an old man and an old woman
thought it foolish, absurd, and laughable that they would have a child and
through him their descendants would become as many as the grains of sand on the
sea shore.
Something to think about as you face the impossibilities in your life, or the impossiblities in our congregations life. It's O.K., go ahead and laugh at the absurdities now if you want. Because God can turn that laughter at absurdity into laughter of joy. Just wait. Amen.