Don't Laugh -- Father's Day/Presbyterian Men Sunday

Genesis 18:1-15, 21:1-7

June 18, 2023

 

            Writer and Biblical commentator, Dan Clendenin, wrote that in his family they laugh at a joke three times. The first time is when they are initially told the joke. The second is when the joke is explained to them. The third time they laugh is when they finally understand the joke that’s been told. I would say that formula was often played out in my own family. One thing that my brother, sister, and I all agree about our parents is that they both had wonderful senses of humor. But neither one of them could tell a joke if their life depended on it. I don’t remember my dad trying all that often, but my mother would. Her mis-telling of jokes, especially the punch lines, is legendary. And there were definitely times when my mom needed a joke explained to her, even though she’d laughed when it was told.

            But with or without jokes as the impetus, I grew up with a lot of laughter. My mom was seriously silly, as am I, and my brother missed his calling as a comic. When I was a kid, he would get me laughing so hard at the dinner table, I would have a hard time holding onto whatever utensil I was supposed to be holding onto.

            When my sister and I really get tickled at something, we laugh the same way, without making any sound. We just shake, and we both put our hands on our chests, as if to hold ourselves together because we’re laughing so hard, we might come undone. We do make some sound, it’s just high up on the noise register. Some have compared our laughing to the cartoon dog, Mutley, if any of you remember him. My friend, Deb, used to imitate me laughing in seminary, which would get me laughing so hard that she would have to imitate me some more.

            All of this is to say that I’m grateful I’ve had so much laughter in my life. Laughter is a blessing. Laughter can be healing. Finding the humor in difficult situations can help us cope. But not every laugh is a joyful guffaw at something humorous and light-hearted.

            Sometimes a laugh is more about nerves in the face of something difficult or uncomfortable. And sometimes a laugh can reveal bitterness or sorrow at a deep-seated hurt. I think the laugh that we hear in today’s passage from Genesis is that kind of laugh. I suspect that Sarah’s laughter came from a place of hurt and sadness and bitter disappointment, rather than finding humor in the moment or roaring at the punchline of an unexpected joke.

            Last week we heard the story of God calling Abraham. Much has happened to Abraham and Sarah in the verses between last week’s story and the verses we read today. God has continued to reiterate the covenant with Abraham that his descendants will be vast and will bless all the families of the earth. In desperation for an heir, Hagar, the enslaved maid of Sarah, was used as a surrogate and Ismael was born. But God has told Abraham that while Ishmael will be the father of a nation as well, the covenant will be made manifest through the child that Abraham and Sarah have. In chapter 17, Abraham laughs at this news. Now, in our story today, it is Sarah’s turn to laugh.

            Abraham is sitting in the entrance of his tent in the hottest part of the day. He looks up at the approach of three strangers. He runs to meet them, bows down before them, and offers them hospitality and respite from the sun with shade, from the dust with water to wash their feet and from hunger with bread. Hospitality was not just an important custom in that culture, it was also a means of survival. The men agree and Abraham runs into to tell Sarah to make up three cakes. He runs out to his herd and finds a calf and tells a servant to make it ready. Then Abraham set curds of cheese, milk, and all the other food that had been prepared and set it before the men. While they ate, he stood under the tree where they were sitting.

            As the men were working on their meal, they asked Abraham where Sarah was. Abraham pointed to the tent and said that she was inside. Then one of the men said,

            “I will surely return to you in due season, and your wife Sarah shall have a son.”

            Sarah was listening at the door of the tent, and when she heard this startling promise, she laughed. She laughed because she and Abraham were old. She laughed because she had been waiting and waiting and waiting for years to have a child, and surely it was too late now. She laughed because her barrenness would have been considered her fault, some punishment by God for a sin unknown. She laughed because she had hoped and dreamed, and her hopes and dreams had been disappointed. Sarah laughed, but I don’t think it was a rollicking laugh of glee. I think it was a bitter laugh that spoke more of her loss and sorrow than any words she might have employed.

            Sarah laughed.

            The three strangers that Abraham entertained under the tree are now referred to as the Lord, and even though I suspect Sarah tried to muffle her laugh, the Lord heard it. The Lord heard it and asked why. Why did Sarah laugh at the idea that she and Abraham were too old to have a child, too old to have the pleasure of welcoming a baby into their household.

“Why did Sarah laugh, and say, ‘Shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old?’ Is anything too wonderful for the Lord?”

Sarah, understandably upset and frightened at being heard laughing at the promise of God, tries to deny that she laughed at all. But the Lord responds, you did laugh. Oh yes, you did laugh.

Sarah laughed. And in response we hear the statement that is at the crux of this passage.

“Is anything too wonderful for the Lord?”

Somewhere in my study of this passage this week, I read a commentator who talked about people who believe in God, proclaim that God exists, but they don’t actually believe that God does anything in the world. Maybe God is the creator of the world, but any intervention in human lives beyond that just doesn’t happen. The commentator wrote that the person who believes in God in this way is a “functional deist.” This is functional deism. Yes, God exists. Yes, I believe, but that’s as far as it goes.

And I think that the question that the Lord asked of Sarah is one that gets to the heart of whether we believe that God is the living and active foundation of our lives, or whether we are really functional deists.

Is anything too wonderful for the Lord? Well, maybe not in theory … but …

Is anything too wonderful for the Lord? Well, I’d like to believe that, but I don’t see it playing out in real life, not in my real life anyway.

Is anything too wonderful for the Lord? Well, I’d like to believe that, but the world certainly doesn’t reflect it.

This question is the crux of this story, it is the turning point. Is anything too wonderful for the Lord? Do we believe it, do we trust it, or not?

There are times when I do, and there are times when I am less than sure. And when it comes to the sorrows of life, one thing Abraham and Sarah’s story speaks to is infertility. There are many couples, many women and men, who would have longed to have children and it didn’t happen. There was no divine intervention on their part, no miraculous child born when it would have been considered too late. On this day when we celebrate fathers, we have to remember that there are plenty of folks who would have liked to be fathers and did not get that chance.

That’s why the question, “Is anything too wonderful for God,” is challenging to say the least. Sometimes the disappointments and heartaches of life make us wonder.

But I think that this question goes further than Sarah having a child well past menopause. I think this question is about trust – trust in God and trust in God’s promises. Do we trust God? Do we trust that God is here in this world with us? Do we trust that God keeps God’s promises? Do we trust that in the end there is nothing too wonderful for God?

The last part of this story read today gives us the answer to the question asked of Sarah. She and Abraham have a child, Isaac, a name that is a play on the Hebrew word for laughter. Sarah’s laugh may have been bitter and disbelieving, but in her son, she finds a new source of laughter – a laughter born of joy and delight that nothing was too wonderful for the Lord.

Many years later, another woman, confronted by an angel and told she will bear a child who will turn the world upside down is asked a similar question. Is anything impossible for the Lord? Is anything too wonderful?

What will our answer be? Do we trust that nothing is too wonderful for God? Do we believe that God is still turning the world upside down? Do we have faith that nothing is too wonderful for God? All I can say is this, when it comes to the promises of God, when it comes to God making the world new, when it comes to God doing what the world says can’t be done, don’t laugh.

Don’t laugh.

Let all of God’s children say, “Allelua.”

Amen.