“You laughed. “
“No, I didn’t.???
“Yes you did.???
“I did not.???
“Well, maybe I did???
Sarah, listening behind the flap of the tent to what the three strange visitors were saying to her husband Abraham.
They had done everything that was required to fulfill the etiquette of hospitality in the ancient world. Of course what would be prepared for the guests was at first understated, “We’ll get a little water to wash your feet that are dirty from the journey. And then we will get you a sandwich and you can be on your way.??? But then, behind the scenes, things were stepped up into high gear. Sarah was to take as much of the best flour as she needed to make cakes and then an unwitting calf was chosen from the herd and was soon being roasted for a great feast. It was served with cheese curd and milk and the whole thing was fit for visiting royalty. Some sandwich.
After the meal had been prepared and served and proper respect shown to the visitors, it was possible to have the conversation that they had come to have.
The story is odd in many ways. Although from our perspective of two thousand years of Trinitarian Christian history, we might like to think that the Lord appeared to Abraham and Sarah as three people representing the Father, Son and Spirit. However, it really is just an odd wrinkle and perhaps a sign that like in so many legends, many stories or many versions of stories came together to make this one and the whole corpus of the life of the Patriarchs. In much of the Hebrew scripture, it is anathema to look on the face of God, and indeed it is said that one cannot look on the face of God and live. But here, we are told that the Lord appeared to Abraham as he sat at the door of his tent in the heat of the midday sun in the guise of three men.
What isn’t odd, is that Abraham was very surprised by this sudden appearance out of nowhere and knew that something important was happening. He could have had a different response to this sudden appearance. He could have seen danger in this – three strangers appearing out of no where on an isolated grazing patch. Think of yourself dozing on the dock by the lake on a hot summer afternoon and you open your eyes to see three strangers blocking your exit to the cottage. You maybe would not be tempted to invite them in for lunch and dispatch someone off to the nearest Foodland to get steaks for the barbeque. For whatever reason though, in this story Abraham understood these visitors not to be a threat but people to whom he needed to listen.
So then comes the news. Now if you read the whole story of Abraham and Sarah in the book of Genesis, you will realize that this did not come as a complete surprise. From the time in Chapter 12 that Abraham and Sarah had heard the call to leave their home in Haran, in Mesopotamia and travel to the land of Canaan, when they were in their seventies, they had also heard that they would be the parents of a great nation. “I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.??? In Chapter 13, when Abraham divides the new land with his nephew Lot, God promises, “I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth; so that if one can count the dust of the earth, your offspring also can be counted.???
In Chapter 15, when Abraham is getting worried that he would have no children with Sarah, God tells him, “‘Look towards heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them. . . . So shall your descendants be???. In fact, he had already had a child with a slave when they were enroute to Canaan and his son Eliezer lived in Damascus. But according to the traditional patriarchal culture in which they lived, the son of a slave could not be his heir. In their eighties, Abraham and Sarah became very concerned that the promise of a great nation brought forth from their offspring would never happen. They hatched a plot to have Abraham sleep with Sarah’s Egyptian slave Hagar who had a son who was called Ishmael. If you read the story in the Qur’an, you will get a very different take on the role of Hagar and Ishmael in God’s plan. But in the Hebrew scriptures, once again it is made clear that the promise of a great nation will be fulfilled in a child of Abraham and Sarah.
In Chapter 17, when Abraham and Sarah are in their nineties, circumcision is instituted and they are given their names as previously they had been known as Abram and Sarai. It is the beginning of a new and distinct nation. But in this instance, Abraham falls on his face laughing when God says of his wife Sarah, “I will bless her, and moreover I will give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she shall give rise to nations; kings of peoples shall come from her.??? My Mom is 97. I think I might have a similar reaction if I was given this news about her.
We miss some of the joke when we read the story in English. God tells Abraham that he and Sarah should name their son Isaac. We tend to think of that name as quite staid and of course patriarchal. But it means, “I laugh??? or “I will laugh???. God gets into the game with this name. Abraham’s reaction to God’s news is going to go down in history in the name of his son. Abraham, “I laugh???, and Jacob. The patriarchs of Israel. A little laughter injected into this otherwise solemn history. Anyone who would meet Isaac would surely wonder where his name came from and there is a whole story attached to it.
By the time we get to today’s reading, in Chapter 18 the theme is already well developed. But the focus of the story shifts to Sarah. A little less patriarchal. A little more attention placed on the matriarch. The one who would become pregnant in her old age. Much as men have come to say, “We’re going to have a baby???, with the best of intentions, we know that having a baby is quite a different thing for women and men. Here it isn’t just Abraham who is hearing the promise of having a child but Sarah overhears it as she sits behind the flap of the tent just out of sight of the men. She had long since passed menopause. She had no expectation or hope of having a child at this age. She had heard it many times before and for more than twenty years nothing had come of it. So now in her little private space and, she thought, out of earshot, she has a laugh. Imagine this old woman with her old husband having a baby. Something to laugh about for sure.
“You laughed. “
“No, I didn’t.???
“Yes you did.???
“I did not.???
“Well, maybe I did but I was afraid you would hear.???
It was the appropriate response. But maybe God would not like it. Sarah was like a teenage girl in church who can’t stop giggling despite the stern look of parents and preachers; Sarah tries to hide her laughter. But it’s there, no denying it and is it really so wrong to giggle in church?
When I worked a Camp Kintail many years ago, we used to play an Inuit game called “Muk??? as a way of helping children feel more at home on the first night. One person sits on the ground facing the other person. The second person, when they are ready, says, “Muk???. The objective of the first person is to make the other person laugh without speaking. A hundred funny faces and gestures are employed to get the person to laugh. Let me tell you we had some really dour and stony-faced Presbyterians in the group who were really hard to break. But by the end of the game, most people were rolling in the grass in laughter and everyone felt more at home. Our humanity had been exposed
We have to wait until Chapter 21 to get the last laugh in the Genesis story. When Abraham is 100, Sarah has a son and they call him Isaac, “I laugh???. Sarah says, “God has brought laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh with me.” She isn’t afraid to laugh anymore and she wants everyone to laugh with her. What a strange and wonderful thing has happened. In the midst of all of the twists and turns of the story of the Patriarchs, a little laughter enters in. When least expected, with an old couple, in the midst of many other struggles and challenges, “I laugh??? enters the world. Grace enters the world. And we are all invited to participate in that moment of grace. It’s not such a bad thing. A little laughter. In the midst of our odd and convoluted stories, a little laughter, a little grace can help us see the face of God. In the presence of strangers. In the cry of a baby who invites us to follow him in the way of grace and laughter.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
