Genesis 18:1-15, 21:5-6
I LOVE TO TELL THE STORY OF WHEN SARAH LAUGHED
One of the many privileges of pastoral care is being able to sit with people in their last days whether in the hospital or at home. To be invited into this intimate threshold place is a gift that I treasure.
It’s not as somber as you think. Sure, tears are shed and grief swells up but often there is an easy laughter, moments of joy and great storytelling. What is that cup of life that holds both, sorrow and lightheartedness, at the same time?
I’ll never forget sitting with my husband and sister-in law at the foot of my mother in laws bed as she lay in hospice. We had a last supper of sorts with bread and cheese, red wine and crackers. We giggled and remembered the best of the best “Dora stories. Everything extraneous was stripped away. We hummed Life is a Cabaret, a favorite song of Dora’s and loved her through her final breaths. My husband held her hand until the last moment while I snored in the waiting room…
I remember and cherish how there was so much love in that room. That’s the mystery of life and death, that we can join together to experience both luminous things, life and death, tears and joy.
This morning we’ll look a bit more closely at a legendary story from the Book of Genesis that has some of all of this. All summer, we are sharing favorite stories of the Bible. And I love to tell the story of the time when Sarah laughed.
Like all of the stories in Genesis, this first ancient book of the Bible, there’s folkloric characters, salvific events, visiting messengers and dreams, and tribal families that are larger than life. These narratives are filled with hyperbole, humor and despair along with the wonder and promises of a God who loves God’s people– and promises them new life over and over again.
Genesis holds deep genealogical roots that lie outside history and time in many ways. Its characters going to the heart of the Jewish faith and ultimately, the story of a people seeking God. The patriarch and matriarch, Abraham and Sarah, have strong relationships with a God who promises them blessing upon blessing and progeny “more numerous than the stars”.
Of course, like our current day headlines, there is trickery, deception and jealousy, greed and all manner of human foibles too hot to handle sometimes. Abraham and Sarah and their descendants are quite human and complicated throughout this story of God’s saving power and liberative actions. As the famous feminist biblical scholar, Phyliss Trible says, the bible holds the “horrible and the holy” through a very patriarchal world.[1]
Trible encourages her students to read texts closely but not literally. Close reading, she says, is comparable to reading a love letter. And it functions as a mirror in which I see who I am, what I love and who the world is. The world is not a single pure picture, but a mess, and the Bible reflects that mess. It has good things in it, and bad things.“
These passages aren’t meant to be read– or lived– literally but with an open hearted sense of the mess and the mystery of the life of faith. Where am I in this story? Who is God? Where is hope here in between the lines? Also, it’s good to be reminded that these stories were told and retold ORALLY and the juicy details (like hyperbole) written in order to grab the listener.
When we meet up with old Abraham and Sarah at the Oaks of Mamre (somewhere around the Hebron of today) we find a story of hospitality, humor and surprise. They’ve just had their names changed by God, which in the Bible, is a holy momentous thing for it signals a change of destiny.
Abraham sees some travelers arrive. Middle Eastern hospitality is known for its graciousness and is rich in welcome: “Do not pass by your servant. Let a little water be brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree. Let me bring a little bread, that you may refresh yourselves.” (v.5-7)
“Hurry” Abraham exclaims to his wife Sarah as they hustle and bustle to feed the unexpected guests.
We can imagine the scene, the running around getting everything just right, the food, the fatted calf, the best cakes…
Once the guests have eaten, an amazing thing happens, a prophecy that Sarah, who is purported to be in her 90’s now and childless is to have a child! Imagine, that’s crazy! We can almost hear Sarah’s laughter from the edges of the story tent, as she giggles with disbelief and delight.
“Is pleasure to come my way again, she wonders?” (v.12)
The stranger, the voice of God, kind of catches Sarah saying she denied laughing but we heard her.
The story turns on this full throated laugh. After feasting and taking care of the guests, humor and the thrill of new life lightens up the sorrow.
In time, Sarah will name her new son, Yitzak meaning (God smiles, God laughs) and announce, “God has brought laughter for me, everyone who hears me will laugh with me…” ( 21.5) Laughter is meant to be shared.
James Martin,S.J., in his book, Between Heaven and Mirth (isn’t that a great sermon title?) writes about the role of humor, laughter and joy in the spiritual life. Martin considers the spiritual life as something that is rooted in joy. Drawing on scripture, he offers a closer look at all the places in the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament where joy, humor, hyperbole, and rejoicing abound. Jesus’ parables are filled with it, too (who wouldn’t need to cultivate a sense of humor after being on the road with the disciples!). Even Paul in his letters, names joy as one of the “fruits of the spirit.” (Gal 5:22) If we knew Hebrew or Greek, we’d get the many puns, sprinkled throughout, too.
Joy radiates across our religious and secular traditions; and is something that grows deep in our human bones and bonds. A friend reminded me the other day that laughter is a universal sound, the same across all languages. Writes 20th c theologian, Karl Rahner, “ a good laugh is a sign of love, it may be said to give us a glimpse of the love that God bears for every one of us.”
Recalling Abraham and Sarah running around getting a meal prepared for travelers, reminded me of the care of our Old Lyme Refugee Resettlement Committee. Dedicated volunteers have spent weeks hustling to find a suitable home, furnishings and everything under the sun from locating the kind of looseleaf tea they like to proper bedding and towels to familiar comfort food. As a result of this extraordinary effort among our three Old Lyme churches (and so many of you!), the Alkhafji’s new home on Breen Avenue in Old Lyme is now filled with love and welcome. I’m told they are settling in beautifully. Hopefully, next Sunday we’ll get to welcome them properly during our worship service. A photo of their son, Ali, jumping in the waters of Long Island Sound for the first time shone with an unbounding joy.
Making room for guests (neighbors, travelers, strangers) and making room for joy. These two movements of our communal journey go hand in hand.
I remember all the times we met up with Malik, Zahida and Roniya living in sanctuary with us for those 8 months…in spite of the fear and uncertainty of their cruel predicament, they always seemed to radiate joy, a joy in being together, a joy in the pleasure of cooking lunch for whomever might come to visit, a joy in playing music with friends…
Joy, not as an escape or denial of suffering. To the contrary, it is a being awake to life even in the depths of suffering.
My summer reading thus far has included a new book of poetry by Ross Gay called The Book of Delights.[2] In it, Gay describes finding a way to move past the despair he feels about the state of the world and sets out to write a delight- a- day for a whole year. What he discovered as you might imagine, is that his gratitude and delight “muscle” grew and he found himself walking in gratitude and living his life from that hospitable place. This “tending of joy” led him to unexpected encounters, like the one in his town of Bloomington, Indiana. An urban community fruit orchard called, the“free-fruit-for-all food justice and joy project” was developed by an undergraduate from the local university.[3] Anyone can wander into this one acre fruit orchard and grab some fruit which grows from over 100 different fruit trees- classes are even taught there, and a whole community is nourished by it.
Gay writes that “the gap in our speaking about and for justice, or working for justice, is that we forget to advocate for what we love, for what we find beautiful and necessary. We are good at fighting, but imagining, and holding in one’s imagination what is wonderful and to be adored and preserved and exalted is harder for us, it seems.”
What is giving you delight today? How might we be surprised by joy and gratitude for the living of these days?
My friends, as we go through our lives this week, I’d invite you to JOY-N me in living into that space of delight and tenderness, laughter and joy. Even as we hold one another through the hardships of loss and illness, even as we try to manage the frustrations of standing with our neighbors in this fractured time, let us remember the Kingdom of God, of heaven and mirth is at hand. Here and Now.
And as Sarah once laughed in utter amazement, may you, too, be blessed by the audacity of joy as it rises up to meet you.
[1] Phyliss Trible interview, https://www.sunstonemagazine.com/pdf/070-11-12.pdf
[2] Ross Gay lives in Bloomington Indiana, where he’s a professor of English at Indiana University. His books include the poetry collection Catalogue of Unabashed Gratitude, and a book of essays, The Book of Delights. He co-founded The Tenderness Project together with Shayla Lawson.
[3] https://onbeing.org/programs/ross-gay-tending-joy-and-practicing-delight/
