I like to laugh. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t like
to laugh. Recent studies have indicated that there are terrific health benefits
to being able to laugh. A lot of what I’ve been reading has indicated the
immune system is even strengthened by laughter. Laughter is no small thing.
People in grief have often told me that the first awareness that they will get
through the pain, the first sign of hope for them was when they heard themselves
laughing, irrationally, inexplicably but never the less laughing. We like to
think that we laugh because something is funny, an external stimulus but very
often laughter has as much to do with what’s going on inside us as what
it is that is funny. Two people can see the same movie and one can think it
is hysterical, the other obnoxious. Since it’s father’s day we won’t
even touch on the male-female dichotomy of what makes the three Stooges funny.
Heaven knows, I don’t know.
We laugh for a lot of reasons. I can think of at least three reasons and we
see them all in our Old Testament lesson today, the delightful story of Abraham
and Sarah.
First, we laugh when we recognize the irony of
something. This is the cynical, mocking kind of laughter that is inspired by
the routines of a Jay Len.o
“There's yet another Osama bin Laden video out. He's really losing it.
What kind of idiot puts out a video the same week as 'Star Wars?'"
Or David Letterman,
"Have you seen the new 'Star Wars' movie? In case you're keeping score,
this is the fifth movie in the Star Wars trilogy. It's tough being a Jedi Knight
these days. You have to fight the evil federation while maintaining the Arab
coalition." —
Besides this kind of laughter, there is the laughter
that comes to break the stress of an embarrassing or nervous situation. A few
weeks ago on a Mary Tyler Moore show retrospective the audience was polled as
to their favorite episode. Some of you may remember the episode that won. Mary
and her colleagues are at the funeral for a fellow T.V. personality, Chuckles
the Clown. The friends had been talking about how sad they were and how tragic
the moment but when Mary sits down at the service and the minister starts to
speak she gets the giggles. It starts out small with a discrete chuckle which
she covers with her hand and little cough. But the more she tries to control
herself the more she giggles until more than just her friends are noticing.
Perhaps that episode was chosen as a favorite because somewhere or someplace
we’ve all been there, trying to stifle a nervous mirth that just won’t
be stifled
And finally there is the laughter of sheer joy,
surprise and gratitude. Something just comes flying in out of the blue to startle
us to delight. The laughter of surprised reversal, as Will Willimon calls it.
The smile that breaks out on the face when things go better than you thought,
the grin occasioned by the undeserved, unexpected grace of God. This is Easter,
evangelical laughter. Frederick Beuchner says, “The tragic is the inevitable
in life. Given the vulnerability of humanity and the pitiless storm of the world,
tragedy is bound to happen. Given the sinfulness of humanity and the temptation
of the world to sin, tragedy is bound to happen. “Humans are born to trouble
as the sparks fly upward,” so Job says. But the comic is the unforeseeable.
How can Donald Duck foresee that after being run over by a steamroller he will
pick himself up on the other side as flat as a pancake for a few seconds but
alive and squawking?”Poor Sarah she just can’t help laughing. She
is an old woman and, after a lifetime in the dessert, her face is cracked and
rutted like a six month drought. She hunches her shoulders around her ears and
starts to shake. She squinnies her eyes shut and her laughter is all teeth and
wheeze and tears running down her checks as she rocks back and forth in her
kitchen chair. She is laughing because she is pushing ninety-one hard and has
just been told she is going to have a baby. Even though it was an angel who
told her, she can’t control herself and her husband can’t control
himself either. He keeps a straight face a few seconds longer than she does,
but he ends up cracking up too.
They are laughing at the irony of it all—the
idea of a baby being born in a geriatric ward and Medicare’s picking up
the tab.
They are laughing at the embarrassment of maternity clothes for a ninety year
old.
They are laughing because the angel seems to expect them to believe it, “Did
I hear you laugh?” the Lord asks. They are laughing with sheer delight
because a part of themselves does believe it. They are laughing because in another
part of themselves they know it would take a fool to believe it. They are laughing
because if by some crazy chance it should happen to come true, then they would
really have something to laugh about.
Genesis, three chapters later, “the Lord
did for Sarah as he had promised.” Isaac was born. And Sarah laughed. No
longer cynical, no longer embarrassed just the laughter of sheer wonderment.
Will Willimon calls it evangelical laughter—laughter that spreads. Sarah
says “everyone who hears will laugh with me.”
Were the disciples laughing do you suppose, when Jesus called them together
and told them that they had authority to cast out unclean spirits, that they
could cure every disease and sickness. Were they cynical, “Oh yeah sure
I can cure your hangnail” were they laughing giddily at the prospect of
having to try and then face an embarrassing failure. Did they believe Jesus?
Why are you laughing we might ask those disciples?
Why are you laughing we might ask ourselves? Can’t
you see how awful everything is, there is tragedy in the world, there is sorrow,
there is want and need and desperation. But God breaks through. Jesus sends
the disciples out with their marching orders. Grace is comedy because it is
what needn’t happen and can’t possibly happen but indeed it impossibly
happens. Like Sarah says, “Is anything to wonderful for God?”
Synod Assembly last week—our Sunday School
offerings—18 houses in South Africa. The next thing in the hopper, a hospice
facility for people with AIDS. It’s a huge undertaking—not only a
building this time but supplies, drugs, maybe even volunteer personnel. I don’t
know…Are we laughing ?
Have you heard, we’re talking about 50 more
kids in Sunday School next year at Holy Spirit and 100 more in Vacation Bible
School. Of course, we’ve no where to put them, it will take a building,
I don’t know….Are we laughing ?
This thing about wiping out world hunger—there’s a long way to go,
it’s a complicated issue, you must be joking. There’s production,
transportation, political systems and economics to get around—the inevitable
realities of human nature the tragedies of the world order, war, poverty, ignorance.
Making a dent in world hunger—eliminating hunger in the world, ridiculous,
absurd, won’t happen—are you laughing yet?
But did you hear what Sarah said? “Is anything
too wonderful for God?”
Amen.