Jan 31 2020 Genesis 17:15-27

Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed


God has just changed Abraham’s name from Abram, and given him a son by his slave Hagar. Now God tells Abraham that Abraham will bear a son by Sarah, his newly renamed wife, and she will bear a son. Abraham’s response is that he falls on his face and laughs.

I love this image. God is doing marvelous things For Abraham, who until recently has been heirless. Soon he will be the father of many nations. Now, thousands of year later, Judaism, Muslim, and Christianity are all heirs of Abraham. What God did for Abraham and Sarah was amazing, a promise made and kept that greatly affects our religions today.

And Abraham fell on his face and laughed.

There’ve been times when all I could do was laugh, when God’s gift or grace or timing was incredulous. It’s a pretty human response to disbelief, or irony, or even abundance.

Some years ago, changed careers moving from a more financially secure public sector job, to a less secure, more meaningful non-profit career. As I was bussing to downtown, I remember laughing at how ironic it was, to be feeling so blessed, while incurring over a 30% reduction in pay. Laughter seemed like the only response to such an illogical, but absolutely right decision.

A few years after that move, I’d set up a meeting with my priest. I wanted to discuss my underwhelming spiritual life. God was present, but it felt like an underappreciated 50 year old marriage. Between setting and having the meeting, I had my sole visual experience of God, that knocked my socks off. I’m not the person who hears God’s whispers. Or talks to Jesus. But I visibly saw something and it was clearly a God-thing. My husband said that if he didn’t know me, he’d think I was seeing things. So when I went to meet with the priest about my previously lackluster experiences with God, everything had changed. That meeting and that event later sent me down the path towards responding to God’s call to me to serve as a deacon in the Episcopal Church. At that lunch with my priest, we both laughed, although mine was a little more nervous than his. 

Now, in my home life, my sick loved one is in the hospital and hopefully stabilizing after a crisis over the holidays. Their behavior is sad and driven by a horrible and cruel illness. Their language and written messages come out as ‘word salads’, a jumble of ideas and random words. Translating what they say into what they mean is quite a challenge, but we’re getting better at it. They get stuck on phrases repeating them dozens of times in a day. ‘Not today’, means whatever we’ve asked isn’t going to happen right now. Do you want lunch? Not today. Another response, ‘just a little bit’, means maybe. Do you want lunch today? Just a little bit. Or they’d walk past us, and we’d say, Good evening. Their response, Not today (don’t talk to me, or don’t look at me), or ‘just a little bit’ (I’m acknowledging you, but don’t say anything else).

Those two particular phrases, plus many others have become common in the language of my husband and me, as codewords. Now we can laugh at the absolute absurdity of their language, our ability to understand, and ultimately how efficient the language was. Not Today, means a myriad of things, generally declining or dismissing something. These are all said in love, but also there’s some humor as we repeat these word salad phrases.

Laughter is a healthy human response to things that are ironic, bountiful, absurd, and even sad, as in our loved one’s jumbled language. I love the fact that Bible gives us this example of Abraham laughing in response to God’s covenant.

This morning, I’m thinking about the things that happen around me, ultimately with God’s fingerprints all over them, that make me laugh. Maybe it’s our human nature to find beauty and humor in all sorts of things, because beauty and humor are so desperately needed. I laugh at God’s timing. I laugh at my loved one’s mannerisms. God wants me to find delight in all sorts of things, certainly the funny things, but also all of those other circumstances where laughter wouldn’t be the ‘appropriate’ response. Maybe that’s the gladness that God puts in our hearts. It’s not that I’m joyful because of my sick loved one, but even in that, there are parts I can laugh about. Thank God for that!