Community Church Sermons
June 12, 2005
Genesis 18:1 –1 15
Margaret I. Manning
All of us, at one time or another
have experienced this strange physiological reaction – the rhythmic, vocalized,
expiratory and involuntary reaction that takes over our whole being. This strange, yet common reaction involves
fifteen facial muscles that contract and stimulate the zygomatic muscle. Zygomatic stimulation results in the
epiglottis half-closing, which in turn strains the larynx. This strain upsets
the respiratory system which results in deep, noisy gasps. The mouth opens and closes as the lungs
struggle for oxygen. The struggle for
oxygen causes the face to turn various shades of red (or purple, depending on
how much or little oxygen is circulating) and strange, unique noises emerge
from deep within us - noises that some have argued resemble the sound of a pig
snort! Now, that I’ve utterly confused
you, what in the world is this strange, physiological reaction I am describing?[1] Why of course, I’m describing laughter!
Now, we
normally associate laughter with humor – humorous stories, humorous situations
(like getting the giggles in church during silent prayer), or my favorite,
humorous jokes. Like this one for
example:
Bill Gates and the president of General Motors have met for
lunch, and Bill is going on and on about computer technology. "If
automotive technology had kept pace with computer technology over the past few
decades, you would now be driving a V-32 instead of a V-8, and it would have a
top speed of 10,000 miles per hour," says Gates. "Or, you could have
an economy car that weighs 30 pounds and gets a thousand miles to a gallon of
gas. In either case, the sticker price of a new car would be less than $50. Why
haven't you guys kept up?"
The president of GM smiles and says, "Because the federal government won't let us build cars that crash four times a day."
I didn’t hear any pig snorts!
But, gelotology, that is, the study of
laughter, suggests another trigger for laughter besides humor. And these researches who study laughter have
developed a whole theory around this trigger.
They call it, the incongruity
theory. This theory suggests that laughter arises when logic and
familiarity are replaced by things that don't normally go together; when we
expect one outcome and another happens.
Generally speaking, our minds and bodies anticipate what's going to
happen and how it's going to end based on logical thought, emotion and our past
experience. But, when circumstances go
in unexpected directions, our thoughts and emotions suddenly have to switch
gears. We now have new emotions,
backing up a different line of thought.
In other words, we experience two sets of incompatible thoughts and
emotions simultaneously, producing laughter – not the laughter we normally
associate with humor, but the laughter that arises from incongruity. In other words, laughter emerges out of the tension between what we expect, and
what actually happens!
Now as I
thought about the incongruity theory of laughter, I wondered if it might shed
light on the nature of faith. That’s
right – on faith! And as I thought
about it, I found this theory particularly helpful for understanding our
passage from Genesis. For you see, most
commentators, and perhaps most of us, see Sarah’s laughter in our passage as
evidence of a lack of faith! And I can
see how if one believes that faith doesn’t find itself in the gap between what
we expect, and what actually happens, or that faith never doubts, nor
questions, nor struggles with the seeming incongruities of life that one could
come to this conclusion. Now I will
concede that on one level, Sarah’s laughter indicates a level of
disbelief. And, frankly, I can’t blame
her! I mean, who wouldn’t laugh at the
promise of a child to someone beyond the childbearing years – that’s more like
a cruel joke that would more readily inspire tears than laughter. But, what if Sarah’s laughter also contains
a glimmer of faith? I think we can see
this glimmer of faith if we believe that faith is really found in incongruity –
in
holding together belief and disbelief in the face of circumstances and
situations that are not congruent.
Now it might help to
illustrate what I’m saying about faith if we take a look at the details of
Sarah’s life, for her life is a study in incongruity. From our very first introduction to Sarah in the book of Genesis,
we learn that she is barren. In fact,
it is her inability to bear children that the author of Genesis uses as her
primary descriptor. Now, barrenness is
a very unfortunate position to be in when you live in a society that counts
both wealth and status through the number of children a couple produce.[3] And in addition to being a detriment to
Sarah’s status in society, barrenness was often viewed as a curse from God.
By the time of our
story, Sarah had already out-lived the childbearing years. She and Abraham had tried, and failed to
have a child over the course of their lives together. Now, when the text tells us that the couple are both around 75
years of age, God begins to promise Abraham and Sarah that they would indeed
have a child from whom God would ‘make a great nation.’ So God told them one
thing, but Sarah’s experience told her another – she was barren and now beyond
the childbearing years - and, so you can understand why she laughed when God
came calling that day. After all,
twenty-four years elapsed from the time God first promised a child. The text
tells us that at the time of this divine visitation, ‘Abraham was ninety-nine
years old.’[4] So, after all these years, after no less
than five reminders from God that they would indeed have children – after
taking matters into their own hands to produce a child through their maid,
Hagar, bearing this disgrace and Hagar’s contempt, after all this, we can
understand that when God tells the couple that at this time, next year (when
Abraham is 100 years old) they will have a child, Sarah laughs! She laughs out loud! And I’m certain her laughter was filled with
the tension between disbelief and scorn, incredulity and doubt and that tiny
glimmer of hope beyond hope that what God was saying, despite all she had known
to the contrary, was the truth. After
all these years, after all these events, now, after Sarah and Abraham are
physically beyond their ability to bear children – now, God tells them that at
this time next year, they will have a child, the child of that original promise made over twenty-five years
ago.
And so, Sarah laughs
out loud.
But the book of
Genesis helps us to see that faith is the tension between belief and
unbelief. For long before, when God
first made this promise to Abraham, the text tells us that Abraham ‘believed
God and it was counted as righteousness.’
Twenty-five years transpire after this initial declaration of faith;
twenty-five years of barrenness, and futile attempts to have children in other
ways, and twenty-five years of God seeming silent, of not making good on what
was promised. So, when you look at what
it meant for Abraham and Sarah to believe God, it meant taking a journey – of
following God in faith, even when God did not clearly show them the way. Abraham and Sarah believed God – but that
belief was not absolute certainty, it was belief that journeyed through the ups
and downs of doubt and disbelief. It
was a journey filled with tension between what was expected, and what actually
happened! And while we may see Sarah’s
response as the opposite of faith, the bible tells us otherwise. In the letter of Hebrews, Sarah is included
among those counted as the faithful in the chapter of Hebrews affectionately
known as the ‘hall of faith.’ Sarah,
we’re told by the author, is one of these faithful witnesses – memorialized for
all time - because she ‘received the ability to conceive by faith, even beyond
the proper time of life since she considered God faithful who had promised.’[5]
You see, Sarah’s
laughter is the laughter of faith. For
faith emerges out of the tension between belief and unbelief as we journey with
God through the incongruities of life –
and faith fills the gap between what we expect, and what actually comes to be
and enables us to place our trust in a faithful God even when we don’t always
see that faithfulness. C.S.
Lewis put it this way in his book, The
Screwtape Letters that real faith emerges when “a human, no longer
desiring, but still intending to follow God, looks round upon a universe from
which every trace of God seems to have vanished, and asks why she has been
forsaken, and still obeys.”[6]
Do you see now why
Sarah’s laugh can be the laugh of faith?
For if faith must have absolute certainty, and never any doubt, then
most of us would be considered faithless.
If we believe that our logic and experience and emotions must all match
up in congruence for faith to make any sense, then we’re all unbelievers. But, that is not faith! Faith is not about having certainty at all
times, or even finding the answers to what we believe in faith. Sarah’s story shows us that the laughter of
faith is the laughter of incongruity, for faith is often filled with the
tension between doubt and belief as we struggle to make sense of the
incongruities life brings our way. But,
ultimately, like Sarah and Abraham, real faith casts us wholeheartedly upon the
God who is free to act and to do as God wants, in God’s time and in God’s
way. Faith is the ability to answer
‘yes’ to the God for whom nothing is impossible, even when our lives tell us
the answer is ‘no.’ More than this,
faith not dependent on us, on what we can do, or on our ability to hold onto
faith, but is rooted in the God who time and time again proves faithful. And this is where our Romans text is so
important. The Apostle Paul wants us to
see, as he re-tells the Abraham and Sarah story that it is God who is
faithful. And in The Message, you heard read
this morning, Paul exclaims:
“That promise God gave Abraham and Sarah…was
not given because of something they did or didn’t do….it was based on God’s
decision to put everything together for them.
As we throw open our doors to God, we discover at the same moment that
God has already thrown open the door for us.”
You see in this way,
in giving God the freedom to act and to purpose as only God can do, in allowing
God to be faithful to us, even in the most incongruous of circumstances, God
gets the last laugh.
And sure enough,
Isaac is born. Do you know what the
name, Isaac means? It means, ‘one who
laughs.’ Sarah declares at his birth,
“God has made laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh with me!”[7] May we laugh the laugh of faith with Sarah
this morning as we allow God to have the last laugh in our lives, Amen.