All You Can Do Is Laugh! Prop6A

 All You Can Do Is Laugh!

Really, it’s laughable. Truly laughable. Recall that Abraham and Sarah left their home and the Temple of the god and goddess Nana and Innana in the affluent city-state of Ur in the Sumerian Empire of King Sargon on the promise of another God, YHWH, to hit the road and keep going until they are told to stop and begin life all over again. Without any idea where they would end up. Today, such a “promise” would be considered utterly laughable!

 

But as chapter 18 of Genesis unfolds, it gets better. Abraham and Sarah are camped near the Oaks of Mamre. In the heat of the day, three visitors arrive. Following the nomadic code of hospitality to strangers, Abrham welcomes them, arranges for their feet to be washed, has Sarah prepare some bread and cheese for appetizers, gets a servant to work on a fatted calf, and returns to chat with the strangers – one of whom he addresses as “Lord.” It is the same word Abraham has used previously with YHWH.

 

Suddenly, the conversation takes a turn. ‘They said to him, “Where is your wife, Sarah?” And he said, “There, in the tent.” Then one said, “I will surely return to you in due season, and your wife Sarah shall have a son.”’ Sarah is eavesdropping in the tent. She thinks to herself, Abe and I are very old, and I am past the time of bearing children. Then she laughs to herself. So she thinks.

 

The Lord said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh, and say, ‘Shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old?’ Is anything too wonderful for the Lord? At the set time I will return to you, in due season, and Sarah shall have a son.” To make matters worse, Sarah denies laughing at the very thought of bearing a son. “Oh yes you did laugh,” says The Lord. Abraham, we are told, was one hundred years old. Time passes. The boy is born. Sarah says, “God has brought laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh with me.” Then, still laughing she says, “Who would ever have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.” So, they named the boy Isaac, which means, “he who laughs.” Despite her doubt, and having lied to the Lord, the unstinting love, faithfulness and  compassion of the Lord follows through anyway.

 

It is all truely laughable! Yet, the point is made – nothing is too wonderful for the Lord! Sarah reminds us not to get upset, not to disbelieve the promises of the Lord, and whenever we feel overwhelmed by what we hear - it’s Okay to laugh!

 

Then there is Jesus in chapters 9 and 10 in Matthew. He needs help to move forward with God’s mission – to care for and to heal all manner of sickness, loneliness and oppression from the Empire and rapacious land owners, especially, as Jesus says later in chapter 25, for the least of these, our sisters and brothers. He says the harvest is plentiful – an interesting metaphor for such a needy, desperate, and oppressed class of people which includes aliens, people fleeing other countries on the slim hope that they might find labor and sustenance in Israel. Jesus puts out a plea for more workers. No qualifications are specified. No skills or previous experience with curing every dis-ease and sickness is necessary. He just needs people who can offer the kind of compassion his Father showed to Abraham and Sarah with others – all others.

 

Besides, look at the laughable company of his so-called disciples. There’s Matthew the tax collector. A tax collector! Essentially a toll booth operator who is in cahoots with the Romans. He and his fellow tax collectors are despised for fleecing people as they transport their goods to market. Then there is Simon the Cananaean, whose distinction is not that he comes from

the town of Cana, or is a Canaanite, a gentile, but that he is or was a Zealot, a militant political extremist – a follower of those who proposed armed insurrection against the very Romans who were Matthew’s employers. Just try to imagine Simon and Matthew working together. And finally, there is Judas Iscariot, “who betrayed him.” His presence among the disciples is a constant and sober reminder that those included in the mission carry the potential to oppose the very Christ who commissions them. A curious and motley crew if there ever was one. And yet, along with all those fishermen, they leave everything behind, like Abraham and Sarah, and follow Jesus on what on the surface appears to be a fool’s mission.

 

Note, they agree to follow Jesus even though he describes their mission as inherently dangerous – like being “sheep among wolves”! They follow him in his peaceful revolution on the promise that the coming Son of Man (10:23), whose presence symbolizes vindication and restoration for the people of God. A promise not unlike the one that created a family for Abraham and Sarah. Their mission is among crowds of onlookers, most of whom do not share the faith that Jesus and the disciples have, like sheep without a shepherd, and are curious observers of what Jesus teaches and does among them. Even though they have no faith, they are not to be rejected or attacked in the least, but are to be the primary subjects of the Lord’s endless compassion.

 

Again, one has to laugh at the very thought of how Jesus goes about his Father’s business. One has to laugh at the utterly unqualified and truly diverse and curious band of merry men and women who followed Jesus, day after day. Just as he calls us to follow him, day after day. Not only to share in his mystical communion on Sundays. He is more interested in us working all other days of the week among those who are “sheep without a shepherd.” Those who are not part of his missionary disciples. Simply people in need of companionship in a world beset with very many problems. Not the least of which is the iron, authoritarian grip of Caeser’s Empire of greed, acquisition and consumption.

 

Yes, it is challenging and dangerous work to which Jesus calls us. And to survive in his mission, perhaps the single most important quality to have is that delightful sense of laughter that is Sarah’s wonderful contribution to the entire Biblical narrative! Although it may be laughable to think we can embody the compassion of Jesus, his Father and the Holy Spirit, without the laughter the work becomes truly unbearable. In a world that seems increasingly devoid of all laughter, we are called to be the vanguard – those who sustain a measure of hope in a world that rarely offers much evidence that such hope is justified.

 

But this is who Jesus calls us to be: a people who follow him and sustain his seemingly impossible dream that one day there will be justice and peace for all people; that we will be those people who always seek and serve Christ in all persons; that one day, the dignity of every human being, no matter who or what they appear to be, or say they are, will be respected, affirmed and loved – just as the God who is gracious and merciful, abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishment accepts us and loves us just as we are, without one plea!

 

All we can do is laugh!