Genesis 18:1-15
First Reading for the Third Sunday after Pentecost (Year A)
The old saying goes that if you want to make God laugh, tell God about your plans. Apparently the reverse is true: if God wants to make us laugh, then telling us the plan is the way to go. That is the story here. Three mysterious visitors visit Abraham and Sarah and tell them that the very, very, very old couple is going to have a baby. Sarah overhears this ludicrous plan and laughs.
Yet God gets the last laugh. Sarah has a baby and they name him Isaac which means, “One who laughs or rejoices.” The skeptical chuckle at the seemingly outlandish turned into the giddy laughter of “How the heck did we get so lucky?” It is two people cracking up because things are ridiculously wonderful.
There is not much profound to add to the story except that I wish that we found more opportunities for laughter within the church. There are different ways that we experience the love and grace of God, but one of the ways is an unbridled joy that often does not get expressed in church. Come to think of it, that kind of joy does not often get expressed in our culture generally.
We need more laughter in church. And I am not just talking about the congregational guffawing at a joke told from the pulpit (Side note: I have not been able to look at sermons the same way since I heard John Mulaney refer to a homily as when the priest does a book report that is also a stand-up comedy routine). Though I do think there is probably an entire rabbit trail to chase comparing the preacher/prophet to a stand-up comedian. Both highlight the absurdity in life, both can get away with a certain type of truth-telling, both are in one of the few professions where people will just listen to you talk for like 15 or 20 minutes.
Yet even more than just laughing, church needs to be (among other things) a place for that giddy joy. That “How did we get so lucky?” laughter that is born out of the gratitude of seemingly ridiculous plans—light coming into the world, the greatest becoming the least, life from death, and more—coming to fruition. We are all aware of the things in this world that are screwed up and we’ve got to deal with that. Yet there should also be room to laugh in joy at the ridiculously wonderful.