Who Gets the Last Laugh?

Mary Rodgers, June 26, 2006

How cool would it be to have a name that meant laughter? I can so easily picture a four year old running around proudly saying "My name is Isaac, that means laughter!" And what people would do? They'd laugh. My name means bitter. Someone told me that when I was about eight. It's always bothered me and it's true. Look up Mary and there it is. "A Hebrew name meaning bitter." Bitter! One could become paranoid with such knowledge especially if they knew how much names meant in the Bible. If someone is actually named in the Bible then you know that that person is important. Less important characters are more generic, they might be called the blind man or the rich ruler or maybe not even named at all. It's an even bigger deal if God changes a name. When that happens it means that something significant has taken place or will take place.

God changed Abraham and Sarah's names. At the beginning of the story they are called Abram and Sarai which means "exalted father" and "princess." Not a bad deal from the start. Better than bitter! But when God makes the change, Abram, "exalted father" becomes Abraham, "father of many." The first is a statement of fact while the second one, a statement of promise. (McDaniel, Name Changes in the Bible pg 2) The same is true for Sarah. Sarai, meaning "princess" becomes Sarah "mother of multitudes." A statement of fact becomes a statement of promise. This brings me back to Isaac. He's the promise. He's "the something" that will happen. A son, an heir, the fulfillment of the covenant.

It all happened when Abraham was about 100 years old and God came to him and said: I'm going to give you a son through your wife Sarah. You will name him Isaac. Now picture this in your mind. Imagine what Abraham looked like after 100 years of desert living, the sun beating down, very little shelter from the elements and day after day of back breaking work? Can you imagine how his body felt when he woke up each morning? There was no ben-gay back then! Moreover can you picture his face when he imagines even the possibility that his 90 year old barren wife might become pregnant? I am fairly certain that 90 wasn't the new 70 back then. Not that that would make a difference. The whole thing is ludicrous. This is why he fell on his face laughing. That's a great image. Abraham. Mr. pillar of Faith, Mr. "If you say go I will go." Mr. "If you say I'm going to have son, I'm going to fall on my face laughing." His actions give a great human quality to the story doesn't it?

The laughter doesn't end there either. It continues years later when Sarah, unseen by Abraham and three visitors, overhears that she is going to have a son. Trying to hide her amusement she laughs to herself saying yeah right! I went through menopause 35 years ago (She didn't really say that but I know she thought it!) I'm going to give you a son and you will name him Isaac. Hahaha hohoho, heeheehee, yukyukyuk!

Now it's interesting. God responds differently to Abraham and Sarah's laughter. When Abraham was on the ground laughing God just waits and then repeats the promise. When Sarah laughs God makes a point of calling it to Abraham's attention, and then rejects Sarah's attempt to deny that she laughed. Now I should add parenthetically something that was pointed out to me about this interaction. The ancient Talmudic Rabbis observed that if you carefully compare what Sarah actually said to God and what God reported her to Abraham as saying, you will notice a small discrepancy. Sarah was incredulous at the announcement because she was old and "my husband is also old," however when God paraphrases this to Abraham, God leaves out the part about Abraham's being old!-So as to avoid any possibility of Abraham taking offence at what might have been a sensitive issue in the household. The sages derive from this a valuable lesson: In the interests of maintaining harmonious relations between a husband and wife, even God did not hesitate to bend the truth a little! (Segal, The Legacy of Abraham and Sarah pg 3)

Now a lot of commentators have made a big deal about the laughter. Especially Sarah's laughter. She was the one who was chastised for her laughter. I don't know why that is but maybe it's because when Abraham laughed he held nothing back. He threw himself on the ground right their in front of God, his laughter out in the open for anyone to see. In contrast Sarah tried to stifle her laugh and then tried to deny it, which maybe, is a lesson for all of us about the need to be real and honest before God. Many people hold up Sarah's laughter as an example of a lack faith which always burns me up because Abraham had no more faith about the whole thing than she did. And so what if it was a lack of faith. Her response certainly doesn't affect the outcome. Some times people try to take the theological leap that if Sarah had just had more faith in God, prayed more then maybe she would have had a child by then. That's just bad theology in my opinion. Who among us wouldn't have laughed?

Scholar Ben Patterson has thought a lot about laughter, Sarah's laughter, and about humor and the role it has in faith. He says that philosophers of the stature of Aristotle have debated the question of humor, laughter and its role. Even Sigmund Freud who was as "humorless as a chicken" wrote an essay entitled "Jokes and Their Relationship to the Unconscious." A real side-splitter he says. Patterson says that throughout all the theories there seem to be two elements that are present when something is funny. They are: incongruity and surprise. They are closely related and are sometimes indistinguishable from one another. Both capitalize on the twist, the unforeseeable, both jolt us from one mental attitude into another which may be the complete opposite of the first. One example of these two elements at work is when Woody Allen says: "I don't believe in the afterlife, but I'm taking along an extra pair of underwear just in case." Incongruity and surprise. They go together. But sometimes, Patterson points out, it is possible to have humor that deals only with the incongruous and yet is completely without surprise. He believes that this is Sarah's humor. She can laugh at the preposterousness, the incongruity of an old lady having a baby, of an old woman having one foot in the grave and the other in the maternity ward. But that's all she can laugh at. Ultimately he says she expects no surprises from God, no novelty, so accustomed she is to living this way that as a result her laugh can only be bitter and cynical. But again can you blame her? Have you wanted something so badly that you prayed for it, and yearned for it, yet year after year it never comes? Even worse is when you have been promised the very thing that you want so badly and season after season goes by and it doesn't happen and the more you wait the more painful the waiting becomes. And you begin to doubt yourself and maybe even God? Did I understand God right? Is it really true? Then why hasn't it happened? After so many years of hoping, the pain of waiting can be too much. Sarah sees the incongruity of the promise but she no longer expects the surprise. But here's the great thing about God. Sarah's decreasing ability to expect God to do something impossible, her dwindling hope, has no bearing on the actions of God. Who gets the last laugh? God does! This leads me to wonder if perhaps laughter, both Abraham's and Sarah's, was all a part of God's plan. Laughter is so inseparable from the story of Sarah's pregnancy that God pre-commanded Abraham that the baby would be named in honor of that very laughter. "Yitzak or Isaac meaning: He laughed.

Theologian Reinhold Niebuhr once described humor as a prelude to faith. That certainly seems to be the case for Abraham and Sarah. When you really think about it neither the loving compassion of Abraham, or Sarah's representation of God's presence in our world, can be achieved by people who did not know how to laugh. So I ask you: Where are you in your laughter of faith? Do you see humor in the incongruities of life? Do you laugh at the possibility of surprise? Or is your laugh bitter, weighed down with pain of waiting? If it is then think of Sarah. And then think of God and laugh. For is there anything too wonderful or impossible for God?

You know I think it is pretty funny that Mary is a Hebrew name meaning bitter. It's even funnier to me when I think about this being the mother of God's name. But what is most funny to me is that Mary also means the chosen one. Incongruity and surprise. That just makes me laugh!

Amen

© Copyright, 2006, Rev. Mary Rodgers
All Rights Reserved.
Providence Presbyterian Church
Fairfax, Virginia