Laughing at God
June 12, 2005
First
Presbyterian Church Carson City
I like
to laugh. Some of the best memories I
have revolve around laughing. Whether
it is that embarrassing moment which over time has softened into the funny
story remembered by friends over dinner or the stressful moment joked about after
all events worked themselves out, laughter is just what the doctor ordered for
many situations. Memories of growing
up, boy scouts, school lunches, and vacations are ripe with laughter and
hilarity. I have also laughed at
church. I have laughed in Sunday school,
at church camp, around the camp fire on a mission trip, and especially at youth
group (even as recently as last week).
We all
enjoy laughing. We love the way it
makes us feel. We love the way laughter
lightens a mood and improves the moods of people around us. In a recent study, laughter not only helps
to relieve stress, but also can help burn calories. I can see it “The new dieting craze, join now, the laughter diet”. No matter what or how, we all need to laugh
more.
The
temptation for me this morning would be to relate all sorts of funny antidotes,
have us laughing for about ten minutes, and then we could leave happy.
However,
today we are talking about laughing at God, not with Him. To understand where Sarah is coming from in
our scripture for today, we need to differentiate between laughing at and
laughing with. Now I believe God has a
huge sense of humor. As Max Lucado
points out, God did create the giraffe and platypus.
The
problem we face in understanding that God laughs is when one performs a word search
with Bible software (a quick search and not very scientific) for the words “laughter”
and “God”, one gets no result. In fact,
when just looking for the word “laugh” and reading the contexts of the search
results, God does laugh, he just laughs at the destruction brought upon the
people after they ignored his help and warning. So, we could get the impression that God is not the best
laugher. On some level the Bible
portraits God’s laughing as slightly vindictive and not what you or I would really
want to hear.
However,
the reality is that God laughs and it is a shame God’s laughter is not a bigger
part of scripture. Any junior high boy
can tell you the creative genius of God and while it may not be appropriate for
our setting, I am sure we can all think of times when a slight bump in creation
has caused much snickering.
A
question came up once on a weekend retreat with some youth about Jesus and what
he and the disciples talked about around the campfire at night.
Now I am
sure there were times of amazing teachings and explanations of life that
because of the lateness of the hour and the tired disciples did not make it
into the gospels, but let’s face it, primarily it was a bunch of guys sitting
around talking. There must have been
times of great laughter, joking, and smiling.
Jesus was fully human and with his joy toward children, with his
celebration around people at weddings, and with being around those he cared for
Jesus laughed.
With all
of the divine laughter, then when does the laughing at God occur? If in the providential nature of God, He is for
us and laughs with us and desires us to laugh, if God does indeed have our
future in His hands, then what would make us laugh at God?
In our
scripture passage for today, we read about Abraham, Sarah, and three mysterious
visitors. Abraham immediately senses
something different about these men and rushes out to make sure they do not
pass by his tent. Abraham shows
hospitality in keeping with the time and culture.
Abraham
bows low to the ground and addresses these men as Lord and himself as their
servant. He addresses these men as
superiors and acts like it would be a joy to serve them. He makes sure they would not pass by without
being refreshed and taken care of on their journey.
Then while
the bread and water was being presented, Abraham makes arrangements to prepare
a feast with the choice, tender calf as the main course. Lastly, as the visitors eat, Abraham stands
at the ready for any need these men may have.
It turns
out that their conversation moves toward Abraham’s wife, Sarah. They ask about her whereabouts and Abraham
notes she is in the tent, working behind the scenes to make this meal go
smoothly. Now we get a glance at why
these visitors are so important, one gives prophecy to the fact that Sarah and
Abraham will have a child. The
scriptures give us a clue in verse 11 to why this prophecy was such a big
deal. Abraham and Sarah were old, the politically
correct term: advanced in age, and we all know biologically, at some time,
women, like Sarah just do not have children.
Sarah
over hears this conversation and laughs to herself. We can almost see the smirk on her face as she thinks, “sure,
after all these years, after all the promises, now I will have the pleasure of
child birth?” The problem is that the
Lord too can hear, even the internal thoughts, and asks Abraham, why did Sarah
laugh? Sarah knowing she was found out,
says, I didn’t laugh. But God is not
mistaken and He says, yes, you did laugh.
There we
have it, Sarah laughed at God. She did
not laugh with God. She laughed at God
and God’s promise for a child. The
question we may have is why, why does she laugh if finally, she will have the
child she has always wanted?
The
answer can be found starting in the 11th chapter of Genesis and
continuing through the verses we read today.
The second half of chapter 11 in Genesis is our favorite: a genealogy
section. We all know these parts of the
Bible. These are the sections of
scripture that we start off: this is the account of someone, who was x years
old when they had a child, who married another hard to pronounce name and they
in turn… Okay, in reality we skip these
verses and restart when the action gets good again. However, these sections are very important.
They are
the faith tree which points and eventually leads to us. Yes, in the great scroll of life, we too are
included in these genealogy sections.
There is a page for you and for me and in chapter 11, we read about
Abram, son of Terah with brothers Nahor and Haran. We learn that Abram’s wife was Sarai and we are told that she is
barren. While the other brothers have wives
and children listed, Sarai is noted to be without children. In this culture where having children to
help with the family occupation and keep the line of kin going, Sarai’s barrenness
was a big deal.
So, we
move to chapter 12 where God called Abram.
Out of the blue, God called Abram to leave his ancestral home, the land
he was familiar with, and go to a land God would show him. Abram took his wife, his nephew Lot, and all
of their possessions and left to go to a land where God would turn him into a
great nation. This is a sweet deal for
Abram. He is older, 75 at this time, with
no children, and God has chosen him to be the father of a great nation, all he
has to do is follow to a new land. Now
on the way to the land, they find it occupied and have to head to Egypt to
survive a famine. In Egypt, Abram
passes Sarai off as his sister and Pharaoh takes a liking to her. Of course, this does not bode well for
Pharaoh, who’s house falls under serious disease because of this deception, and
Abram and Sarai are asked to leave Egypt.
Then as
Abram settles into the land again God promises to make Abram a great
nation. However, with out an heir and Sarai
not able to conceive, she, in a common practice of the day, has her servant
Hagar conceive and the boy Ishmael is their heir. The drama does not stop for this couple as God brings the sign of
the covenant through circumcision and even changes Abram and Sarai’s names to
Abraham and Sarah while reaffirming that Abraham will indeed have his own
son.
Now
Sarah, has been through a lot. She left
her home with her husband. She has traveled
a long distance following God who has promised many things. She found herself in Pharaoh’s house caught
in a lie. She continued to travel and
to move with an illegitimate son wondering when and how, at her age, God’s
continued promise of a child would come true.
Sarah has hoped, dreamed, and followed God for 25 years, just wanting
something. Sarah wanted to change what
she was known for, being barren. Maybe
she had come to terms with her inability to have children over the years. She was ten years younger than Abraham, so
at the age of 65 when God called, she could have been okay with a change. A new life, a new adventure with God and
those close to her, yet there was a promise, a promise that cut to the core of
her identity, the promise of an heir.
Could it
be that the one who was known to be barren, bear a child? Sarah followed. She persevered. Now she
finds herself listening to the promise again of a child and she laughs. Her laugh is a shrug in the face of divine
providence. She has taken back the full
heartfelt following of a true believer and is rightfully not sure anymore.
How many
of us have persevered and followed God hoping for a miracle? I am not talking about the fleeting dream or
that moment of submission to Christ just to get through a test, this is the
real deal.
For
instance, have any of us prayed for a relative or a friend to break free from
an addiction? Have any of us followed
God on a journey through self doubt and trials earnestly hanging on for the joy
we are certain lies just ahead? Many of
us have participated on these endeavors.
We have gone far in our faith journeys only to have God call us
farther.
We are
like the child learning to swim. We
have held the arms of the instructor, we have used the floaties, and now, it is
time to let go of the side of the pool and trust that in those (what seems to
be two thousand feet of open water) two feet into our teacher’s arms will pass
quickly and soon we will be swimming on our own.
As we
grow older, the swimming instructor no longer walks in front of us, but swims
ahead, looking over their shoulder calling us into deeper waters and we look
around noticing that the safe shores of the pool fade away into the wide open
and quick moving waters of the vast ocean.
At some
point if we push this image of swimming and in our walk with God, the act of continuing
becomes too much.
We want
some safety. We want something to hold
on to.
We want
some assurances that our following and our moving into deeper waters will pay
off or garner some reward.
We may
never say that, we want to believe in our faith and we do have faith, it is
just that uncertain step which, well, let’s just say it’s hard.
With our
lips, we affirm that we believe in a God who can do anything. We believe in a God who created the heavens,
the earth, and all of the creatures. He
has our future in His hands and in His son, we trust in eternal life. Yet, sometimes it does not feel like God
even cares.
Bad
things happen to good people and sometimes the wicked get the award while the
righteous go unnoticed.
“All we
need God to trust you more are signs, maybe a couple of bread crumbs, something
to get us through this difficult space in our faith.”
Sarah
was there. We get there. And instead of throwing our hands up in the
air, the polite thing is to laugh. “It’s
crazy we say, we’re following God down this path and it is not well lit, so
might as well laugh at it all.”
There is
only one problem. God knows we
laughed. He hears it and knows we are
holding back. We are not fully on board
with the plan.
We all
know that at this moment, God should be angry.
We know
full well that when people laugh at us we like to remind them of all the great
things we have done for them and the effort we are putting forth for their best
interests even if they can not see it right now, and goodness knows if we were
not for them, then who would be?
God
should give up on His wandering people.
We would or at least guilt the person into submission after they laughed.
Yet, God
does none of this.
God
reminds us that nothing is impossible for Him.
True,
the answer could be different than the one we hoped for or sought, but God is
faithful. The end of the journey may
not be on our time schedule or come to completion like we wanted, yet God is
faithful. Sarah was 90 when she became
pregnant, God is faithful. We may have
to look silly in our doubting for awhile even laughing at the situation, but God
is faithful. We may have to go kicking
and screaming toward the final goal or maybe we miss out on the answer because
we have given up, yet God is faithful.
God’s
faithfulness, love and His commitment to us, His people, will not diminish or
fade, will not tire nor walk away, no matter what the situation or how many
times we have laughed at or with God. God
is faithful.
I do not
believe it is easy to have faith today.
Maybe it
is even harder than for the time Sarah lived.
We have TV
and radio and cell phones and life moves too quick or not quick enough for the
answers and the solutions we want. Yet
God reminds us through these verses in Genesis that He is faithful.
Sarah
waited for 25 years, at an advanced age, and through some pretty crazy
adventures to become pregnant. For us,
we may have to wait longer than our favorite hour TV show, we may have to turn
off the radio and listen to God’s voice, and let’s face it, we might have to
ignore the call of the cell phones and wait just to get a glimpse of God’s face
to keep us going.
God is
faithful.
Just read ahead in
Genesis a couple of chapters. Sarah
does become pregnant and at the age of 90 bears a son, named Isaac, meaning he
laughs. The son Isaac and God’s son
Jesus become forever reminders of our God, who is faithful, who loves, and who
laughs with us to the very end.
Amen.