Laugh!

Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Church Episcopal
June 18, 2023

6 Proper A 

          When our children and grandchildren are coming for the holidays, I know well in advance and I cook for what seems like days.  Between planning menus that work for everyone, multiple trips to the grocery store, cooking the foods our family enjoys and baking the desserts we love, the process is lengthy even though my bread comes from the bakery and my meat comes from the butcher.  And when we throw a party at Christ Church, like our Celebration Sunday, the process takes even longer.  The food may have been catered, but there were decorations to plan, a configuration of tables to consider so we could seat everyone, various dietary needs to provide for, and a whole host of other logistics to figure out.  Great hospitality may be a lot of fun, but great hospitality also requires a lot of time and effort. 

          And so, when I hear the story from Genesis this morning in which Abraham greets three strangers and invites them to dinner, asking Sarah to make ready quickly three measures of flour, knead it, and make cakes, then takes a calf and gives it to his servants to prepare, I have to laugh.  Granted they are only preparing food for three people, but this is a lot of food to prepare on short notice!   The time it takes to turn three measures of flour into cake is considerable, to say nothing of their location in the desert and access to any way to bake cakes.  And I know nothing about butchering cattle, but I think it takes a while to get from the herd to the platter.  Yet this meal seems to be produced instantly.  Whatever Abraham’s motive for throwing such a feast might have been, the timeline for this meal is nothing short of comical.

          Given the absurdity of meal preparation in the story, that we next hear a repeat of the promise that Sarah shall bear a son just seems to fit right in.  Sarah is now roughly 90, having aged another 15 years since last week’s story.  So Sarah laughs at the idea that she will have a child.  Sarah had long since given up on the idea that she would bear a child, having given her maid Hagar to Abraham so that at least he could have an offspring.  Just for the record, one chapter previously, when God tells Abraham, who is now 100 years old, that Sarah, who is 90, will bear a child, Abraham falls on his face and laughs.  Literally.  But despite the absurdity of the promise, we hear that Sarah does, indeed, bear a son, to whom Abraham gives the name Isaac which means “laugher” or “he will laugh.”  In the end, Sarah laughs because God has brought her great joy and has fulfilled a most preposterous promise.

          While we hear no laughter in the gospel reading, there is plenty of outrageousness in what Jesus asks of his disciples.  Jesus has gone about proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness.  Well and good, but then Jesus expects the disciples to go and do likewise.  He gives them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to cure every disease and every sickness.  They are to cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, and cast out demons.  That would be a daunting job description for mature, experienced disciples and Jesus has what are basically baby disciples.   If we read further on, the situation only gets worse.  Not everyone will welcome the disciples or listen to their words.  What’s more, Jesus is sending the disciples out like sheep amidst the wolves, and they will be persecuted for their faith.  I don’t know what the disciples thought they were signing up for, but I am quite sure they had something more pleasant in mind!  I think the disciples just might have laughed at the ludicrousness of what Jesus was asking.

          Like Abraham and Sarah, the disciples are going to have to believe in what God can do.  God shows up over and over again for Abraham and Sarah through out the journey God set them on, making good on God’s promise to make of Abraham and Sarah a great nation with descendants that number the stars in the sky.  Matthew’s gospel begins with Emmanuel, God with us and ends with Jesus saying “And lo, I am with you always, to the end of the age.  While God is not likely to ask us to give birth at the age of 90, or cure every disease and every sickness, God does ask us to do all sorts of things for which we may feel like we are not equipped, or we do not have time, or are out of our comfort zone.  The request may be so far fetched that our only response is to laugh.  This weekend our nation celebrates Juneteenth, which commemorates the emancipation of enslaved African Americans.   There is still much God calls us to do in the work for racial reconciliation.  June is Pride Month.  What is God calling us to do to let the LGBTQ community know that they are welcome here and will be fully included?  In some places, June is Gun Violence Awareness month.   In a conflicted and divided time, how is God calling us to be a place that can have healthy conversations about difficult topics like gun violence?  These can all feel like overwhelming and preposterous asks on God’s part and our initial reaction may be to laugh.  Sometimes our objections are valid but most of the time God is calling us to stretch ourselves and to trust what God can do through us.  And laugh, for there is nothing is too wonderful or too far-fetched for God!

                                                                   Amen.