everyone's a little broken

and everyone belongs

A reading from Genesis 18 & 21

I read an interview with one of my favorite directors, speaking about how he’ll insert humor into serious moments in his movies, He said he does it as a way of telling the audience, “it’s going to be okay.”

And we need to be reminded of that. Don’t we?

So often in life our hearts are beating so quickly we can barely think straight!

Did you you notice that’s how Abraham is behaving?

He’s hastening, running, and doing everything quickly as possible!

But, did you the Lord who comes to visit seems to have all the TIME in the world?

Once meal’s prepared question isn’t ‘where’s the salt!’ It’s “where’s the missus!”

So, in light of this kind of Lord; one who make time. And, in light of the fact that we all need to be reminded, 'it’s going to be all right’ more often; let me tell you a joke:

A guy is walking through the woods and he comes across a bear that hasn’t eaten for days. So the bear starts chasing the guy! 

He runs as fast as he, but the bear keeps on making ground on him. 

In desperation he prays, “O Lord, please turn this bear into a Christian!” 

After a while he notices he can’t hear the bear running behind him. He looks around and sees the bear on its knees, with folded paws. 

Happy to see his prayer has been answered, he turns around and heads towards the bear. As he comes closer, he hears the bear praying: "Thank you, O Lord, for the food I am about to receive from your bounty."

…You know, I love telling jokes. I’ve always had a funny-bone…

But you know, in turns out I’m not unique in that regard. We all have a sense of humor to one degree or another.

Folks have studied this, because it’s something of a mystery as to why humor developed within us as a species.

…Humor works by way of “subversion of expectation.”

In other words, what makes a joke funny is that we don’t expect the punchline.

But better than explaining a joke, is telling another one, and letting you experience how they work.

On their way to get married, a young couple is involved in a fatal car accident. 

Next thing they know they’re outside the Pearly Gates waiting for St. Peter to process them into Heaven. While waiting, they began to wonder: Could they possibly get married in Heaven? 

When St. Peter showed up, they ask him. St. Peter says, "I don't know. This is the first time anyone has asked. Let me find out." 

The couple sat and waited, and waited. Two months passed and the couple were still waiting! While waiting, they began to wonder what would happen if things didn't work out; could they get a divorce in heaven? 

After yet another month, St. Peter finally returns, looking somewhat bedraggled. "Yes," he informed the couple, "You can get married in Heaven.” “Great,” the couple says. "But we were just wondering, what if things don't work out? Could we also get a divorce in Heaven?" 

St. Peter, red-faced with anger, slammed his clipboard onto the ground. "What's wrong?" the frightened couple ask. "OH, COME ON,” St. Peter shouts, "It took me three months to find a pastor up here! Do you have any idea how long it'll take me to find a lawyer?”

Now, if that joke worked it’s because it subverted your expectations. You didn’t see the punchline coming, and that’s what made you laugh.

 Which is why it’s called a punchline, by the way. It’s the part of the joke that you don’t see coming and when it lands, it lands like a good punch, knocking the breath out of you, and, in the case of a joke, leaves you laughing.

That’s what we understand; how the joke works. What we don’t understand, though, is why they work. Why being caught off guard by a punchline makes us laugh. Why it’s pleasurable for us…

When you think about it, it is an odd reaction. Isn’t it?

So, with that mini-lesson in humor, let’s take a look at today’s scripture.

This passage is the conclusion to Sarah and Abraham’s long saga of waiting on their promised child… 

It’s been well over a decade since God first promised them a child. And during that time; well, life has gone on. And in that time, Sarah’s child-bearing years have passed. It’s too late for her to bear a child…

So when the Lord shows up and triples-down on their promised child, Sarah can’t help but laugh.

But her laughter isn’t the laughter of a good joke. 

It’s the cynical laughter of someone who presumes to know better. The laughter of someone who can’t be caught off guard anymore because they’re bound on determined to never let their guard down ever again…

Now, Sarah is eavesdropping on the conversation, and she thinks no one knows she’s listening in, or scoffing at what’s said.

But before she can get back to her business, the Lord asks why Sarah laughed. BUSTED!

Sarah, forgetting no one supposed to know she’s been spying, blurts out from the other side of the tent, “I didn’t laugh.”

And before she can get out the rest of her excuse out, the Lord says, I imagine with twinkling eye, “Oh yes, you did laugh.”

“Oh yes, you did laugh.”

…There are many reasons we laugh. Aren’t there? 

And not all of them are good. 

Sarah’s laughter is the laughter of cynicism. Not the joyous kind of laughter, but the disenchanted kind. 

And we’ve known that kind of laughter. Haven’t we? I know I have. 

If we’re not careful either, that’s how our laughter’s likely to wilt. 

After waiting on promises, we can be tempted to believe it’s easier to give up hope. To decide we’ll never be caught off guard because we’ll never let down our guard. To develop a laughter that’s cold and calculated. A laughter that puts distance between us and everyone else…

…And if that’s you today, if you’re sitting here, skeptical about everything that’s going on, that only makes you like your grandma Sarah! 

Better than that, though, is your cynicism doesn’t disqualify you from receiving the promises you’ve been made in baptism! 

…One of the things I love most about this passage is how it refuses to let us turn faith, belief, trust into something we do! Faith isn’t something we can muster up!  

Sarah couldn’t…

No. When it comes to promises you can’t will yourself to believe them. Either you do or you don’t. And failing to believe a promise doesn’t nullify it, either!

Promises always depend on the one making them! 

…Which is exactly how it goes for Sarah!

Despite her cynicism, her disbelief, scripture says, “The Lord dealt with Sarah as HE had said, and the Lord did for Sarah as HE has promised. Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age!”

At that point in the promise, at it’s blessed delivery, there’s no trying to make yourself believe it anymore! All you can do is receive it!

Which is what happened to Sarah!

And what’ll happen to you!

The promise is made one final time in chapter 18. And you might have noticed we have to skip some scripture to get to the promises fulfillment. That didn’t happen until chapter 21.

And you know, it’s a shame to skip those passages, chapter 19 and 20, because we’re a chapter 19 and 20 people. Aren’t we? We live between the promise being made and its fulfillment. For us, the appointed time hasn’t come yet. Not fully, anyway…

When Sarah skeptically laughed at the Lord’s insistence that they’d bear a child yet, the Lord retorted, “Is anything TOO wonderful for the Lord.” 

A sentiment Mary will echo thousands of years later when she finds out she’s going to bear a child.

But, for my money, it’s Sarah’s last words that really bring home the punchline of what God has done. “God has brought laughter FOR ME; everyone who hears WILL laugh with me,” she says. Chuckling, “Who would ever have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children?” 

Then, with twinkling eye, adding, “Yet I…”

Yet I.

The Gospel works like a joke, too! By way of subversion of expectation!

The Gospel is SO good. And SO big; you can never expect it! Like Sarah it’ll always leave you sputtering, “yet I.”

And so, in light of all that, I have another, not joke, but a promise for YOU! You too WILL laugh. And no cynical laugh, either. But a laugh filled with good pleasure by your own inability to see the punchline coming!  

Better still, though, is the promise that when that hearty laughter breaks forth from you, you will be laughing with the Lord! As, in due time, you belt out your own “Yet I.”

Here’s another promise: Some days are easier to hear these promises, I know. And I pray today is such a day for you. Lord knows we need as many of them as we can get. 

But, even it it’s not, that just means the appointed time hasn’t come for you. Not yet, anyway. Because if you’re not laughing with the Lord that just means the appointed time hasn’t come yet. 

And remember, to God’s way of doing things, usually the right time is the wrong time. Like making Sarah to conceive well after too late. 

The final punchline will come. Like it did for Sarah, it’ll take your breath away, too. So stay on your toes. Be expectant.

And even if you can’t, because who can; the punchline will still come for you, catch you off guard and leave you laughing, no matter what! 

Because that's how jokes works! 

Opps, I mean the Gospel!