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“Easter Laughter”

The Very Reverend Harry H. Pritchett, Jr.
The Cathedral of St. Philip, Atlanta, GA
Sermon: July 22, 2007
Genesis 18: 1-15 (21:1-7)
1 Corinthians 12:14-27
Matthew 5: 1-12

Contrary to popular belief, the Bible is a very funny book. It is full of humor, both good and bad – subtle and broad. And it is ultimately in the Aristotelian sense, a comedy rather than a tragedy. It engenders laughter as well as tears.  Of course the center of the Bible is the cross, but that cross is empty.  “He is risen! He is not here!”

And yet increasingly I have become aware of how we faithful folks interpret and read the Bible with utmost seriousness – so much so that we may tend to overlook the humor. It is certainly commendable when we take these sacred stories seriously, and yet sometimes I believe we can become downright lugubrious about them and make them ponderously boring – stories up there, not in here. I believe we have to see in these stories the fundamental human folly – the cartoons we all make from just being alive and ultimately, we must smile and be surprised by the divine tolerance.

Surely one has to laugh at the story of Balaam’s ass for example where the donkey sees God’s messenger and then proceeds to turn around and speak outright, making poor Balaam the true ass of the story. Then there is that slapstick image of trying to squeeze and push a camel through the eye of a needle. Or you have to give a sly chuckle when so many folks like Jacob and Jonah and Moses and David and James and John and Peter and countless others try to weasel out of God’s plan for them, but come off the laughing stocks themselves before the story is over.

On the surface, the Bible doesn’t speak much of laughter outright. In the New Testament laughter is only mentioned twice.

First, in Matthew’s gospel, Jesus goes to the grieving home of the ruler of the synagogue where his little daughter has died and Jesus dares speak of life in the midst of this house of death. It says the crowd laughs.  But their laughter is the laughter of mocking, cynical, derision – the laughter of disbelief. The crowd laughed when Jesus spoke of life, where there was so much death. It was a laugh of “yeah…sure”…that kind of laughter. The cynical smile that says, “Tell me about it.”

Then there is a second kind of New Testament laughter. It is the laughter of surprise and reversal – the smile that breaks out on the face when things go better than you thought – the grin occasioned by the undeserved, unexpected grace of God. This is what we might call, Easter laughter. It’s the laughter Jesus promises in the Sermon on the Mount “blessed are you who weep now, you shall laugh”.

But the question is how the laughter of cynical disbelief is transformed into the laughter of Easter. How is it that those who today weep shall tomorrow laugh?

So here we go with the wonderful story in today’s Hebrew bible lesson. (Will Williman at Duke reawakened this story for me)  We see first in this story the laughter of cynical disbelief. And we can understand it. Sarah was old, 90 years old. Back bent, no teeth, digestive problems, and God promises Sarah and her “as good as dead husband” Abraham (those words are St. Paul’s, by the way, not mine) that they would be parent’s of a great family. A family through which all the families of the earth would be blessed.

99-year-old Abraham lets out a cackle when he hears God’s promise. And when Sarah, who was hiding behind the door, overheard the Lord talking obstetrics to somebody her age, she laughed too. “Did I hear you laugh, Sarah?” asked the Lord.

“Me? Why should I laugh? A 90 year old childless woman told that she’s going to have a baby? Why should I laugh?”

“Don’t lie to me!” says the Lord, “you laughed!”

And then the Lord said “Is anything too wonderful for the Lord? Is anything too wonderful for the Lord? Just for that I’m going to name your baby Isaac which means laughter, just to remind you always that the joke’s on you. Is anything too wonderful for the Lord?”

And then, there is the second kind of laughter – in this story as well – not the kind of cynical laughter of disbelief, which comes naturally, but rather laughter as a gift – as a surprise – Easter laughter.

In Genesis, three chapters later, it says “the Lord did for Sarah as he had promised.” Nine months later she laughed all the way from the geriatric ward to the maternity ward! And Isaac was born.

And it says Sarah laughed. But this time, her laughter was no longer the laughter of cold cynical disbelief. Hers was the laughter of wonderment. Easter laughter. Sarah says, “God has brought laughter from me. Everyone who hears will laugh with me.”

Can’t you just see them? In the morning, gathering out at Canterbury Court. They usually sip tea and talk about gall bladder surgery. And then there sits Sarah with the bassinet. Everybody has a great time, laughing with Sarah and the ability of God to work wonder. Blessed are you who weep now, you shall laugh now, because nothing is too wonderful for God.

Now that’s quite a move – quite a shift – from a cynical laughter of disbelief. After all, we know about human weakness and human depravity and the constant promises of God that never seem to come true. And here comes Sarah with that astonished stupefied laughter that comes from the unexpected intrusions of a loving, living God, when the promises of God come true and the joke is on us and we laugh.

Sarah’s story is one of transformed laughter. Here in this story faith is not reasoned, but playful, shattering, intrusive. The parameters of the usual and the expected are broken. We are not in charge or managing everything. It’s Easter. And a wonder filled smile breaks out on the face of everyone, and we are made to ask ourselves again and again, “Is anything too wonderful for God?”

Years ago when I was rector of St. Thomas Church in Huntsville, the women of the church used to invite for a Christmas party a special education class with cerebral palsy. The special ed kids came to our Christmas party as our guest, so that our healthy children could put on a pageant for them. They were served cookies and refreshments made by our women. One of our men dressed up as Santa Claus and came to give these afflicted children their Christmas presents.

About two years into this project, one of the teachers in the cerebral palsy class suggested that perhaps her students could return some of our generosity and hence participate in a shared Christmas festivity. Even though tentative at first about this approach (after all, we were supposed to be the helping and giving ones at Christmas), the brave women of St. Thomas agreed to experiment. It was a cold, bitter rainy day that first Tuesday when the cerebral palsy class performed the Christmas pageant at St. Thomas.

There was Mary and Joseph, one little black boy and one little white girl, in wheelchairs. The angel could not keep her arms from flying in the air. The shepherds came on crutches. The Wise Men took a very long time to get from the back of the parish hall to the manger with their arms waving so, pulling their own wheelchairs. It was almost impossible to understand the narrator because of her speech impediment, but we all knew the story anyway.

There was a holy impenetrable stillness and no one tried to help anyone else, but no one felt embarrassed. And then there merged like wind and fire, beginning with the children themselves, a buoyant laughter…radiant giggles…mixed with a profusion of tears. Laughter and applause and smiles and grins. The simple truth was out and was not denied – some of us have cerebral palsy and some of us do not. Some of us are children and some of us are adults. Some of us are black and some of us are white. Some of us are poor and some of us are rich, but…is anything too wonderful for the Lord of all of us?
And Sarah laughed and laughed and they all laughed with her.

Now it is my opinion that this kind of buoyant Easter laughter is built in to the DNA of the Christian gospel. Our history is full of surprising, intrusive, reversal laughter in the face of frustration and defeat. People have moved forward – people have affirmed faith – people have trusted God. People have taken God very seriously indeed but not themselves and so people have laughed and remembered and celebrated and changed and grown in the amazing grace that is given through our Lord Jesus Christ.

I believe the church as a whole and the world need this playfulness, this humility, this capacity to face the “we just don’t know now” issues of contemporary life. The church and the world need the glorious humanness that defies cynicism. Because the church itself has become too cynical – too lugubrious, too post modern if you will, with the arrogant early laughter of Sarah behind the door – the grin of derision and false sophistication.

Or some parts of the church, and it really is the same phenomenon, tend to cover over the dirt and violence and the malignancy of the human heart with a pious grin which is the manifestation of denial and sentimentality. And some of those, I’m afraid, have relegated unconsciously the Lord himself to be a sweet Jesus, meek and mild, that would not burst into holy laughter if his life had depended on it.

But maybe out life together does depend on it – on the surprising grace of God – that bursts into our darkness with light and lightness.

And so…my brothers and sister…when your life and the life of the world around you seems only head line stories of human weakness, stupidity and depravity and violence and war and incompetence – a sad story of always being up against the wall. And when the sometimes cliché-seeming promises of God of new life and surprise produce only an “oh…sure” kind of cynical chuckle, well, watch out. Sooner or later you may be struck with the belly laugh of pure grace.

“And Sarah said, God has brought laughter from me. Everyone who hears will laugh with me.”

“Blessed are you who weep now, you shall laugh. Because nothing is too wonderful for the Lord.”

Comments? Contact Dean Pritchett at: hpritchett@stphilipscathedral.org

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