Preacher: Pastor Liz Miller
Date: May 3, 2020
Text: Genesis 18:1-15, 21:1-7
Video: Virtual Worship Service
For the next several weeks our worship will be focused on stories from the Bible where someone’s life becomes unraveled and we get to see how they answer the question, “What comes next?” When the unexpected happens, how do we respond? How do we adapt? Where do we find God or hope or strength when it feels like all of our well laid plans are coming apart?
We’ve developed a lot of new catch phrases in the last few months – unprecedented times, a new season of life, finding a new normal – but they all point to one reality: our plans, and in many ways our lives, have unraveled. Expectant parents have had to reconsider birth plans. Graduating seniors have had to postpone open houses. Anniversary and birthday celebrations have moved to virtual dance parties. Dance recitals and basketball tournaments and debate competitions have been canceled. I have watched these changes unfold in so many lives, one by one, and have been moved by the spirit of grace and acceptance, and space for grief that we have shared. In so many ways it has felt like someone pulled a loose thread on a favorite sweater and instead of severing the snag, it pulled and pulled and pulled until the sweater was a tangled up pile of yarn.
As we came to expect the unexpected, I’ve witnessed a lot of guilt over the grief that we have felt at losing these events and special occasions. We know that in this global pandemic everyone is impacted, so if others are suffering more than we are, surely we should hold our grief close and not make a big deal about it? Surely we should find the bright side and move on? Grief is not like pie – there are not a limited number of slices to go around the table. There is enough grief for everyone to wallow in their own. Allowing ourselves to express and sit with our grief actually moves us to empathy and prepares us to better support those people and communities whose loses feel bigger and more acute
This means being present to our full range of emotions in the midst of loss and the deferral of dreams. And our full range includes not just the grief, but also those unexpected moments of joy. Can we open ourselves to joy and laughter when we know others are suffering? When we ourselves have given up much and face so many unknowns?
Our scripture from today seems to indicate that yes, there is space for laughter even as the world around us unravels. Sarah’s story is one that began long before our verses picked up today. She had longed for many years for a sun, did abhorrent things to another woman, Hagar, out of jealousy and spite for bearing her husband Abraham a son first, and had come to accept that a son of her own was not going to be part of her life. Her story was one full of grief, dreams crushed, and plan after plan unraveled. When she hears this promise – that at last she will have a child of her own – she laughs. She is too old! Those dreams had been set aside and who is to say she didn’t have new dreams and plans for her life? I’m sure as she imagined becoming a mother her renewed hopes would have been mixed with fear and uncertainty – God said she wasn’t too old to be a mother, but what about chasing after a toddler? Did God think about that? Did God plan ahead to when Abraham was 118 years old and they would have a wild teenager who would need parents that were strong and able to teach him a trade and help him settle into adulthood?
Laughter in this story is so connected to the unraveling of life as she knew it – it is a spontaneous burst that in one breath communicated her mixed emotions and her confusion and her pain as well as her hope. We often think of joy as something far and away from grief or pain but in our bodies and spirits they mingle together, tears and laughter sometimes flowing from the
same news, joy and sorrow partners in helping us work through an experience and make meaning with it.
I am a person who in the best of times loves humor. I watch standup comedy and listen to funny podcasts. I like corny jokes and can think of no better way than to spend hours telling stories and laughing with my family or friends. Humor comes easy to me. But all my life I’ve been told to be careful with it. There is a time and place for laughter. It should be moderated and carefully doled out for fear of offending or being used in an inappropriate moment. I agree with that to extent, but I think there is also a great deal of healing that can be found in laughing with someone you trust. Our most morbid thoughts and fears often come out through jokes as a safe way to express them or name them aloud. In times of crisis our comedians and humor writers often struggle to find the right words or the right tone, but it is to them we keep turning back, asking for the balm of joy for our broken spirits, looking for way to let a crack of light shine when the shadows threaten to consume us.
I have been working my way through R. Eric Thomas’s book of funny autobiographical essays called, “Here For it.” One of his essays takes place in the months after the 2016 Presidential election, when many of us felt like nothing would ever be funny again. He writes:
“I think it’s important to revel in the small things that make us joyful, to indulge when possible and not problematic, to steal laughter and hoard it…I call my senator, a lot. Just to chat. I write letters and commentary to stake a claim for the things I believe in. I vote. I march. I tap-dance for justice. And, in the end, I know that we are not at war with our terrible leaders. Instead, we are fighting against nihilism itself. We are fighting to care.
What makes you happy or sad or brings you joy or makes you feel anything at all–it matters.”
We are fighting to care. When something touches us enough to make us laugh, it is because it has touched something important to us. It is why so many of us enjoy political satire and comedy that points out the ridiculousness in our situation. Our laughter is an opportunity to create meaning in a situation, to look at it from a new perspective. It reminds us that humor is a form of creativity, creativity is a part of creation, creation brings forth new life, and therefore humor brings forth new life.
God does not chastise Sarah for laughing. Sarah is asked why she laughs, if the reason is she doubts God’s power to do amazing things, but that is not a chastisement. It’s clarifying what it is that touched her. Sarah feels shame when she is questioned, tries to hide her reaction, but I wonder if she misread the question and if it was actually an invitation to go deeper, to explore what made her laugh and to honor that.
I think in pandemic when so much of what we know has been unraveled, it is important to honor our joy, the humor that bubbles up, the laughter that escapes our lips. Our laughter is evidence of relationships that are being tended to. It is evidence that we have not become numb to our emotions. It is evidence of deep care for the people and the world around us. Sometimes laughter and joy is closely woven with our grief, which gives us even more reason to honor it.
May we tend to our joy as much as we tend to our grief. May we make room for new outlets of happiness and contentment so that our spirits might be ready to lean into empathy and compassion when it is needed. May we hear God’s invitation to lean into what makes us laugh and use it as a way of connecting with meaning in our lives and exploring what we care about. May our grief and joy mingle together, reminding us that we are fully human, and fully capable of holding complex feelings together during a complex time of life. May we find people to care
with, people to cry with, and people to laugh with, knowing it is a great gift when we find all three in the same people. Amen.
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