When I keep speaking and writing about reimagining Church as God’s work in the community, as we move forward to an uncertain future, I hear people chuckling and laughing to themselves at these ideas. They ask me back, when we return to the ‘normal’ our numbers in the church will become small and the future of Christian church is becoming dim, isn’t God’s work in the community too abstract to understand church today? When I posted Jai ho’s drawing of Trinity kneeling in solidarity with Black lives matter last week, I was trolled to not ‘degrade the word’ asking me ‘how can God bow before humans?’ I heard them laugh. These incidents helped me to reflect and ask, is my understanding of reimagining church and God unrealistic and is it a laughing stock? No, these incidents do not deter me to offer hope as the Spirit leads me, for I realise it is ok to be ridiculed. Some are cynical about moving forward to a new future, some are afraid of the future of Christianity for they think everything is in their hands to control. Some are laughing at the ideas of reimagining the church today. It is ok to laugh, for we never know it can serve as a way of prayer and as an expression of our longing for a new future.
In Genesis 18, Abraham hosts three strangers by the oaks of Mamre, offering a radical hospitality by sharing the best portions of food, freshly kneaded bread, tender beef, milk, curds and engaged in a conversation with them after they finished eating their meal. One of the strangers on enquiring where Sarah was, promises, “I will surely return to you in due season and your wife Sarah shall have a son” (10v). Sarah on hearing what the stranger said, began laughing to herself, asking can she have pleasure with her husband in their nineties. Barbara Glasson has recently written on “A Good Laugh” and sought hope in the laughter of Sarah. Barbara writes, “She (Sarah) was told in her ripe old age that she was going to have a baby and laughed out loud and even named her son Isaac (which in Hebrew means ‘He laughs’) after that outburst of merriment – thank you Sarah for seeing the ridiculous side of Divine action.” Sarah laughed when she heard news about something impossible, which Barbara explains Sarah seeing the ridiculous side of the divine in action.
In the patriarchal (where men assume power and discriminate other genders as inferior to them) society of Abraham, women were restricted to the private spaces, for Sarah had to do all the cooking for the guests, but had no chance of coming out to meet and speak to the guests. But the divine who came as strangers by enquiring Abraham, “Where is your wife Sarah?” (9v) was trying to break open those patriarchal stereotypes that women are limited to the domestic private space and men are out in the public space. On hearing from Abraham that Sarah was ‘in the tent’, one of the strangers spoke loudly so that Sarah can hear, and pronounced that in due season Sarah shall have a child. Then Sarah laughs to herself. The tent was her own space, for over the years that space would have been a space for her to weep, to laugh, to pray, to lament and to sit in silence. On this occasion, Sarah in her own space, in her own freedom, laughed to herself, for all that she had was, she and herself. Out of the fear generated by the patriarchal society, later on Sarah denies that she laughed and Abraham insisted that she did laugh (15v), for I think the stranger-guests and Abraham would have heard her chuckle from inside the tent. But for Sarah, laughter was an expression of her freedom, an expression of who she was and served as an act of subversion for her. It was an act of subversion against the patriarchal society which confined women to a private space like the tent, and never allowed them to laugh out loud in the public spaces.
On hearing Sarah’s laughter, the strangers respond by allowing the divine in them to come out and speak. The activity of God as they spoke can be seen in at least four ways. Firstly, there was a revelation to Abraham that it was God who has come in three strangers(13v). Secondly, on hearing Sarah’s laughter God responds, “why did Sarah laugh and say “shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old?” Thirdly, on hearing Sarah’s laughter, God explains God’s character, for God works in wonderful ways and surprising ways, for it is mentioned “Is anything too wonderful to the Lord?” (14v). Fourthly, God offers hope that in the set time and in due season Sarah shall have a child. In a way Sarah’s laughter provoked the God in the strangers not only to reaffirm the promise that God made to Abraham in making a great generation but also to make it precise and particular as a defined God-moment out of which that promise will be realised. It is therefore important to acknowledge a divine spark in the laughter of Sarah, which is helpful for us in our faith journeys.
Sarah’s laughter served as a way of Prayer:
On hearing the stranger’s words that in due season that Sarah shall have a son, Sarah couldn’t contain her laughter and laughed to herself. In that laughter, I see a prayer, a subversive prayer that is expressed in emotion. For in that laughter as Sarah spoke to herself with a question, “after I have grown old, and my husband is old, shall I have pleasure?” (12v), she was being heard by God. In her laughter as a way of prayer, Sarah was not questioning the supernatural power of God rather was asking can she and her husband have pleasure at their age and time. Sarah’s laughter as a way of prayer demonstrates that the God she believed in is not a God who works through unrealistic fantasy, but a God who works through them. Sarah’s laughter was not a laughter of cynicism but a laughter of realism, where prayer is about realistic things. Our prayers therefore reveal the kind of God we believe and the kind of God we believe is exhibited in the way we pray. When Sarah laughed, God not only heard and responded to her laughter as a way of prayer, but I think God would have joined in laughing with Sarah to fulfil the promise God has made to her.
Catherine M Wallace asks “what makes us laugh, after all?” For which she replies, “we laugh at incongruity, at discrepancy. We laugh at the ridiculous and the unexpected. Laughter testifies to our perception of the difference between what is and what ought to be. When we laugh at ourselves, we rise above our own situations. We refuse to be defined either by our failures or by the betrayals and the failures of others.” When Sarah laughed, she was rising above her situations which were defined by patriarchy and she was refusing to be defined by the failures that the society has put on her as a child-less woman. Sarah laughed, and that laughter served as a way of prayer and such a prayer was heard by God.
I also see a creative prayer in Sarah’s laughter. A prayer with no salutation, no calling on the different names of God, no quoting of scripture, but a prayer where she asks a question to herself. That opens us to understand that as Sarah laughed, the presence of God was opened, for God began to respond to Abraham. In verse 13, we see immediately the change in the tone of the conversation where “the Lord” began to speak.
Sarah’s laughter opened the Revelation of God:
On hearing Sarah’s laughter, God was quick to speak to Abraham, opening wide the revelation of God. Till then Abraham knew the three people as strangers and suddenly, he had to hear the voice of God spoken through them. Sarah’s laughter did not make God angry. The patriarchal society demeaned and diminished Sarah’s laughter as a sign of unbelief to the promise of God, but there is freshness in Sarah’s prayer which was seen in her laughter. The laughter of Sarah was not seen by God as offensive, for God on hearing the laughter of Sarah did not curtail God’s promise nor cursed Sarah at that point, rather God revealed God’s character of doing wonderful things in their lives offering hope to them. It was because of Sarah’s laughter that God spoke to Abraham, reassuring him, ‘is anything too wonderful for God?’ Sarah’s laughter paved the way for the actions of God’s wonderful acts to flow on in their lives. It is important to recognise that God’s wonderful acts includes the participation of human beings, for God works wonders through and with God’s creation and creatures.
Sarah’s laughter made God to offer hope that in due time and season they shall see a wonder in their lives. God’s wonders are not like magic, and thankfully God did not turn Sarah and Abraham into a young couple and then gave them a child. God in their old age creates pleasure among them and paves the way for an offspring. When things unfolded as promised, I can imagine Sarah would have kept laughing at every point of her life that followed and eventually named her son Isaac, after her deep spiritual experiences of laughter with God, which served for her as a prayer. God acts in God’s own times and seasons, offering courage, hope and perseverance to people.
One of the features of lockdown has been sharing jokes about our shared living experiences. As we hear Sarah’s laughter, we are called in our reimagining the church, to recognise that laughter serves as a site of divine intervention and to be reminded that when we laugh at every ridiculed situation, God’s presence is with us. For Abraham and Sarah there was uncertainty about their future, anxiety in moving forward and when Sarah heard something unexpected from the divine, she couldn’t but laugh, laugh at herself and laugh out loud so that the divine who came as strangers along with Abraham heard her laugh. In her laughing, Sarah gathered strength, Sarah gathered courage, Sarah offered a prayer, soon to know that God is offering new life that will bring new possibilities in their journey of life. It is easy to go back to the ways we have always been doing in the life of the church, perhaps longing to reboot the old. But God’s ways are different, inviting us to step into an unknown future offering new possibilities. Laughter is a natural expression of human spirit, and when future appears bleak, when things are annoying around us, when going gets tough, laughter as a faith space helps us as a defiance against all those oppositions. May the courage of Sarah be with each of us so that we can laugh at ourselves on hearing that God is leading us into an uncertain future with a confidence of new hope in Jesus Christ. Let us together join with Sarah in laughing out loud and celebrate hope, for God works wonderfully through each of us. God hasn’t given up on the Christian faith nor on the church, but is leading us to offer hope in our community by building on laughter, kindness, peace and justice.
Allow me to conclude with an old Tibetan proverb: The secret of living well and longer is: eat half, walk double, laugh triple and love without measure.
Rev. Dr. Raj Bharat Patta
2 comments:
This is fabulous!
Thanks Raj,. Laughter is quite often embarrassment as we try to understand god's path for us and question his almighty power
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