There are different kinds of jokes, different genres if you will.
The bar joke is one of the best.
Here is one…
So a priest, a rabbi, a pretty woman, a farmer and a dog all come walking into this bar, and the bar tender looks up and says…what is this some kind of a joke?
Laughter.
There is something holy about it. It is hard to define. There are different kinds of laughter, different genres if you will, laughing in scorn, the uncomfortable laugh, but it is the laughter of pure joy that is the holy kind of laughter, it is hard to define.
When people see each other and they just start laughing because they get to share that moment. I love that. That kind of laughter.
Laughter gets edited out of life, it gets edited out of faith. Faith gets turned into something sour and condemning, without it.
Our reading this morning from Genesis only tells part of the story of Abraham and Sarah, it leaves out the part where they both laugh when they are told that they are going to have a child. Abraham was ninety nine and Sarah wasn’t much younger, she was ninety.
Imagine being told at that age to expect your first child together, that you will both be given new names, and that Abraham would have to be circumcised.
So they both laugh.
And their child is named Issac, which means laughter.
This is the Old Covenant, that Abraham and Sarah have a child in their old age, that their offspring would number with the stars, that they would be God’s people, and that God would be their God.
A covenant that begins with laughter, laughter at the impossible, a barren old couple in their nineties suddenly hearing they will have a vast multitude of descendants numbering like the sand and the stars.
What is this some kind of joke? That’s a good one. God’s humor. Holy laughter.
What is it that makes God’s image in humanity? Usually we hear that it is free will, or the capacity to create and make things. But there is at least one medieval theologian who thought that laughter is what makes up the divine image in humanity.
C.S. Lewis’s conversion to Christianity hinged on the inexplicable mystery of the presence of Joy. He could not rationalize joy, so the only option was to become a Christian. His autobiography is even called Surprised by Joy.
You know that scene in Mary Poppins where people start laughing and they start floating away? There are stories of saints having this same problem of levity, they would start floating away so people would chain them down for fear they would float away and be lost.
There are stories that Satan’s fall from grace was because of the heaviness of pride, of taking himself too seriously, of being very grave. The story is that Satan fell by force of his own gravity. He could only laugh in scorn. He could never laugh at the surprise of God’s grace.
Gravity and levity, two different kinds of religion, two different genres if you will, the vice of seriousness and the virtue of holy laughter, of the surprise that God brings.
Today’s reading from Genesis introduces the Old Covenant, the Old Testament of the blood of circumcision and the fruit of laughter named Isaac. Mark’s Gospel introduces the blood the New Covenant today, the New Testament, where Jesus makes his first proclamation that he must suffer and die and rise again, and that we too must take up that same cross.
Peter and Jesus get into the ridiculous situation where they are rebuking each other, and Jesus calls Peter Satan because Peter doesn’t think Jesus should suffer and die. Jesus is too important to suffer and die. Peter thinks the Messiah is someone very grave. But Jesus thinks the Messiah is the one who has the ultimate since of levity, even death can’t stop him from rising.
The Story of growing old and barren becomes a story with laughter and many descendants. The surprise that God brings.
The story of death on the cross becomes the story of resurrection, the levity that death can’t drag down. The surprise that God brings.
Dead ends, tragedy, betrayal, grief and cruelty, derision and mockery suddenly they end and we awaken to the surprise that God brings and we laugh. How can there be life? How can there be a way out? How can there be something more? But there is, like two ninety year olds finding out that they are pregnant, laughter.
The observance of a holy lent, find that laughter.
Lose the gravity, find the levity.