Laughing Sarah and All Her Descendants
“It is no wonder that Sarah laughed (Gen. 18:12; see 17:17; Mark 5:40) and then denied that she laughed (18:15). But finally, she laughed and had no need to deny it (Gen. 21:6-7; see Luke 6:21).” I wish I had written the above line, but it is from Walter Brueggemann at the end of his article, “’Impossibility’ and Epistemology in the Faith Tradition of Abraham and Sarah” (Genesis 18:1-15). While we traditionally call Abraham the “father of faith” it might be better to call him and his wife the father and mother of faith strugglers. The key word in this text is not the repeated “laugh” but “impossible” – pela in Hebrew = “too hard, too difficult, wonderful, or impossible” (Gen. 18:14). The God question is “whether the power of God is contained in the best assessment of worldly possibility.” “It asks about the freedom of God in face of the accepted definitions of reality.” Will “God” be domesticated and defined by culture?
After examining many instances of “impossibility” in Scripture, Brueggemann challenges the believing community to redecide about what is possible. Those in the faith tradition of Abraham and Sarah will decide “not on the basis of our captured reason, captured politics, and our captured economics [and technology], but on the basis of the Real One to whom they and we profess allegiance.”
With an eye on the approaching Christmas season, we turn to Luke’s story of the birth of Jesus. We are not told that Mary or any others in that narrative laughed, but there is a lot of joy there (Luke 1:44, 47; 2:10, 20). The birth narratives of old Sarah and virgin Mary are tied together by the faith: “nothing will be impossible with God” (Gen. 18:4 & Luke 1:37). While this applies to belief in miraculous conception by a virgin, it also raises some very practical questions. Shall our celebration of Christmas be controlled by economics – black Fridays and the rest? Or shall we turn to the impossibilities acclaimed by Mary in her joyous song, “For he who is mighty has done great things for me and his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. . . he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent empty away” (Luke 1:46-55). Is it possible for us to believe the impossibilities of our God?
—Tom Yoakum