So Sarah laughed
With the story of Abraham, Genesis moves from the mythological to the historical. With Abraham we step into history, as it were. This raises interesting questions about how we think the Scriptures. Many atheists and many fundamentalists, for instance, have the same problem in their approach to the Scriptures, namely, reading them literally and failing to note what they mean philosophically. Aristotle notes that poetry is more philosophical than history but that doesn’t mean that history is not philosophical or that there is no philosophy both in and of history.
After the great poetic and philosophical account of creation in Genesis 1-2, the text considers the Fall of humanity. Along with the consideration of how we are being called to account – the positives of the story of the Fall and its aftermath – Genesis is at pains to show how humanity, when left to its own devices, is pretty deadly and destructive. The story of Cain and Abel lead, ultimately, to the story of the Flood as an illustration of what ‘freedom without order’ means; namely, violence and death. The Flood is the divine response to clean up the mess that arises from human wickedness and to place our humanity and the creation as a whole upon a new foundation; the new foundation of God’s covenant signalled in the sign of the rainbow. We are reminded of God’s commitment to his creation and in so doing, too, we are reminded of our commitments to God and to one another. It is, however, always a matter of education.
Freedom without order contrasts with order without freedom which is seen in the story of the Tower of Babel in the attempt by humans to impose one language and one way of thinking and acting upon everyone. Shades of totalitarianism. It stands in direct contrast to the divinely created world in which there are diversities of cultures and languages. These mythological sections of Genesis then pass over into the historical, commencing with Abram who is renamed Abraham through his encounters with God. God’s covenant with Abraham is about the promised land and the promised son. They, in turn, belong to the powerful idea that through Abraham “all nations of the earth shall be blessed”. In other words, we arise to the idea of a universal principle through the particularities of culture and language and not at their expense.
Abraham is an important and common figure for Jews, Christians and Muslims. Those religions are sometimes called the Abrahamic religions. There is something rich and suggestive in the story of the education of Abraham. For that is what it is really all about – Abraham learning about God and his covenant for our humanity. And so, too, for us.
In the Chapel, we have a copy of a very famous icon, a fifteenth century icon painted by Andrei Rublev called the Troitsa (The Trinity) or, sometimes, The Hospitality of Abraham. It depicts the story we had in Chapel on Thursday and Friday from Genesis 18. 1-15, the story of the meeting of three men (or Angels or God for such are the wonderful and rich ambiguities of the text) and Abraham under the shade of the oaks of Mamre. It depicts at once a Jewish story about hospitality towards the stranger that anticipates a later idea of entertaining angels (and God) unawares. The story has been re-interpreted in a Christian understanding to refer to God as Trinity and to the idea of our communion and fellowship with God in the Holy Communion. The overarching themes of the icon are of peace and unity, of a sense of harmony between angels and men, or between God and man, of love and compassion towards the sojourner or stranger, of humility, and even, it seems to me, of humour. Sarah laughed. But her laughter is not the humour. It is only the setting for the divine humour about her denying the idea of God’s will and purpose for her and for our humanity.
Sarah’s laughter is about a denial of God’s promise to Abraham that they will in their old age have a son, the son of promise without which the nations of the earth cannot be blessed. She laughs because she thinks it is utterly preposterous for her to bear a child given her advanced age. She is laughing at God. From a naturalistic point of view, she is surely right – but that is just the point. There is more to reality than simply what operates on the level of natural causality. God’s covenant seeks something more for our humanity but it requires humility and understanding on our part. God challenges Sarah about the fact of her laughing at his will and purpose. She denies that she laughed – such is a feature of our refusals of the truth. God’s response is simple in its quiet but firm eloquence. “No. You did laugh.” It is a simple statement of the truth. Sometimes that is more devastating, more revealing and more transforming than anything else. And in this case there is a touch of the divine humour and forebearance about human folly.
That, too, is the point of the story. Beyond the setting for the promise of a promised son, a further aspect of the Abrahamic covenant, there is the whole idea of our gracious encounters with God and with one another captured in the theme of hospitality and care towards the stranger in our midst, the whole idea of how through the particularities of culture and language we are opened out to something universal and transcendent. It is all about an education in which we discover the limits of human knowing and the dangers of human presumption. Sarah’s laughter reveals those aspects of our humanity and the necessity of divine love which alone perfects and redeems. We are being opened out to far more than the despairing fatalisms of history and human experience. We are learning about what God seeks for our humanity and which contributes so greatly to our dignity and respect for one another. That arises out of our encounter with the ethical, spiritual and intellectual principle that is God, the God who calls us to account, to truth, the truth in which we find the true worth and dignity of our humanity.
Hospitality is an ancient and universal idea. It signals the realization that the stranger, the other in your midst, is also one with you. We learn something about ourselves in and through the other. Hospitality, especially towards the stranger, recognizes what belongs to the dignity of our humanity. It is about recognizing yourself in the other.
(Rev’d) David Curry
Chaplain, English & ToK teacher
Chair of the Department of Religion and Philosophy