Laughter into Darkness

Last updated on: June 22, 2017 at 6:34 pm by John C Holbert

Laughter into Darkness 2017-06-22T18:34:00-05:00 John C Holbert

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(Lectionary for June 25,2017)

Last week’s lection gave us the serio-comic scene of the birth of Isaac (“laughter” in Hebrew) to the prune-faced couple, Abraham and Sarah. Indeed, the story of the promise of the birth and the birth itself ended with Sarah crowing quite publically, “God has brought laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh with me” (Gen. 21:6)! Unfortunately, the laughter does not last, as the near inevitable rivalry between the two sons of Abraham too soon overshadows the delightful laughter of all concerned.

Though the miraculous birth of the child of laughter dominates the later lives of the patriarch and matriarch of Israel, a previous birth has occurred. That child, Ishmael (“God hears” in Hebrew) was the result of the desperate liaison between Sarah’s Egyptian slave, Hagar, and an obviously eager Abraham. It was done, as the narrator is careful to announce, at the behest of Sarah (Gen. 16:2) herself, in her anxious desire to have a child. “Sleep with my slave girl,” she bids her husband; “Perhaps I can have children through her.” There is no comment from Abram, either negative or positive, concerning this request to move the promise of YHWH along a bit by this very human means, a promise that has been too long in its fulfillment. Sarah has become convinced that “YHWH has prevented me from having children,” so desperate times require desperate measures.
There is no need to search after Middle-Eastern examples of surrogate child bearing, as some scholars have done, to put a legal or moral face on this behavior. For the story teller, the point is that the couple are plainly fed up with YHWH’s overly slow pace in providing a child in order to make possible that “great nation,” promised so grandly in Gen.12:2. They merely decide to speed things up. We humans are always in the business of helping God along when we discern, we think, what God has in mind. There is nothing overtly wrong in helping the actions of God; in fact we are commanded to be God’s active agents for justice in the world. But too often in our rush to be useful, we overstep the bounds of our capabilities and rather than bringing aid to God, we impede what God really has in mind. And in the process we make matters worse rather than better.

Vigil (left) with members of his team and members of the Northern Alliance west of Konduz Afghanistan in late 2001.

The USA has been fighting a simmering and bloody war in Afghanistan now for sixteen years. Over two thousand American soldiers have died, along with tens of thousands of Afghanis and foreign fighters. The war began in the aftermath of the attack on the twin towers in New York and the Pentagon in Washington on 9/11. No doubt, those who started this war were convinced that we needed to punish the supposed perpetrators of that infamous attack on our soil, refusing to believe that Afghanistan was far from the locus of the planners of 9/11, most of whom, it was soon discovered, were residents of Saudi Arabia. Still, it was felt that some action was called for, and so Afghanistan was the target. It is still our target, though exactly why that remains so is far more uncertain after all these years. The George W. Bush administration may have genuinely thought that an attack on that far away land would somehow move the world closer to peace and justice, but it has not been the case, as any objective observer must conclude. We are mired in the quick sand of that land, and despite cries of many to cease our actions there, the Trump administration has threatened to send even more troops to attempt further conflict.
It is of course perhaps a stretched analogy to see in our fruitless war in Afghanistan a mirror of Sarah’s attempt to create a child when YHWH has apparently refused to do so, still both actions could be seen as human attempts to solve a problem that leads not to resolution but to further conflict. And so it is with Sarah and Abraham. The laughter son, Isaac, is finally weaned (two years?), but on the day of the great feast commemorating that signal event, Sarah’s laughter turns to fury. Sitting on the seat of the matriarch, watching the raucous party for her prized Isaac, her eye catches sight of that son of the slave woman “playing.” Though the 3rd-2nd century Septuagint Greek translation adds the phrase “with her son Isaac,” the Hebrew text only reads “playing,” using that fateful word from which the name Isaac is drawn. Ishmael is simply laughing in his play, but Sarah is enraged at his apparent joy. She turns to her husband, the father of the playing Ishmael, and demands curtly, “Throw out this slave woman and her son, for the son of this slave woman will not inherit along with my son Isaac” (Gen.21:10).
Two things should be noted about this caustic sentence. Hagar is unnamed; she is to Sarah only “this slave woman.” In addition, Sarah uses a different word to designate Hagar than she used when she urged Abraham to sleep with her to impregnate her with the child Sarah wanted for her own. In chapter 16 she uses the word “slave girl” (shiphchah) perhaps with the connotation of a youthful and voluptuous bed partner. But now Hagar is a “slave woman” (‘amah), perhaps now little more than an old and dried up slave, good for nothing at all.
Abraham’s response to this cruel demand that he “throw out” both his paramour, Hagar, and his son, Ishmael, is not easily understood. The NRSV describes him as “distressed” at the demands of his wife. However, the Hebrew says, quite literally, “The thing was very evil in Abraham’s eyes on account of his son” (Gen.21:11). It is difficult to pinpoint the precise object of wh Abraham_banishes_Hagar_and_Ishmael;_Sarah_and_Isaac_look_on._Wellcome_V0034249 at Abraham saw as evil. Was the evil Sarah’s harsh demand? Was the evil Abraham’s loss of both Ishmael and Hagar? Was the evil the fact that Abraham was being forced to reject, and potentially kill, both Ishmael and Hagar? In chapter 16, it was Abraham who was in the same manner demanded by Sarah to stop Hagar from lording over her the fact of her son in the face of Sarah’s continuing childlessness. Abraham’s response was a craven “Your slave girl is in your power; do to her whatever you want” (Gen. 16:6). In short, Abraham there washes his hands of the entire dispute and leaves Sarah to “deal harshly” with her, driving her into the dangerous wilderness to die. It may well be that this is the same Abraham here, unwilling to name Sarah’s demand as the murderous one it is, quite willing to send Hagar and Ishmael to their deaths. Fortunately, in both stories the provision of God saves both woman and son from certain death.

800px-015.Hagar_and_Ishmael_in_the_Wilderness
Just what has happened in these tales of laughter turned evil? Human desire to take over the work of YHWH has led to human disaster. Abraham is revealed to us as a coward, unable to stand for the vulnerable and weak, ready to enjoy the ripe fruit of a desirable Hagar, but just as ready to discard her when asked by his shrewish and jealous wife. Sarah changes from one who plans for a child using another’s womb to a jealous woman who demands her husband deal with that same woman who has become odious to her when she performs exactly in the way that Sarah demanded of her. Finally, after the birth of her miracle “laughter,” she asks Abraham to discard the woman and her son, wishing to see her and her spawn no more. It is a sordid story in many ways, but as always a deeply human one.
We are ever ready to demand actions from others that we hope will serve us well, but when the actions are done, we regularly see them in a different light, viewing them now as negative, not conducive at all to what we first had in mind. And then we blame others, rather than ourselves, and reject both the actions and those who performed them. And when a mediator is needed, a strong figure who can call us out for what we have done, too often an Abraham shows up, saying nothing, merely doing the demanded dirty work without comment. Too often, laughter turns to darkness, as the light of truth is snuffed out amid rage and jealousy. How true these stories are! How hard it is for us to see their truth!

Images from Wikimedia Commons

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