Today's scripture lessons from Genesis are truly comic. Yet when Kate and I read them I didn't hear a single person laughing. I mean, a father-to-be aged 100?! A mother-to-be aged 90?! That's "something from the absurd," and is certainly the first and most noticeable comic aspect of our readings!
And a second comic aspect is the role these chapters play within the overall plot of the saga of Abraham. Here we find presented the final happy episodes of a standard U-shaped comic plot—a plot that starts in happiness, plunges into frustration and anxiety, remains there for awhile, finally turns upward again, and at last reaches a gloriously happy resolution to the frustrations of the principal characters. That's a U-shaped comic plot.
You see, in earlier chapters of Genesis, set fully a quarter of a century before today's narratives, God had called Abraham and Sarah to leave their home territory—located in what is now southeastern Turkey, near its border with Syria—to leave their home territory on a journey of faith and to go to the land of Canaan. For God was promising to them that they would become the ancestors of a great people (joy and happiness!). Yet after reaching Canaan some thirteen years went by, and they still had no offspring, no children (sadness, frustration, anxiety, despair!).
Then the plot had hinted at a possible upturn. Sarah had given her servant Hagar to Abraham as a surrogate wife, and she had borne for Abraham and Sarah a son named Ishmael. But in the end, this birth had proven not to be an upturn after all. Rather it had just served to widen the bottom of this U-shaped plot, by extending the frustration and anxiety—both for Abraham and Sarah and also for the ancient audiences who gathered to hear this story told.
For you see, when the Israelites of old shared these tales around their campfires, the birth of Ishmael was heard by them as a cause for consternation. From Israel's standpoint, Ishmael, Abraham's firstborn, was quite the wrong son and the ancestor of quite the wrong people, for he was the ancestor of the Arabs, and not of the Jews! As Israel understood it, Ishmael wasn't at all the heir of God's promise, and an appropriate response to his birth would be, "Woe is us! How can Abraham and Sarah—already much too old—ever produce the son who'll be the ancestor for us Jews?"
And indeed it's not until some twelve years after the birth of Ishmael that our plot finally does take its comic upturn. At the last possible moment, God does act to rescue the quarter-century-old promise. 100-year-old Abraham and 90-year-old Sarah are going to have their baby! And you can be sure that when this was related around the campfires of ancient Israel, everyone laughed and cheered.
But, alas, we modern readers usually don't laugh at this narrative, or at any other biblical story for that matter—however comical. But why is that? Is it that our facial muscles become so tense when the Bible is read that they can't expand into a broad smile? Or have these biblical stories become so frozen in sacredness that their warmth and humor are lost on us? Or has it come about that laughing with the Bible is in some way sacrilegious?
Have any of you ever seen the very first of the TNT network's Bible-classic miniseries? It's entitled "Abraham" and was produced in 1993. It's still readily available to us in both VHS and DVD formats. It stars Richard Harris as Abraham and Barbara Hershey as Sarah.
One organization of born-again Christians [The Prayer Foundation] puts this four-hour extravaganza on their list of "The All-time Top Ten 'Made for TV' Bible Classics," ranking it #7.
Now, nothing during this entire multi-hour depiction of the lives of Abraham and Sarah is played even lightly, let alone comically. Indeed, "ponderous" and "heavy" are the words that come to my mind. And when this production gets to Genesis 17, Richard Harris departs from the Bible's description of Abraham's action. Harris does not fall down on his face from laughing so hard at the thought that he and Sarah, at their ages, will soon become parents. He does not! In fact, Harris doesn't even crack a smile. He remains hopelessly solemn, obviously weighed down by the awesome prospect of parenthood!
And when this TNT production portrays Genesis 18, all Barbara Hershey can muster when she first learns of her impending motherhood is a stifled snicker or two. No boisterous guffaws. But maybe that's because she's playing the role as if Sarah were 40 years old rather than 90.
Oh, how I wish that that miniseries on "Abraham" had been produced by someone with a sense of humor. And oh, how I wish that they had asked me to be the casting director. (Are any of you at all like me? When you view a biblical drama on TV, do you also like to imagine whom you would be casting in the various roles?)
Anyway, I had a lot of fun this past week, as I worked on this sermon, imagining whom I would cast in my TV miniseries on "Abraham and Sarah." Now, in casting such meaty senior-citizen roles, I did not limit my thinking to living actors alone, but, as it turned out, all of the actors who made my final list are still alive.
First, I cast the threesome from heaven—God and the two angels. For the two angels the choice seemed obvious. From the nine-year run of the TV series "Touched by an Angel," canceled in 2003 but often shown in repeats on the Hallmark cable channel, I chose Tess and Monica—I mean, Della Reese and Roma Downey.
But casting God—that was tough for me. I finally chose the actor whose impersonation of God's voice in his brilliant comedy routine "Noah" is forever etched on my mind—namely, Bill Cosby. But for this role I also considered both Lily Tomlin and Whoopi Goldberg.
In the roles of Abraham and Sarah, my cast features: as Abraham, the now 81-year-old Yiddish theater favorite Fyvush Finkel, who most recently played Harvey Lipschultz in the TV series "Boston Public," but who first came to the attention of the wider public as Douglas Wambaugh in that great 1990's series "Picket Fences"; and as Sarah, I cast the now 82-year-old Bea Arthur, whose 1980's series "Golden Girls" can still be viewed each weeknight at 6 and 11 pm on the Lifetime cable network.
Yet I have to confess that I can also imagine as my Abraham that now-deceased centenarian George Burns, and as my Sarah that still-living 87-year-old comic "phenom" Phyllis Diller. Now, some of you out there I suppose might be casting as your Abraham, Sir John Gielgud, and as your Sarah, Katherine Hepburn, and to you I can only say, "Lighten up, already!"
Well, now that I've chosen my cast, let me turn to shaping both the script and the director's notes for this new TV Bible classic of mine.
Scene #1, Genesis 17—the Prologue
The off-camera voice of Bill Cosby announces to Fyvush Finkel that Bea Arthur's going to have a name change and then get pregnant. Upon hearing these words from the disembodied voice, Fyvush does a double-take and arches his eyebrows quizically. Looking at his wrinkled, aged hands, he grins, and then glances over at Bea, who's snoring through a nap. Fyvush keels over laughing. Cut!
Scene #2, Genesis 18—The Main Drama
Fyvush hasn't taken the disembodied voice seriously enough to even tell Bea what Bill has said. So Bill decides he has to visit Fyvush in person, backed up by Della and Roma—all three in disguise.
When Bill, Della, and Roma arrive outside Fyvush's tent, Fyvush welcomes them with grand, exaggerated flourishes. Then Fyvush hurries inside the tent and barks out some orders at Bea, telling her to prepare enough food for a hundred guests. Bea responds by staring at Fyvush, as only Bea can stare! And since the biblical author chose not to record Sarah's salty, R-rated language, the scene quickly fades.
An hour later, outside the tent, shaded by a tree, Bill, Della, and Roma are enjoying their opera-night-in-Central-Park-style picnic—you know, complete with wine glasses, silverware, and much-too-much food—while Fyvush stands nearby, leaning against the tree. The guests ask him why they haven't yet seen Bea. Fyvush explains, rather imperiously, that Bea's where she belongs—in the tent.
The camera cuts to show Bea inside, listening from behind the tent flap to everything going on outside—all the while, of course, making appropriate accompanying facial expressions.
Outside, Bill issues Fyvush the promise that when he returns there in another year, Bea will indeed have had a son. Well, inside it's now Bea's turn to laugh, and her bass-note guffaws are more than loud enough to be heard by those outside. As Bea is laughing, she's also interjecting a few irreverent reflections—first, on her old age and post-menopausal condition, and then on Fyvush's old age and her lack of any good sex with him! (Oh yes, dear congregation, Genesis really does have Sarah say that! Bea's not ad-libbing here! And if you don't believe me, just look up and re-read Genesis 18:12.)
Meanwhile, outside, Bill is asking Fyvush why Bea is laughing. After all, is there anything that's too difficult for God to accomplish? Fyvush goes and pulls Bea outside the tent and Bea, flustered and embarrassed, starts denying everything, saying, "I didn't laugh!" But Bill—you know, with that wide "Jello" grin of his on his face—wags his finger at her and says, "Oh yes you did laugh!" Cut!
Scene #3, Genesis 21—The Epilogue.
Just as Bill has promised, within a short time, Fyvush and Bea have enjoyed good sex, and Bea has conceived. And now the camera zooms in on Bea during Baby Isaac's birth. She's busily doing her Lamaze breathing. The camera fades. Eight days later, we see Fyvush circumcising Baby Isaac. The camera fades again. Then we see Fyvush handing Baby Isaac to Bea, and the camera dollies in for its closing shot. We see Bea breastfeeding Isaac, and we hear her exclaim, "God has brought laughter for me, and everyone who hears [this story] will laugh with me." (Genesis 21:6)
Yes, the moral of today's story is this: nothing is too difficult for God, so lighten up already!
Let us pray:
O God, as we read Your word, give us a sense of humor. Amen.