Hope does not disappoint. Hope sometimes can surprise us. Hope springs eternal. Here is my hope for us: I hope that we will be counter cultural. Here’s what I mean…

According to research by Scope in 2014, “67% of people feel uncomfortable when talking to a disabled person.” This awkwardness often stems from a fear of seeming patronizing or saying the wrong thing, or a lack of life experiences with individuals with disabilities.[1] Two-thirds of us are uncomfortable talking to our neighbor with disabilities. My hope is that we can say: not so here. Here we welcome, love, and serve all. Especially our neighbors with disabilities for we are just temporarily abled people ourselves.

 

Now who are we to go against the grain? Nobody. We’re nobodies. I mean, some of you are quite impressive. I love knowing you. I feel like I’m in on a secret. Most people have heard of Brad Pitt and Taylor Swift. They’re someone. Famous celebrities. Not so with me, anyway. Apologies for those among us to frequently grace People magazine and have photographers in your landscaping. But, speaking for myself, I’m a nobody. And that’s good news.

 

My guru Rob Bell says, “Abram is a nobody. He doesn’t come from some grand lineage, he’s not blessed by the gods, he has no prerequisites that other ancient narratives have. For all intents and purposes, Abram is a nobody at the beginning of the story.”[2]

Abram is told to leave his country. So Abram went. He went beyond what was familiar and he wandered. We too are called to wonder about our neighbor. Wonder how they see the world and move through it.[3] Who is Abram? A nobody. God chooses this nobody for no good reason other than it seemed like a good idea to God.

 

Abram has entered into a covenant with God. God promises that Abram will be the father of many nations. His descendants will be like the grains of sand or the stars in the sky. Yet Abram is not in control of this promise.[4] He has no agency, no part. To show that God is in control of this promise, God changes Abram’s name. In chapter 17, Abram is renamed at age 100. And Sarai is renamed at age 90 and is promised a pregnancy. Lucky her. Abram means “High Father.” Abraham means “father of nations.” Sarai means “quarrelsome”.[5] Sarah means “lady, princess, noblewoman.” In Modern Hebrew, “sarah” (שרה) is the word for “woman minister”.[6]

Today, the first thing these freshly renamed characters do is offer hospitality. Oh, and Sarah laughs.

Abraham in a profound display of hospitality calls for a feast for passing guests. Abraham must have noticed something different about these strangers. He somehow sensed they were made in the image and likeness of God.

Hospitality is huge in the Middle East. When I visited Egypt with my seminary class in 2009, we were offered tea, coffee, water, and snacks at every meeting. This is paramount to the Abrahamic faiths as the author of Hebrews wrote in 13:2, “Let love continue. Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.”

Part of our mission statement is the call to welcome. This is ancient to our faith. Foundational. It’s right here in chapter 18. before we had a society, we had this audacious display of hospitality. Before we had a government or a constitution or bylaws before we had paper money or written language or even enough food to eat as a species… we had this. We had an impulse to welcome. To show hospitality. To gather choice flour. To kill the fatted calf. To prepare a feast and learn from the traveler.

I think if we welcome, and focus on it, and offer food and coffee hour and talk and listen… good things will continue to happen.

I hope and pray that the new members and visitors among us find a good welcome. I hope they don’t feel too put upon, and yet noticed. It’s a fine balance. I tend to hang back and let folks come to me. I don’t want to be much too much as I tend to welcome with the energy of a golden retriever. I’m all happy barks and tail wags. There are those among us with the spirit of welcome and hospitality. I’m so thankful and I’m learning from y’all.

We have an award named after a saint to embodied welcome and service, Tom Evans. Tom taught us how to welcome, love, and serve like Abraham. He encouraged others to follow in hospitality, and we have a list of hallowed names under his. His spirit is still with us. I think of him often. Because of his spirit and the spirit here, we have kids!

Church… We have kids! Children are here and we’re 204 years old! No wonder Sarah laughed. “Shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am? Is anything too wonderful for the Lord?”

She was called out. The visitors said, did you laugh? She denied, but the visitor said, “Oh yes, you did laugh.” The rabbis make a lot of this laugh.

Some interpret this laugh as Sarah feeling like the butt of a joke.  The Hebrew reads “and Sarah laughed… to herself”—or “at herself.”[7] She can’t believe it herself. If you’ve ever said, “I’m too old for this…” then you understand Sarah. That could be one way to interpret the laugh. Which is why Sarah denies it, she wants to hide her feelings of being mocked.

Yet the rabbis also point out that she might want to hide her amazement as well.[8] The thing she has hoped for, yearned for, her true heart’s desire is going to happen. And she laughs. “Can I be renewed even now? I thought my best days were behind me…” And she laughs.[9] She laughs at her hope and her disbelief that there are some good days ahead. She laughs because she was accustomed to being disappointed.

If you’ve spent anytime with our neighbors with disabilities, you would see that there’s a lot of laughter. My aunt Annie West had a home for men with Downs Syndrome. There was and is still a stigma around people with Downs.

I was maybe in the first grade when I first spent the day with Aunt Annie and these men. When I came home, I didn’t know what to think of it. My mom patiently helped me process it. The conversation went something like this:

“What was wrong with those men?” I asked.
“Nothing is wrong. They have Downs Syndrome. It’s how God made them.”
“Can I catch it?”
“No. No not at all.”

I think many of us are afraid to ask those questions, so we avoid them. In the years following, I spent a lot of time with Aunt Annie and the men. Robbie loved G.I. Joe, a popular cartoon and toy line back in the late 80s, and I loved G.I. Joe, so we played with them together.He couldn’t speak well. He would call me “Luker.”

It was my first name change. I loved it. Robbie was one of the most joyous people I’ve ever met and had the pleasure of spending time with. My Uncle Scott and Aunt Deb heard this one day and picked it up and continue to Call me Luker to this day.

My Aunt Deb is also not my aunt. She’s my uncle. I changed her name when I was little. Before she was married to my Uncle Scott, she wasn’t my aunt… and yet I couldn’t just call her “Deb” as that wasn’t done. So I’d just call her “Uncle Deb.” And she laughed. And many folks who have heard my sister and me call her “Uncle Deb” for 40 some years laugh. There are different translations for this laugh, but laughter is usually involved.

Author Kurt Vonnegut wrote, “Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward.”

In our society, it seems like there’s less room for hospitality. People are tribal these days. They stick to their labels and there’s not a whole lot of welcome to go around. Hospitality is counter cultural. In our society, where everything is so darn serious and politicized, laughter is counter cultural. Here is a sanctuary from all of that. Here in this sacred space, the only issue that concerns us is how we love and embrace one another. This is counter cultural.

Disabled or temporarily abled. My hope is that went folks come here, they laugh in disbelief. They found this unicorn church that is trying live into what it means to welcome, love, and serve. To give hospitality to strangers so much that they laugh. That the ramps, the elevators, the care of our physical plant show that we’ve considered their needs before they even walked into the building, and they laugh. Folks on our livestream because livestream is access as well. They laugh because they feel seen and maybe are amazed. A laugh of recognition.

We hope to be a counter-cultural space that believes 67% of society that feels awkward around folks with disabilities will change. That they will spend time with their neighbors. Learn their speech patterns and their needs. That we will ask the seemingly awkward questions because awkwardness is better than silence. And they will laugh because they’ve heard the questions before. We will laugh together to break the tension. And we’ll be about creating this counter-cultural place where we can laugh because laughing is less messy than crying. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Works Cited

[1] https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2014/05/two-thirds-us-are-uncomfortable-talking-disabled-people-we-need-time-money-and-effort

[2] Rob Bell, What Is the Bible?: How an Ancient Library of Poems, Letters, and Stories Can Transform the Way You Think and Feel About Everything. Audio book version. Heard by Pastor Luke in May 2019.

[3] https://www.uccmedina.org/sermons/begin/

[4] For more about the covenant, see this sermon: https://www.uccmedina.org/sermons/promise/

[5] http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/13194-sarah-sarai

[6] Schreiber, Mordecai; Schiff, Alvin I.; Klenicki, Leon (2003), The Shengold Jewish Encyclopedia

[7] https://www.lookstein.org/professional-dev/bible/and-sarah-laughed/

[8] https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/sarah-midrash-and-aggadah#pid-16765

[9] https://reformjudaism.org/learning/torah-study/torah-commentary/and-sara-laughed-and-laughed-and-laughed