When the possibility of faith greets the impossibilities of life, laughter is often the response. When Jesus said that the daughter of the synagogue leader was not dead but only sleeping, he was greeted with laughter: not the laughter that follows the punch line of a good joke but the scornful laughter that is a signal of disbelief.
The people who laughed at Jesus were no ordinary mourners. In Jesus’ time, flute players and professional wailers were hired to be present at funerals. This funeral was already in process when Jesus spoke to these professional mourners as they earned their pay. They were not rookies. They had been to enough funerals to know whether someone was living or dead.
When these seasoned veterans of death heard Jesus speak about the leader’s daughter sleeping, they thought Jesus was saying the girl was not really dead. They knew better. They knew about the impossibilities of life. That is why they laughed at Jesus. They knew Jesus was confronting them with the possibility of the impossible, but what they did not understand was that the Lord of life and possibilities was speaking to them about the impossibilities of their lives. In the echoes of their derisive laughter, they did not understand who has the last laugh of faith.
The funeral of the leader’s daughter is not the only instance of laughable faith that Matthew presents for the comedy show that constitutes today’s scripture lesson. Within the fourteen verses of today’s reading from Matthew’s gospel, there are three accounts of Jesus having the last laugh at the impossibility of life, but these are not the only persons who constitute the laughable faith of Jesus in this ninth chapter. In addition to these three persons, there is also a paralytic, two blind men, and a mute demoniac whom Jesus calls out of the entombing impossibilities of life.
In the scriptures that we are considering from Matthew’s divine comedy we read of a laughable account of faith in Jesus’ calling of Matthew, a tax collector, to be one of his disciples. Tax collectors were considered to be a bad joke by the Jewish people. Jewish tax collectors were believed to have sold out their people. According to rabbinic teaching, tax collectors were lumped in the same category as robbers. They and their families were disqualified from holding communal office and from giving testimony in a Jewish court. In a word, tax collectors were identified as sinners through the choice of their profession.
Everyone was too stunned to respond when Jesus invited Matthew, a tax collector, to be a disciple. There was no laughter when Jesus told the Pharisees the laughable news that he had come to call not the righteous but sinners to be his faithful followers.
The second account of Jesus greeting the impossibilities of life with the possibility of faith occurs as Jesus is on his way to the funeral of the leader’s daughter. As Jesus walked with his disciples to the leader’s house, a woman, who had been suffering from hemorrhages for 12 years, touched the fringe of his cloak as he walked by. She was hoping that the physical act of touching Jesus’ cloak would bring healing. Matthew reports that Jesus greeted the woman’s silent act of faith with words that were filled with hope as he said, “Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.”
In his greeting of the woman, Jesus was defining faith as the foolish belief that God can take any situation in life and use it to help people know the promise of God’s presence. God could take the circumstances of this woman’s illness and use it to help her know the promise of God’s presence. God could take Matthew’s choice to become a tax collector and use it to help him know the promise of God’s presence.
Think about the laughable faith of believing that God can take any situation in life and use it to help people know the promise of God’s presence. Think about these two people to whom Jesus spoke in our scripture reading today. They were among the least and the last of their society: a tax collector who was considered to be a sinner and a woman who was declared ritually unclean because of her illness. They were a joke among the religious establishment of their day, but Jesus spoke to them about matters such as following him and taking heart. They were among the laughingstock of their society, but Jesus chose them so no one could doubt the seriousness of his message of hope.
It is laughable to think about the people whom Matthew reports in this ninth chapter as living out the story of faith: paralyzed, sinners, the sick, the dead, the possessed, and demoniacs. It is laughable to think about the hope of our faith in a Savior who knows us for who we are and calls us to new life when we are facing the impossibilities of life.
The joy of our Christian faith is our ability to realize that God knows us for who we are and still God chooses to love us and trust us to be God’s witnesses of faith to the world. That is why our Christian faith is so laughable: we believe in a God who greets the impossibilities of our lives with the possibility of faith as we are met by Jesus. We have gotten the punch line of the divine humor of God: God has chosen that which is foolish in the world’s eye to share the hope of faith.
When Jesus reported that the daughter of the synagogue leader was not dead but only sleeping, Matthew records the response of the professional mourners this way: “And they laughed at him.” Laughing at Jesus, the professional mourners missed the divine humor of God choosing what is foolish in the world’s eye to share the hope of faith.
Which leads to the punch line of today’s message. Where are you hearing the laughable faith of Jesus in your life?
Laughable Faith
by Pastor Marc Brown
June 30, 2024
Accompanying Scriptures: Matthew 9:9-13,18-26
Fort Hill United Methodist Church
Order of Worship for June 30, 2024
Scripture Lesson Matthew 9:9-13,18-26
The Good News “Laughable Faith”
Music “Only Trust Him” Hymn #337
Prayer
Blessing
Closing Music “Blessed Assurance” arr. Charity Putnam
View more Fort Hill United Methodist Church online services.
