The Mother of All Laughter: Sarah and the Genesis of Comedy

When C. S. Lewis advised writers to translate their theology into the vernacular, I realized that the common tongue of the early twentieth century was humor. Thus, with appropriate chutzpah and reckless abandon, I sought to inquire what doctrines like Creation, the Fall, Incarnation, Redemption and Community might contribute to our understanding of laughter. And I found the biblical character of Sarah, a smart and savvy woman, to be the saint who could teach me. At 90 she gave birth to Isaac, whose name in Hebrew means "laughter," thus making her the Mother of all Laughter. I took five verses from Genesis that deal with Sarah and laughter and squeezed them until they blessed me with humorous insights. (The editors did leave out several jokes, one of them being adapted from an old Catskills' line: Abraham: "Sarah, we've waited so long, that God has promised us super sex tonight!" Sarah: "At your age, take the soup.") The work argues for an understanding of laughter as based in incongruity (and the reviewer who suggested the Armstrong story was told as fact missed my comic tone--it is a tall tale told as authentic report--which makes it funnier to me.), the body (yes, God made sex, even if He didn't name the parts) and community. Finally, the book can be used with flannel graph cutouts of Abraham and Sarah in various positions of laughing.