Rev. Dr. Ben Boswell | Genesis 17:15-22 from A Women’s Lectionary for the Whole Church Year W by The Rev. Wil Gafney, PhD. “Sometimes laughter is the only weapon we have that has the ability to overcome the power of fear and the banality of evil. Laughter can be a subversive activity—an invaluable tool for resistance in a time of oppression. To laugh in the face of evil is it to shrink its power and to take our minds back from the tyranny of fear, which is why laughter has always been a critical defense mechanism for those living under oppression.”“No matter how difficult our life has been in the past or in the present, God is making all things new. Those who laugh at the future know that God is doing a new thing, the future will exceed our wildest imagination, and the newness will be so spectacular and surprising the only response will be to laugh. Like Sarah, if we can name our future laughter we will never forget to laugh with God, or that God’s promise of new life arrives over and over—it is effervescent and ever recurring, and every Advent we are invited to receive that promise of new life again.”