Genesis 17:1, 9-10, 15-22 / Matthew 8:1-4
It is not that easy to laugh at yourself when you are the brunt of a joke.
It would also take a lot of sense of humour to laugh at yourself when the joke went on for 24 years.
When God made the promise to Abraham of land and descendants, Abraham was already 75 years old.
Time and again, Abraham wondered how this promise of God is going to be fulfilled.
He and his wife Sarah even came up with their own ideas as to how to fulfill the promise on their own.
Yet, everything had failed, and as we heard in the 1st reading, when God told Abraham, who was then already 99 years old, that Sarah (who was 88 years old) would conceive and bear a son, just what would be the response of Abraham?
Well, he could have flared up at God for His empty promise and for telling him that he was going to have a child at 99 years old!
But after waiting for 24 years, maybe Abraham had "matured" in that he had the sense of humour to laugh at it instead of fuming over.
Maybe that is where we get the saying - Laughter is the best medicine.
But leprosy is certainly no laughing matter. Yet the leper in the gospel passage had the faith and the courage to come to Jesus for a cure.
And we can say that the leper had the last laugh. And we can also say that those with faith will also have the last laugh. Let us ask God for that kind of faith.