June 22, 2008
Reverend Judy Currier
Once a burglar broke into a home and was creeping through the living room. Suddenly he heard a voice, "Jesus is watching you"…nothing happened so he kept on creeping along. In a moment came the voice again, "Jesus is watching you:… so he turns on his flashlight and looks in the direction of the voice. There in a cage is a parrot watching the burglar. "Oh, a talking parrot," the burglar says. The burglar goes back to gathering up things to steal. Again he hears, "Jesus is watching you."
"Yah," says the burglar, "I hear you, Jesus. You can’t hurt me, you’re in a cage"
"No," says the parrot, "my name is Polly. Jesus is the Rottweiler in the corner!"
Laughter; a gift from God! The God who created the universe, the stars, the planets, the creatures and you and me, gave us one of God’s crowning gifts: laughter!
We laugh in happiness, we laugh just for fun, we laugh in joy, we laugh when we are nervous, we can also laugh in derision - a taunting hurtful laugh at the expense of someone else. So we need to discover the laughter that heals, that uplifts, that takes us to a new perspective of ourselves.
There was a time when Sunday was not for laughing, or going to the movies, it was a quiet day for reflection. My husband is still frustrated with his grandmother because when they visited her on a Sunday, she would not let him make noise, or play, or swim, or do any of the things an active young boy wanted to do.
Sunday was a time when you put on a "Sabbath face" and went to church, not the movies. There is a seriousness in our Christian faith that does take us to the depths of life and ourselves. You can not laugh much about the crucifixion, or feelings of separation from God, or many of our human conditions. But thankfully, God gave us laughter to use as a release for those times when we take our selves too seriously.
So then what do I mean by "The Theology of Laughter"? We know theology has to do with the relationship between us and God. But how does laughter fit into that relationship? Laughter can…
…bring light in a dark moment.
…be a mark of insight.
…be a way of getting a hold on reality
…be a way for God to get through to us.
The Old Testament has at lease two kinds of laughter. One, the laughter of the unrighteous and the doubting who often scorn or mock the prophets, and two, the laughter of God and the prophets over whatever hardships and persecutions they encountered. And, I might add, they usually had the last laugh!
It is no small matter that in Genesis, the first book of the Bible, it shows us very quickly the image of a loving God who has a sense of humor and who laughs with humankind. Let’s look at Genesis 17 for a moment.
God has been telling Abram he will be the father of multitudes, but Abram argues with God and says before he can have grandchildren he has to have children. Years go by. Then, when Abram is 99, and his wife, Sarai, is 90, God appears again to Abram and says, "I am changing your name to Abraham and your wife’s name to Sarah, and oh, by the way, she is going to conceive and have a son!" Can you blame Abraham for falling on his face and laughing? (It’s in there, look it up!) God says, "You shall name the child Isaac" which means, "he laughs" or "laughter". Later when Sarah hears a messenger from God say that she shall have a son, she too laughs. When Isaac is born, Sarah laughs in joy rather than the other women laughing at her.
There are many places to laugh in the Bible. Perhaps not laugh-out-loud funny, but surely they will bring a chuckle. Let’s look in Proverbs:
Hatred starts fights, but love pulls a quilt over the bickering.
More talk, less truth.
A lazy employee will give you nothing but trouble, it is vinegar in the mouth, smoke in the eyes.
When it goes well for good people, the whole town cheers, when it goes badly for bad people, the whole town cheers.
Like one who takes a passing dog by the ears is one who meddles in the quarrel of another.
Proverbs is a mine to be dug into, and you might use "The Message’ for its up-to-date translation of proverbs. You will smile and see more clearly some of the folly of life, and perhaps you might find some passage that helps you laugh at yourself. I know I did.
And Job. Job’s friends are miserable comforters. He tells one friend that he is full of the East wind. That was the hot desert air… in other words, he is full of hot air! And one of my favorites: Job is sarcastic with Zophar and tell him, "no doubt you are all people, and wisdom will die with you." There is one very intriguing line at the end of Job’s story.(42:10) "And the lord restored the fortunes of Job when he had prayed for his friends." Is God telling us when we pray for others we unleash healing forces within ourselves?
In the New Testament there are 287 references to laughter, joy, gladness, merriment, rejoicing, laughing etc. Can you picture Jesus laughing? For many years I subscribed to a newsletter called "The Joyful Noise" Their logo was a picture of a man in a robe with long hair (clearly to be taken as Jesus) with his head thrown back, his eyes sparkling, and a mouth open in laughter. Can you see Jesus as a man who had children wanting to be near him and climb in his lap, and not see him laughing?
I think Jesus expects us to smile at the similes he used: "strain at a gnat and swallow a camel;" don’t worry about the speck of dust in your neighbor’s eye, when you have a log in your own."
Remember the man who invited all his friends to a banquet and they could not come? They all had excuses. One had just gotten married, one just bought a cow, another was buying a farm, so he said "phooey" and went out and invited in all the homeless and hungry to come to his party.
AND, Jesus must have been smiling when we looked up in that tree and said "Zacheus come down!"
Sorrow and death creep over the life of Jesus like a shadow in late evening, but he says "Be of good cheer…Happy are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven. Jesus seems to use laughter, or at least the salt of gladness, to heal the wounds of persecution.
The Bible abounds in irony. It is not a joke book but its pages are dotted with smile points which say "Aha, I see. I see into life more clearly. I see the truth of that. I see God."
Laughter can help us chart our course through rough waters. Someone had formed a sign on a roof, out of sand bags in the flood in the mid-west. It said "no fear". Quakers are pacifists, but one night a burglar broke into a Quakers home. The Quaker grabbed his gun and said "Pardon me but you are standing where I am going to shoot." There is a cartoon with Gabriel just reaching for the horn to blow it and God is saying, "Wait a minute Gabe, their about to call another Conference on the Environment."
Laughter is a doorway into life, into ourselves, and into the presence of God. If you can not pray and at times come up smiling at yourself, you are missing a whole dimension of prayer, because, if the prayer goes right, you see yourself from the perspective of God.
Many well known religious figures have something to say about laughter. The theologian Reinhold Neihbor says of laughter, "It belongs in the outer courts of religion, and it must echo in the holy of holies and it is swallowed up in prayer and faith. Through laughter life moves on to faith, rather than derision and bitterness." Paul warned the early Christians not to become preoccupied with evil, but to keep their minds focused on what is good, beautiful, spiritually edifying, and joyful. Luther once lost his temper with a meticulous, overly virtuous, ex-monk who had joined his band. "For heaven’s sake," Luther said, "why don’t you go out and sin a little. God deserves to have something to forgive you for." Wesley and other Methodist preachers were adept at using humor to put down hecklers and detractors. They had to learn how to defuse an angry crowd. When eggs were thrown at one he said to the man. "Let’s cook a few of those and sit and talk a while." John Wesley was known to ride thousands of miles on horseback each year preaching the Word of God. As the story goes, one day on a narrow road he met and arrogant Judge, also on horseback, coming the other way. The judge refused to budge saying, "I shall not give the road to a fool." Wesley calmly reigned in his horse and said, "But, I will"
I covet for you the gift of joy and laughter. It won’t always be there when you need it, but the more you recognize it, when it is needed you will discover, not too far away, is God. And I suspect that if it is possible to think of God in human terms we can see God smile.