Holy Humour Sunday - April 11, 2021
Deborah Laforet Psalm 100
Where Is the Laughter?
Let us pray. May the words from my lips and the meditations of my heart be words of wisdom for our world today, guided by Spirit. Amen.
The season of Lent and, especially Holy Week, the week before Easter, are heavy. We talk about repentance and sin and we follow Jesus to Jerusalem, where he eventually meets his death. Because of this, people have used the Sunday after Easter to focus on humour, calling it Holy Humour Sunday, a time to tell jokes, laugh, and just take some time to not take ourselves so seriously.
As I began my research for the sermon and wondered what scripture I might use, I looked up times of laughter in our bible. Ummm….they are few and far between. It’s very rare in our Christian Scriptures and in the Hebrew Scriptures it mostly comes up when talking about being laughed at or laughing at others, being a laughingstock. There is one story in the very first book in our bible, Genesis, about two people, Abraham and Sarah, very senior in age, who are told they will have a child. Abraham, when he’s told, falls on his face and laughs, and Sarah, when she overhears this news, laughs to herself and is admonished for doubting God. They named their child Isaac, which means laughter.
Once in a while, an artist will draw a picture of Jesus laughing and I find people are so moved by these pictures, and I think it’s because we don’t often envisage him laughing, or even smiling. We imagine him healing, preaching, praying, throwing over tables, weeping…but we don’t imagine him having fun - telling a joke, playing a game, laughing with his friends. But he must have, right? A person with that many followers and a person who ate and drank with everyone had to have been someone with whom people enjoyed spending time. Doing God’s work is not just about serious theological conversations, fighting injustice, and helping those in need. It’s also about finding joy in life, which must include laughter and fun.
I imagine a twinkle in Jesus’ eye when he tells the fishermen to throw their nets on the other side of the boat. I imagine him chuckling as he holds a child on his knees and listens to a story. I imagine him laughing as he spies Zaccheus, a short man, looking down on him from a tree. If Jesus only ever admonished his disciples, which he does a lot in our gospels, I can’t see them sticking around. Who wants to hang with someone, know matter how wise and miraculous, if all they do is criticize and be solemn. I imagine Jesus laughing with them, sharing funny stories over a meal about their day, playing road games as they walked from village to village, finding humour in the mundane and the errors along the way. “Hey Peter! Remember when you tried walking on water and you sank like a stone?” “Hey John! Remember when you tried sharing the good news with that village last week, and they wouldn't let you in, you threw your shoes at them?” “Hey Jesus! Remember when that paralytic wanted to see you so badly that his friends lowered him through the roof of the house?” Sure, they followed Jesus for his wisdom, his healing touch, his compassion and justice, but they loved him because he loved them. He was kind, generous, supportive, inspiring, and filled with joy and laughter for life. This is what I imagine.
I think many of us religious groups tend to take ourselves a little too seriously. I’ll focus on Christianity because that’s my own experience, but there have been times and there have been groups that have outlawed dancing, playing cards, restricting sex except for procreational purposes, who have discouraged clapping or anything spontaneous during worship, who have made rules about what can and cannot eat or what you can or cannot wear in worship or in everyday life. So many restrictions. So many rules. So many taboos. So many ways the church has controlled people’s actions through guilt and shame.
We’re living with thousands of years of that put upon us. Some don’t want to join a religion because of this baggage and because they feel they will be kept from enjoying life. Some religious people are trying to change this culture from within, encouraging people to laugh and dance, to have fun with their scripture and their rituals, and with each other. Our faith and what we believe is deeply personal and important to us, which is to be taken seriously, but this doesn’t mean we can’t have joy in life and express that joy. It doesn’t mean laughter and having fun should be restricted and we shouldn’t feel shame for experiencing pleasure.
And even though we don’t find the word laughter a lot in the our scripture, there are many places where we find expressions of joy. We hear it in the angels from the Christmas story who bring news of great joy. We hear it in Ecclesiastes, “a time to weep and a time to laugh.” (10:19) We see it in a story of King David, as he dances and praises God. We hear it in Proverbs in its description of the strong and loving wife, who, “laughs at the time to come.” (31:25) We hear it in Luke, “Blessed are those who weep, for they shall laugh.” (6:21) We hear it a lot in our psalms. We hear in the one Rachel read for us, “to make a joyful noise and come into God’s courts praise,” (Psalm 100) and in Psalm 126, “our mouth was filled with laughter and our tongue with shouts of joy.”
Our faith is partly about finding joy in the suffering, laughter in the tears, and hope in despair. It’s what Easter and the resurrection are all about. Even in death, there is life and there is joy and there is laughter. If you’ve been to funerals, when people are filled with grief for the loss of someone they loved deeply, you will find people sharing stories and laughing, even in the midst of crying. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard eulogies that have caused roars of laughter. The pain is real and I don’t want to belittle it or dismiss it, but I also don’t want it to be the final note, the closing chapter, the end of the story. It never is, as long as we can find the humour of a situation, as long as we can find the preposterous, the silly, the comical, ridiculous, foolish, farcical, inane, ludicrous, absurd…as long as we can find the love that brings joy.
As we move back into lockdown with stay-at-home orders, I encourage you to find those spaces that bring you joy. Find those books, podcasts, and programs that make you laugh out loud. Connect with a friend who makes you laugh. Find someone who tells jokes or share your own. No matter how bad they are, it will bring you both joy. In the meantime, here are some wonderful jokes that were shared with me this week:
Friends, may you make a joyful noise. May you share good news of great joy. May you find laughter through your tears. May you find the joy in the sacred all around you. Thanks be to God and Hallelujah! Amen.