Finding Humor in the Holy

I seem to have been born with more than one funny bone, and humor has always been a vital part of my life. If, as the hymn suggests, “prayer is the soul’s sincere desire”, a good laugh is the soul’s sigh of relief for being human.  And if we can develop this capacity to smile at the absurdity of ourselves, first of all, and then at all that’s going on around us, we just might have tapped into one of the deepest wells of faith with the realization that humor was one of the best ways we experience God and put up with each other.

For example, some Christians I have known are deadly serious about the whole religion business, and some of their antics are no laughing matter. They will fight — tooth and nail — with anyone who dares crack a smile at their righteousness or their God-given notion that they are heaven-sent and heaven-bound creatures whose primary work on earth is to condemn the worthless others whose lives don’t matter anyway. These overly sincere Christians, bless their hearts, are the ones who throw stones at anyone caught laughing about their religion, especially those godless church liberals like me and my friend Charlie.

The almost reverend Charlie Kraemer did some pretty great things for God’s kingdom while he was around. He was one of the funniest people I ever knew within Christendom, and stories about him are legendary. Early one Sunday morning, an elder of the church called Charlie and told him he was sorry that he would not be at worship because he was going bird hunting.  Charlie’s quick response was, “Any bird that would keep you from worship should be shot!”

Charlie of Charlotte was a funny preacher, but one of the funniest was Jesus of Nazareth. In his first sermon at his home synagogue, he suggested that Syrian lives mattered. He later told stories about how Samaritan lives mattered just as much as Jewish lives. That’s not so funny, Jesus.  He came to his own people, who received him not, because they thought he was making fun of their religion…blasphemy they called it.  The problem for the fuddy-duddies then and now is that is exactly what Jesus was and is doing…making fun of what purports to be religion.

Faith, in the final analysis, is a very funny business.  As Ogden Nash so succinctly put it: “How odd of God to choose the Jews.” We’re always making fun of religion.  But religion is fun…tons of fun.  It brings laughter and hilarity and hope…it’s a way of glorifying God and enjoying our God-given life to the hilt. Maybe laughter is the best vaccine for staying alive and those who laugh may just be the ones who last.

Jesus’ close friend, Lazarus, died.  And you remember that when “Jesus wept” he coined the shortest verse in scripture.  But it wasn’t the final word.  He raised Lazarus from the dead.  The great playwright, Eugene O’Neill captures some of the truth about it in his great work Lazarus Laughed:  The third guest recalls the raising of Lazarus:  “Jesus smiled sadly but with tenderness, as one who from a distance of years of sorrows remembers happiness.  And then Lazarus knelt and kissed Jesus’ feet and both of them smiled and Jesus blessed him and called him “My Brother” and went away; and Lazarus, looking after Him, began to laugh softly like a man in love with God!  Such a laugh I never heard!  It made my ears drunk!  It was like wine!  And though I was half-dead with fright, I found myself laughing too!”