A tourist in Vienna is
going through a graveyard and all of a sudden he hears music. No one is around,
so he starts searching for the source. He finally locates the origin and finds
it is coming from a grave with a headstone that reads "Ludwig van
Beethoven, 1770-1827". Then he realizes that the music is the Ninth
Symphony and it is being played backward! Puzzled, he leaves the graveyard and
persuades a friend to return with him. By the time they arrive back at the grave,
the music has changed. This time it is the Seventh Symphony, but like the previous
piece, it is being played backward. Curious, the men agree to consult a music
scholar. When they return with the expert, the Fifth Symphony is playing, again
backward. The expert notices that the symphonies are being played in the
reverse order in which they were composed, the 9th, then the 7th, then the 5th.
By the next day the word has spread and a crowd has gathered around the grave.
They are all listening to the Second Symphony being played backward. Just then
the graveyard's caretaker ambles up to the group. Someone in the group asks him
if he has an explanation for the Music.
"I would have
thought it was obvious" the caretaker says.
"He's
decomposing."
As I’ve shared
before, “Laughter Sunday (also known as Holy Humour Sunday,
Hilarity Sunday, God’s Laughter Sunday, Bright Sunday or Holy Fools
Sunday) has its roots in a number of different Christian traditions. For example, churches in 15th
century Bavaria used to celebrate the Sunday after Easter as Risus Paschalis
(‘God’s Joke,’ or ‘the Easter laugh’). Priests would deliberately include
jokes in their sermons in an attempt to make congregants laugh. After the
service, people would gather together to play practical jokes on one another
and tell funny stories. It was their way of celebrating the resurrection of
Christ – the supreme joke God played on Satan by raising Jesus from the dead. However, this all changed in the 17th
century when a pope outlawed it. Then in
1988, the Fellowship of Merry Christians began encouraging churches to
resurrect this tradition by once again taking a day to celebrate God’s joy,
resurrection and overcoming of even death, through the gift of laughter and
joy.
While the psalms we read encourage
joy, and laughter is a way of expressing our joy, there is also humor in the
Bible. Some of the stories are joyful,
but others are downright funny. Professor
Hershey Friedman says that the different types of humor we find in scripture
include, sarcasm, irony, wordplay, humorous names, humorous imagery, and
humorous situations. A couple of
examples, when the Israelites were fleeing Egypt, they used sarcasm in confronting
Moses by saying, “was there a lack of graves in Egypt that you took us away to
die in the wilderness?” In the book of Samuel,
Achish said to David, “Why did you bring him to me? Do I lack lunatics that you
have brought this one to carry on insanely in my presence?" Jesus says, “"You are like a person who
picks a fly out of his drink and then swallows a camel", and a little
later, “"Does anyone bring a lamp home and put it under a washtub or
beneath the bed? Don't you put it up on a table or on the mantel?" God names Isaac “laughter”. The one who leads us forward, who is our
ancestor in faith is named “laughter”.
Laughter is a gift from God in so
many ways. Research shows that laughing
actually has pain-reducing capacities, and it raises our pain threshold so we
can tolerate pain better and we experience it less when we are laughing and for
some time after a full, strong laugh. It
helps us learn – we learn better after a good laugh. And it boosts our immune-enhancing
capacities. When we laugh fully and
completely, we are said to “lose” it.
What we actually “lose” in those moments is the distractions of
everything else – the distraction of our self-consciousness, the distractions
of the stresses in our lives, the problems of the moment, the concerns of the
hour. In the moments of laughter we become
completely present in the now – and that moment, that NOW is where God is.
Sometimes we are afraid of
connecting laughter with our faith, and yet, God delights in our joy and
laughter is a part of that.
Humor has other advantages as well. It catches us off guard in a way that allows
us to hear things differently, to hear things a new. And because of that, laughter and humor also
allows us to express truths in ways that we can sometimes hear differently or
more easily. Humor can get in to our
minds, hearts and souls more fully, confront us with our own ridiculousness,
our own hypocrisies, our own inner contradictions. That’s why political cartoons are so
effective. They point out to us what we
are really doing, often in ways that are so much more hard hitting, and yet at
the same time ironically easier to hear.
Some non-political examples:
Where there’s a will, I want to be
in it.
In filling out an application, where
it says, 'In case of emergency, Notify:'
I put DOCTOR'.
Going to church doesn't make you a
Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.
Money isn’t everything, but it sure keeps the kids in touch.
If at first you don’t succeed, skydiving is not for you.
We see ourselves in these
jokes. We see ‘truth’ in these
jokes. They make us laugh because they
tell us truths we don’t usually look at, don’t usually name, don’t usually
think about, and certainly don’t think about in these ways. They make us laugh
and that is a gift. But they also point
out realities that we don’t always see, and that is a gift as well. Laughter also open us up to hear more serious
truths in another way, too. One sermon
advice tidbit we were given at seminary was to speak our most poignant truths
right after a joke – right after making people laugh because studies show we
hear better, differently, more fully after laughing, and if we can say
something funny right before saying something hard hitting, people usually take
it in better. Humor, laughter, does that
for us.
On this, the second Sunday of Easter, we continue to
celebrate the story of Jesus’ resurrection.
And through it we are reminded that God has the final “laugh”. This time that laugh is on death itself. Even that is overcome, to the surprise, to
the joy, to the delight of God’s people and the disciples in particular. God is the God of the amazing, of healing, of
joy, of laughter. And today we celebrate that gift – we honor that gift by laughing with God, by enjoying life with God. But it, too, is best realized through
laughter. The joke is on Satan. The joke is on evil. We win.
It is hilarious and wondrous and wonderful that just when evil thought
it got the ultimate prize in Christ, even death was overcome. That is not only something to rejoice in, it
is not only something to celebrate, it is something to laugh about! God won!
When it was least expected, God won!
A nearsighted minister
glanced at a note that Mrs. Jones had sent to him by an usher. The note read, “Bill Jones having gone to
sea, his wife desires the prayers of the congregation for his safety.” Failing to note the punctuation, the cleric
startled the parish by announcing, “Bill Jones, having gone to see his wife,
desires the prayers of the congregation for his safety.”
The pastor responded,
“well, it was a little disconcerting.”
“It’s not a reflection on
you” she insisted, “Daniel has been walking in his sleep ever since he was a
child.”
When the new pastor came
to town, he began to visit all her parishioners. All was fine until she knocked on the Jones’
door. It was obvious someone was at
home, but no one came to the door. So
she finally wrote on the back of her business card, “Revelation 3:20, ‘Behold,
I stand at the door and knock: if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I
will come in to that one.” And she stuck it on the door. On Sunday, her card found its way into the
offering plate. Below her message was
written these words, “Genesis 3:10, “And he said, I heard your voice in the
garden and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid myself.”
A small girl was
reprimanded by her mother for giggling during prayer. “It’s okay, Mom,” she said. “I was just sharing a joke with God.”
Pastor: “I was just
reading over this letter you did. Your
typing is really improving. I see there
are only seven mistakes here.”
Secretary: “Thank you,
Pastor.
Pastor, “Now, moving on
to the second line…”
Unhappy pastor and his
frustrated church bill ringer are standing in the steeple and the minister
explained, “no, no Hibby! It’s ding
after dong except after bong.”
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