Acts 5:27-32,
Revelation 1:4-8,
John 20:19-23
A mother listening to her son praying said to him, “Honey, that’s no way to say your prayers!”
The girl responded, “But mom, I thought that God was probably tired of hearing the same old stuff every night. So I told him the story of the Three Bears instead!”
Pastor, “So, your parents say your prayers with you every night? What do they say?”
The boy responded, “Thank God, he’s in bed!”
Today we celebrate
humor Sunday, the day when we remember that God had the last laugh over evil,
and frankly, over all of us as well, by reversing what all of us know to be the
only truth we can absolutely count on: that life ends with death. Instead, death was the beginning: the
beginning of the resurrection, the beginning of new life, the beginning of
Christianity, the beginning of the faith that we have come to know and follow
for the last 2000 years.
This should be an
amazing and wondrous thing to celebrate and yet we often “celebrate” the
resurrection with solemnity and ritual. It
is as if we cannot really accept the irony, the ridiculousness, the JOY of
death being overcome, being destroyed, being reversed. But that reversal of all we know should do
exactly that: it should confuse us, it should turn our lives upside down, it
should force us to question everything that we have ever known to be true, and
to celebrate again with laughter, with humor, with music, with delight that God
loves us so much that even death is no longer a solid steadfast rule; that
everything we know is up for grabs, but that we need not fear because the God
of love has promised to carry us through it all.
On humor Sunday this year we are literally practicing
the reversal by reversing the worship service.
I hope that as we go through the service, you will find meaning in doing
this. First of all, it is often only
those things which are different and unexpected which catch our attention
enough to bring about genuine change.
Since we have not experienced physical resurrection first hand,
sometimes we need a little help to remember the scandal of that day and of that
experience for the disciples. Reversing
what we know invites us to experience both the confusion but also the
possibilities inherent in life being other than what we expect. That confusion can help us to see
differently, to put ourselves in a place to hear in a different way. The possibilities that open up for us, then,
from a place of not knowing, but of seeing anew, can be amazing.
Secondly, I hope that today especially will be a
reminder that church is not the goal.
Going to church is not what gives you stars in your crowns. It is not what pleases God most. As you may remember from my Amos sermon
during lent, God said to Amos, “I hate, I despise your solemn festivals. But let justice roll down like waters and
righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” What pleases God most is when we
follow Christ and do what he has called us to do: be the hands and feet of God,
healing, loving, uplifting, feeding, visiting, making the world better for
everyone; be the mind of Christ – wise as serpents and gentle as doves; be the
heart of Christ, loving those we would call “sinners” because we have hearts of
compassion that can do nothing less than treat even our enemies with love and
grace. The point of church is to ground
us in the love of God, to center us in the reason for all we do, to remind us
of our call and the support we have from God and this community for doing the
call, and to feed us so that we can then do the work of the world with energy
and passion.
When seen this way, it is therefore more than appropriate
that our “welcome and announcements” lead us into being the church in the world
out there; that they come at the end of the service, inviting us into the work
of Christ. It is appropriate that we
enter this place with the benediction, and the reminder that it is a temporary
leaving of our work for Christ that we do when we come into this place to be
fed so that we can go back into the world again at the end of the hour. It is appropriate that we hear the words of
scripture AFTER the sermon so that we can hear whether or not our thoughts and
our reflections actually have anything to do with what God is saying to us
through the books of the Bible. It is
appropriate that we give of our best gifts in our offering before we have been
fed in this place so that it is not somehow a measurement of what the hour has
provided us, but instead a pledge to give our best to God no matter how we are
feeling or what we face in this moment.
It is appropriate that we greet one another with the peace of Christ:
coming into this place as forgiven people forgiving each other before we can
hear what God would say to us in this hour.
And finally, it is very appropriate that we celebrate
Christ’s resurrection with laughter, with a recognition of the absurdity of
life that ends for most of us in death; and the delight in death that ends with
the scandal of life. We will hear today
from the book of John that Jesus’ message to the disciples was peace, was one
of sending forth, and was one of forgiveness.
That continues to be Christ’s message for all of us who would follow: to
find peace so that we may go forth loving, forgiving and doing the work that
God calls us to do in the world. Christ
is the one who was, who is and who will be.
It is in that wake, in that understanding, in that deep and undeniably
powerful call that we are told to go and do what he did: healing, loving,
freeing, raising up the valleys and bringing the mountains low. And so we will, as we step forward into our
lives from this place. But before we do
that, it is appropriate that we boost ourselves with a bit of laughter, with
joy, with celebration.
So towards that end, we begin with the jokes that you
have to share. These two come from Scott
Lewis who could not be here today:
Muldoon lived alone in the Irish countryside with only a
pet dog for company. One day the dog
died, and Muldoon went to the parish priest and asked, 'Father, my dog is dead.
Could ya' be saying' a mass for the poor creature?'
Father Patrick replied, 'I'm afraid not; we cannot have
services for an animal in the church. But there are some Baptists down the
lane, and there's no tellin' what they believe. Maybe they'll do something for
the creature.'
Muldoon said, 'I'll go right away Father. Do ya' think
$5,000 is enough to donate to them for the service?'
Father Patrick exclaimed, 'Sweet Mary, Mother of Jesus!
Why didn't ya tell me the dog was Catholic?”
Father O'Malley answers the phone. 'Hello, is this
Father O'Malley?'
'It is!'
'This is the IRS. Can you help us?'
'I can!'
'Do you know a Ted Houlihan?'
'I do!'
'Is he a member
of your congregation?'
'He is!'
'Did he donate
$10,000 to the church?'
'He
will.'
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