People laugh at the strangest things. One Sunday's viewing of America's Funniest Home Videos will show you that most of the time we laugh at the cruelest things. People getting whacked in the nuts with golf balls, getting dragged down the concrete by runaway dogs. Heck, if someone got run over by a steam roller, we'd have tears of laughter streaming down our faces by the time their eyeballs exploded in a red mist. We are a sick and degenerate people.
And yet, I don't think that laughter and mirth are bad things. So why do we find the deplorable, the desperate, the dangerous, and the dirty so damn funny? It is hard to imagine anyone laughing at the Holocaust, and yet, I guarantee you that there were people in those death camps cracking jokes - and not just the Germans. We use laughter to defuse terrible situations, to lighten our mood, to reflect on our lot, to deflect the terror threatening to overwhelm us. We laugh, in essence, in spite of ourselves. We joke in defiance of all life has to throw at us.
But can laughter get us into trouble? Can joking go too far? There was an episode of the BBC series Coupling that dealt with getting the giggles at funerals - a truly horrifying prospect, but it certainly made for good humor. Comedian Lenny Bruce was held in New York on Indecency charges back in the 1960's for his brand of humor. He would probably be considered tame. For as long as there have been straight joke tellers, there have been blue joke tellers - the taboo is funny, but it is still taboo.
My sister and I can get off the beaten path and stray very far into taboo territory from time to time. This last Sunday, as we were contemplating our trip to DisneyWorld and reflecting on the annual Night of Joy Christian Music concert, I wondered aloud at what sort of souvenirs might be available at the Magic Kingdom that night. It was only a split second longer before I started a list of items available, "Look Mom! I just got a Crown Of Thorns with my name on it!" And my sister added, "And I got a T-Shirt that has Jesus on a Cross and Mickey and Goofy on Crosses next to him!" The visual image of these things kept us on the floor laughing for a good five minutes. At which point we both looked at each other and said, "We're going to Hell for sure now."
The one thing I consistently get in trouble for is taking a joke too far. It doesn't diminish the laughs I get at the time, but the after effect is always negative. I think laughter can be addictive - such a positive high - that it can lure us into darker and darker places of thought until such time as we cross a line and start delving into immoral and unnatural concerns. But I wonder where God draws the line. Anyone have any ideas?
5 comments:
God clearly supports humor or he would not have given us the ability to laugh.
I think if you look at humor and joke-telling in the same way you examine your Christian values, then it should be pretty easy to see where God draws the line. Humor should bring joy and not pain. Humor should be to cause joy not to harm others - i.e., its o.k. to make fun if your intentions are pure, but when your intentions are not pure, its not called humor, its called ridicule.
Its a fine line. Trust in God and trust in yourself to help define that line. Above all things, keep laughing.
I would imagine that there was probably a lot of laughter when Jesus first turned the water into wine. It's the miracle that gives tee-totalers fits...because the 1st miracle of the Messiah was to turn water into wine...and not just any old wine, the best wine available!
Think about how lit some of the guests were at that wedding, and how much MORE lit they were after drinking that wine! I imagine there were chortles and giggles from the 12, too.
"This guy's the Messiah? Man, those kings of Judah know how to PARTAAAAAY!!!!"
But it also brought honor to the host family, and shows the depths of His love.
I could even picture the laughter on the shores of the Sea of Galilee when Peter and the others saw the resurrected Jesus on the shores, yelling at them to cast their nets on the other side of the boat. Peter dives right in, swims to shore, and embraces his friend, brother, and Messiah.
"Dude, you had me going with that crucifixion thing."
I'm not arguing that there was laughter. I think laughter is a blessing from God. But what about humor? Did Jesus ever tell a dirty joke? Since so much of joke telling relies on belittling someone, even in fun, where does joke telling come from? Could God do stand up? I think that's the biggest question.
Since he was fully human, he would have experienced the full range of human emotions. Remember the "bad" thing he did as a kid, sticking around the temple while the family kept on travelling (which begs the question - Mary and Joseph weren't exactly good at keeping track of their kids)...
I don't know that Jesus would have told a dirty joke the way we would have, but I'm willing to bet he played his fair share of practical jokes in the days before his ministry began.
Maybe he turned wine into water as a teen...
Post a Comment