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"Crying and Laughter"
Charles Snider
June 14, 2009
St. Mark’s, Glen Ellyn
It’s a privilege to have the opportunity to speak to
you all again in the context of our corporate worship. This
is probably about my fourth or fifth time in the pulpit, and
many of you have been kind and complimentary about my previous
efforts. I must tell you, however, it’s easier to come
up with a successful sermon when you do it only once every couple
of years. To have to do it every week, or every several weeks
is a daunting challenge, and one which, I am pleased to say,
is always met with great success by each of our clergy. For
this, we should all be very thankful indeed.
Christianity has lots of symbolism assigned to numbers. One
represents a single God, two, the dual nature of Christ, three
for the Trinity, four gospels writers, the five books of the
Pentateuch, the six days of creation, seven being the number
of spiritual perfection, and so on. Today I’d like to
talk about the number two, or as I see it, two sides to an important
coin – crying and laughter.
Many years ago – and this will surely date me –
I remember watching an episode on TV of the Smothers Brothers.
Some of you may remember them. They had, for that time, a rather
cutting edge to their humor, and they often were criticized
for some of the jokes they told. Apparently on a previous show
they had made a religious joke of some kind, and in the days
following received a lot of criticism for it. Whether it’s
a blessing or a curse, there will always be someone around who
is sure they know and are willing to tell you, “God doesn’t
think that’s funny.”
What I remember about the show was their response to this criticism.
I can’t quote them exactly, but here’s the general
jist of it: If we are indeed made in the image of God, and we
have a sense of humor, we must have gotten it from him.
There is a quote by Voltaire which I have always appreciated:
“God is the world’s greatest comic, playing to an
audience that’s afraid to laugh.” Why is that? Why
should we be afraid? Isn’t laughter suppose to be “the
best medicine”?
Humour and laughter are being increasingly used in a variety
of therapeutic situations. Research into the use of therapeutic
humour tells us it has the power to motivate, alleviate stress
and pain, and improve one’s sense of well being. Articles
in the popular press and medical journals frequently report
that laughter, like exercise, can reduce stress, improve tolerance
to pain, and alter bodily functions such as blood pressure,
heart rate, muscle activity, stomach acidity, and even stimulate
the immune system. All sounds pretty good to me, and frankly,
it certainly beats jogging.
On the other side of the coin, some of the best television
shows were those that could carry you successfully along on
a roller coaster ride of emotions. Those that would have you
laughing one minute, and crying the next. Shows like MASH, or
All in the Family were particularly successful, and memorable.
That’s one of the most enjoyable things to me about the
Bible. As I sit up there from my perch at the organ, I get to
hear a lot of scripture being read, and in spite of the occasional
comments from critics outside our denomination, we Episcopalians
read a lot of it. Over the years I have come to expect that
some passages will make my eyes tear up, even though I’ve
heard them many times before. And there are those that make
me want to laugh, or at least snicker. I’m not worried
what people might think of me if they see me tearing up. But
I do when it comes to laughter. I think maybe we all do.
So who better to find humor in religion and the Bible than
the folks at Monty Python? From the movie, “The Meaning
of Life”… the scene opens on a school chapel service,
the pews filled with young, squirming boys. We enter just after
the headmaster has begun reading from Python’s version
of the Old Testament:
“...And spotteth twice they the camels before the third
hour, and so, the Midianites went forth to Ram Gilead in Kadesh
Bilgemath, by Shor Ethra Regalion, to the house of Gash-Bil-Bethuel-Bazda,
he who brought the butter dish to Balshazar and the tent peg
to the house of Rashomon, and there slew they the goats, yea,
and placed they the bits into little pots.”
I think if we’re all honest about it, there has been
a passage or two from the Old Testament that has left us wondering
what on earth it was talking about.
Then there are those passages which demonstrate humorous understatement
in Biblical proportions. From Genesis: And God made two great
lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light
to rule the night. (and then this afterthought) - He made the
stars also. Oh, by the way…
Or this reaction from the disciples when Jesus awakes on the
boat during a storm and calms everything with a word - "Who
then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?"
Well duh! Who do you think?
Or after the resurrection, after all the stuff the disciples
had been through, and Jesus’ death, he appears to them,
materializes before them in the Upper Room, and the Bible offers
this reaction: “and the discplies were glad when they
saw the Lord.” Gee, ya think?
One of the things that gives me a real sense of hope for my
own personal salvation is the realization that God himself is
capable of sarcasm. This would explain, if I may employ the
Smothers Brotherian theory, from whence my own legitimate gift
of sarcasm comes. Remember Job, lecturing and whining to God,
and God’s response to this impudence? This passage is
from one of next Sunday’s optional lectionary readings.
God says to Job:
"Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Tell me, if you know. Who determined its measurements-- surely
you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? On what were its
bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone when the morning stars
sang together and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy?”
As if to say, “While I’m zooming around the universe
creating stars and planets and galaxies, you’re just learning
to wave bye-bye.”
What about the line, “Peter opened his mouth and said…”
? I’ve always wondered how Peter would have anything to
say at all, if he didn’t open his mouth.
Back in the days when I attended Northwestern University I
would occasionally go to chapel services at Seabury-Western
. I sat there one day among the seminarians and heard this passage
from the ninth chapter of Kings. It speaks of Jehu, a king of
Israel who was noted for his furious chariot attacks and his
slaying of the prophets of Baal. In this passage he confronts
the delightful and ever-enchanting Jezebel:
“Jehu headed toward Jezreel, and when Jezebel heard he
was coming, she put on eye shadow and brushed her hair. Then
she stood at the window, waiting for him to arrive. As he walked
through the city gate, she shouted down to him, "Why did
you come here, you murderer? To kill the king? You're no better
than Zimri!" He looked up toward the window and asked,
"Is anyone up there on my side?" Two or three eunuchs
stuck their heads out of a window, and Jehu shouted, "Throw
her down!" And they threw her down, and her blood splattered
on the walls and on the horses that trampled her body. Then
Jehu left to get something to eat and drink.”
I tell you, it was all I could do to control myself and keep
from laughing outloud. I looked around and saw that no one else
in the chapel was struggling to control themselves in the slightest.
I wanted to stand up and say, “Hello? Doesn’t anyone
find that rather amusing?” I mean here’s this woman,
taunting Jehu from above, and he solicits the help of two eunuchs
– two guys who clearly already have a grudge to bear –
they pitch her out of the window, and after she smacks the ground
Jehu says, “Let’s eat.”
I’m telling you, the Bible can be a pretty amusing book.
Then there’s the other side of the coin.
I hear these passages over and over, and each time I think
I’ll be able to control myself. Yet every time they cut
right to my heart, and I can’t help but be overwhelmed.
From John: “Jesus asked his twelve disciples, ‘You
don’t want to leave me too, do you?’ Simon Peter
answered him, ‘Lord, to whom would we go?’
Or this exchange, where Jesus says, “ ‘You know
where I am going, and you know the way. And Thomas said to him,
‘Lord, we don’t know where you are going. How can
we know the way?’ And Jesus said, ‘I am the way…’
“
Again from John, on the occasion of the last supper, Peter
has refused to allow Jesus to humble himself by kneeling to
wash Peter’s feet, and Jesus says to him, “Unless
I wash your feet, you have no part with me.” Can anyone
not be overwhelmed by the depth and emotion of Peter’s
reply? “Lord, then wash not only my feet, but also my
hands and my head.”
A very dear friend of mine, the late Charles Judson Child,
served for a time as the Bishop of Atlanta. Several years back
he visited this parish and preached from this pulpit. He loved
church, and especially its pomp and splendor, in which he took
great delight. If you were having a bishop visit your parish
and were expecting him to vest simply for the service, you weren’t
expecting Bishop Child. He often said, “When I vest for
services I shall wear as much as I can possibly wear, and whatever
I can’t wear I shall carry.” As he entered the cathdral
for a particularly festive service, one newspaper reporter observed
that he “looked like an immense Spanish galleon in full
sail.”
He visited my parish in Georgia one Sunday, and from my position
close to the altar I could hear the things he said quietly under
his breath during the mass. As he lifted the consecrated host
up for all to see he looked at it and whispered, “Dominus
meus, et Deus meus.”
Do you remember when Thomas demanded to see the print of the
nails and place his hand in Jesus’ side in order to believe?
Do you recall that Jesus wasn’t present at the time, but
then several days later he appeared to them again, and turning
directly to Thomas he said, "Reach here with your finger,
and see my hands; and reach here your hand and put it into my
side; do not be faithless, but believe." Every year when
that passage is read I think I’ll hear it this time without
getting emotional, but I never do. And how did Thomas respond?
“Dominus meus, et Deus meus.” That was Bishop Child’s
reponse to the elevated Sacrament, “My Lord, and my God.”
But one of my absolute favorites is a passage that combines
both laughter and tears almost side by side.
Those grumbling Israelites are standing at the Red Sea with
Moses leading them. They’ve seen miracle after miracle
done for them by God, yet they’ve never stopped complaining.
As a Jewish friend of mine from Georgia used to observe “How
would you like Moses’ job as leader of the world’s
largest Jewish tour group?” He used to observe that some
of those lines worked better if you used a good New York Jewish
accent, in that famous tradition of making a statement by asking
a question: “Were there no graves in Egypt that you had
to bring us out to die in the wilderness?”
Whenever it’s read, I always hear it that way, and it
makes me smile. But then the coin is flipped by the humbling
response which Moses gives as he puts the Israelites in their
proper place:
“Fear not! Stand firm, and see the salvation of the LORD
which He will accomplish for you today; for the Egyptians whom
you have seen today, you will never see again. The Lord himself
will fight for you, and you have only to keep still.”
For years, I always asked to read that lesson for the Great
Vigil, because it was so incredibly powerful to me. It was,
each time, a struggle for me to get through it without my voice
shaking, and I finally had to allow others the privilege of
reading it. As some of you know, the older you get, the more
easily can things move you to tears.
Both crying and laughter have a way of taking down our barriers,
of dissolving them, so to speak, with the tears that are common
to both emotions. It is when these barriers are removed that
God can move into our hearts and do his best work.
Find and savor those passages that move you, that can either
amuse or bring a lump to your throat. Sometimes it can happen
when you least expect it. And next Sunday, when Job is getting
chewed out by the Almighty, don’t be afraid to smile,
and think to yourself, “Let him have it, God!”
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