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Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Did Jesus have a good SENSE OF HUMOR?

Having spent my formative years in Catholic School K-3 rd grade and being a terrible Alter Boy to boot..I found organized religion lacking in the humor department..God can be found everywhere not just hidden in four  walls in a formal setting..after all Jesus never actually taught between four walls,..his church was out in nature..and yes full of humor..unlike some in the Church would otherwise teach... he is shown as a somber, dull and boring teacher..quite the contrary..:)

 Yes he did...:)
Jesus' humor could be sharp and earthy at times like when he said, and this is a Westby paraphrase, "the lawyers and Pharisees are full of crap!" Check out the setting in Mark 7. Jesus is speaking openly of the fact of evacuation and that what comes out of the body after eating is what is unclean. Unrepentant men are full of spiritually unclean stuff that comes out of them like bowel movements.  Jesus taught in figures and parables nearly all the time and approaching them with a prosy literalism misses his sly or wry humor.
Nathanael liked to tease Phillip over his being taken in by Jesus. The scriptures record what Nathanael said:
"And Nathanael said to him, 'Can anything good come out of Nazareth?' . . ." (John 1:46, NKJV)
When Jesus finally meets Nathanael he has a come back for him:
"Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward Him, and said of him, 'Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom is no deceit!'" (John 1:47, NKJV)
Of course, Jacob was the father of the Israelites and his name meant "full of guile" or "deceiver." With a touch of sarcasm Jesus is saying, "Well, I declare, we've found the first guile-less son of Jacob!"
Picture the setting for Jesus' quick repartee with the Syro-phoenician woman who interrupted his meal (Mark 7). He blends ethnic humor and a playful challenge to this Gentile kneeling at his feet. She rolls with his humor (yes, humor can be present amid serious matters), and as we say today she "flipped it back at him.":
"For a woman whose young daughter had an unclean spirit heard about Him, and she came and fell at His feet. The woman was a Greek, a Syro-Phoenician by birth (a Gentile or non-Israelite), and she kept asking Him to cast the demon out of her daughter.
"But Jesus said to her, 'Let the children be filled first, for it is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the little dogs.'
"And she answered and said to Him, 'Yes, Lord, yet even the little dogs under the table eat from the children’s crumbs.'
"Then He said to her, 'For this saying go your way; the demon has gone out of your daughter.' ” (Mark 7:25-29, NKJV)

Jesus must have smiled when he immediately granted her request.
Nearing the end of his ministry, Jesus renamed Simon with a nickname which would translate today to "Rocky." At the time it was like nicknaming a fat guy, "slim." You could see the disciples smiling.  The event took place at Caesarea Philippi (Matthew 16:13-20) and Peter was then anything but a "Rock." Just moments after Peter's profound insight that Jesus is "the Christ" he proceeds to rebuke Jesus on another matter forcing Jesus to now call "Rocky" "Satan" for becoming an adversary. Peter would, in spite of his bravado, later prove himself both a coward and a liar — a flip-flopper and anything but a steady "Rock." Nevertheless, what seemed a humorous, incongruous nickname, became for Peter in the days following a renaming to live up to and a critical role to assume in the nascent church. With God's help he did live up to his name and became the rock Jesus knew he could. There was purpose to Jesus' wit.
In his book The Humor of Christ, Dr. Elton Trueblood examines in detail thirty humorous passages in the Synoptic Gospels. I had looked for this old book for years, finally finding a copy and giving two messages on the topic. There are several other books and scholarly articles on Biblical humor, but his focuses just on Christ.
You and I know that the speakers we most like to listen to are those who have weighty things to say and can say them in ways that rivet our attention, reach both our intellect and emotion, and can season their words with appropriate humor. Jesus must have been a very effective, captivating speaker yet we have nothing that he actually wrote. Nevertheless, his disciples could recall his stories, parables and teachings with such vivid clarity they could reconstruct his message from memory. AMAZING! And I think his various uses of humor helped imbed his teachings in their minds. Good preaching is memorable!
Even the morose and peevish John Calvin (known for burning opponents at the stake) had to admit in his Institutes of the Christian Religion (III: 19:9):
"We are nowhere forbidden to laugh, or to be satisfied with food, …or to be delighted with music, or to drink wine."
Thanks Calvin, we needed your permission!
http://www.biblestudy.org/basicart/how-did-jesus-use-humor-to-teach-about-god.html

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