Whoa to you who laugh
I’ve been doing a study on the subject of laughter in the Bible. It has led me to some alarming conclusions. As someone with a highly-developed sense of humor, I’ve assumed that I laugh because God laughs. Laughter is an act of creation and a reaction of a joyful heart to the absurdity of its surroundings. But it’s shocking when you start looking at the references to laughter in the Bible. I’ll share a few of the insights I’ve been discovering but I’m afraid that most of my research needs to remain secret since I might be able to use it for a doctoral thesis at one of the finer theological institutions.
Laughter in the New Testament
The first thing to note is that Jesus never laughs. Not once. He is from Matthew to Revelation a serious person. I was amazed to discover this since I have always thought that he was and is a fun person. I know he condemns Pharisees and other bad guys but in general with the disciples and little children I can imagine him joking around. From what I’ve heard there was a very carefully researched movie made based on the Gospel of Matthew and in it Jesus is frequently depicted as smiling and laughing. That is inaccurate. The Jesus of Matthew’s Gospel is dead serious.
While Jesus never laughs, he is laughed at in the story of the resurrection of the Jairus’ daughter. (Matt. 9:24; Mark 5:40) And he condemns those who laugh:
Woe to you who laugh now,
for you will mourn and weep.(Luke 6:25, NIV)
The only other New Testament instruction on laughter comes from St. James:
Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom.
(James 4:9, NIV)
Laughter in the Old Testament
In Genesis 17 and 18, Abraham and Sarah laugh at God when he promises them a son. And when the child is born he is named Isaac which means “He laughs” for as Sarah says, “God has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me.” (21:6)
The predominant tone of laughter in the Psalms is God mocking the wicked.
“The One enthroned in heaven laughs;
the Lord scoffs at them.” (2:4)“but the Lord laughs at the wicked,
for he knows their day is coming.” (37:13)
Laughter in the Modern Church
Should we be laughing? This is a serious question. Is laughing a sin? Are websites like Purgatorio and Ship of Fools and The Onion and The Weekly World News expressions of divine mirth or tools in the hand of the Devil?
It might be disturbing for you to find that a good belly laugh is unbiblical. But that’s just tough. I would like to recommend that we all start practicing the habit of not laughing. Here are some suggestions on ridding your life of unbiblical laughter:
Lingamish’s Tips on Eliminating Laughter from your Life
- When you think of something funny, instead try to think of something serious.
- If you find yourself tempted to read the comics, read the obituary instead.
- Make it a practice of reading theologically minded books and pondering their seriousness.
- Eliminate frivolous pursuits like movies containing comedy and instead engage in productive and edifying activities like woodworking and house-cleaning.
- When you encounter other people laughing, remind them of how much suffering there is in the world.
- Read this blog often. I plan to offer a lot more serious and edifying content from now on.
Other links of interest:
- Patrick Gray at Touchstone takes a serious look at Biblical humor.
- Gary Larson makes a serious appeal to those who pirate his comics on their websites.
Lingamish,
you can’t be serious here. If you think you are, then you’re unwittingly ironic; and that’s funny!
ever read Elton Trueblood’s The Humor of Chirst? Even if Trueblood’s serious study is as dry and sober as your blogpost here, then at least he gets the fun and funnyness of Jesus.
(So if I make you laugh uncontrollably, is that your sin or mine? And if you make me cry, is that somehow better? But don’t you know that the comedian who analyzes the joke is no longer funny? How, then, if St. Matthew or St. James “instructs” us on laughter, are they then able to be funny? But I suspect you are trying — to be funny, that is, and not to instruct. And I do know a colleague who’s written a dissertation on the rhetoric of humor–if only it had a laugh track. I think I do hear the laugh track in the background of your post.)
If you only knew how hard I was laughing while writing this post.
Now I’m a bit confused. If you were really laughing as you wrote this post, then what do you actually think of scriptures like Luke 6:25 and James 4:9?
That’s a subject for another time.
And to be honest I didn’t start laughing helplessly at my own joke until I tried to read the tips at the end out loud to my wife.
I’m my own best audience.
Lingamish,
You have confused us all, I think. I wish I were a more frequent reader of your site, and maybe I would know when you were kidding. If I read you right, you wrote it in humor from the first and laughed even harder at yourself and anyone who would believe your joke after the fact.
The Puritans have my eternal respect, and they would have read everything up until your list of suggestions with approval. They had a sense of humor, and they laughed, but they would have rejected America’s obsession with humor outright. So do I.
An American who says anything against laughter is done – way done. And yet, here I am. It’s alright, I guess. One might imagine I don’t have that many friends to lose anyway.
My education on laughter began with a passage by Robert A Heinlein in “Stranger in a Strange Land.” He tells the story of a monkey who has a banana stolen from it by a larger monkey, and who takes out his aggressions on a littler monkey. Watching this play out, the protagonist laughs for the first time in his life. For the first time, he groks laughter and says, “I’ve found out why people laugh. They laugh because it hurts… because it’s the only thing that’ll make it stop hurting.”
Heinlein was no puritan (especially not in that book, his “coming out” party) but even he sees that laughter can be the saddest sound in the world. And as I listen to America laugh at everything, I weep.
There’s another laughter, a laughter that doesn’t need anyone to be hurt, but it’s rare and precious. I laugh that laugh every chance I get, but it’s almost unheard on our TV screens or in our web parodies.
I know how unpopular this comment will be, but I really think you were on to something important here, and I hope you return to it.
Well said, codepoke. There’s something serious behind the laughter and that’s why laughing at this topic isn’t funny and also why we laugh.
Even before I got to the comments my Satire Sniffer was barking, or perhaps laughing, furiously. And I didn’t think it was another false positive. Actually Tominthebox News Network is proof that even Reformed types have a sense of humour (sic!).
Codepoke, maybe you’ve hit on the reason there’s not much recorded about Jesus laughing. Like us, he didn’t often encounter the rare and precious humor that’s NOT at the expense of someone’s dignity or pain. And unlike us, he didn’t laugh along with everyone else at the rest of it.
Lingamish, thanks for the provocative post.
Thanks to Parableman for warning us about another Christian parody website to avoid: The Holy Observer
Just attended the Pirate Festival in Portland, Oregon yesterday. We got a kick out of how serious the adults take this pirate thing. They probably spent more on their costumes than I spend on clothes for the year.
They are glorifying the “bad guys” but it is all in fun.
Lingamish would have had a good time there as would the Ker-kins. We will probably do it again next year.
ROTFL. Love it.
Why is my previous comment on this still awaiting moderation after several days?
Sorry about that. Our connection has been down and I didn’t notice. I will free it from bondage. In fact I wondered why you hadn’t said anything!
Peter you are one of only three or four people in the universe that has the patience to put more than one hyperlink in a comment. My SPAM catcher is set to allow only posts with less than three links which is why yours got caught! I like the Satire Sniffer and Tom in a box so thanks for the links!
sweet. I was SO tempted to sin. Are you the antichrist? I equally loved codepokes response though. thanks…no, really.
Azus, I had never thought before that Lingamish might be the Antichrist. I have suggested it of Tony Blair, and Claude Mariottini has suggested George Bush. Is Lingamish in the same league? Maybe we will see.
Humor in the Bible:
Whether it’s meant to be humor or not is a different subject from what I think is funny. There are at least three occasions in the Bible that I think are funny. The first is in Genesis chapters two and three. After disobeying God and eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, Adam is asked by God if he’s eaten from the tree he was told to leave alone. The funny part is when Adam points at God and says that it was the woman HE gave him that caused him to disobey. It’s not bad enough that Adam doesn’t accept responsibility for what he’s done, but he blames it indirectly on Eve, and primarily on God. What arrogance to blame the Creator of the universe for something Adam did willingly.
The second story that I think is funny, is the biggest blonde joke in the bible. We find Samson in the book of Judges, falling in love with Delilah, after being betrayed by his first wife. The rulers of the Philistines went to Delilah and asked her to find out the secret of Samson’s great strength so they can overpower him and imprison him. You’d think a wife would want to protect her husband, but hey, each of the rulers will give her a hundred shekels of silver, each, so I guess it makes perfect sense.
Delilah asks Samson straight out, “What’s the secret to your strength?” and “How can you be subdued?” Why not just ask him to lay his head on a block? So the big dummy gives her three fake ways he can be subdued. Immediately she fulfills the requirements to make him weak and says “Samson, the Philistines are upon you!” and they jump out of the closet and try to capture him. They fail, and each time, Delilah says he lied to her and made a fool of her, then asks him to tell her the real way to cripple him. Finally after she nags him nearly to death (judges 16: 16) he tells her the real way to subdue him and she betrays him again. Hey Samson! Here’s a shekel; go buy yourself a clue!
Now he’s sitting in prison with his eyes gouged out, and the rulers are having a nice big party. They ask to have Samson brought out so he can entertain them. He’s blind so I don’t think he was juggling. He prays to God to give him enough strength to bring the house down on himself and everyone there, which was over three thousand men and women, and then, yes, he brings down the house. Thus ends the life of a man who just couldn’t learn from his mistakes. He HAS to be blonde!! Sorry blondies; didn’t mean to offend you. Now go find a brunette to explain this story to you. (Just kidding. Don’t smite me!)
The third story must have either made Jesus laugh, or shake his head with frustration and exasperation. In Mark 8, Jesus has just and fed thousands of people with a few loaves of bread. He and the disciples get in a boat and the disciples forgot to bring more than a loaf of bread with them. They’ve just witnessed this wonder and yet they worry about having enough food. Jesus tells them they just don’t get it. I can see Jesus shaking his head and chuckling about the situation.
Anyway, those are some places in scripture I find amusing. They aren’t jokes, but they are situational comedy that teaches us something about the way we are supposed to act or not act. And of course, let us not forget that we’re taught in Ecclesiastes 3 that there is a time for everything, including laughter. (Ecc 3:4)
I wonder what you’d make of my recent blog entry on Jesus’ sense of humor…
http://exploringourmatrix.blogspot.com/2007/09/jesus-sense-of-humor.html
James,
I like and agree with your blog entry. There are many types of humor including irony, situational comedy, slapstick, morbid humor, play on words, and so on. We may not have the cultural familiarity to recognize all those used in scripture, but some instances may be close enough to make us smile, if not chuckle.
I’d love to see a book written on this subject. I’d also like to hear some passages others think may be a little humorous.
Somewhere around 1997 to 1999 there was a movie about Noah’s Ark. They had even the basic history wrong in places, but they depicted a scene that I believe was the Sanhedrin and they depicted them like bumbling Keystone Cops characters, running around and bumping into each other. That was totally unbelievable, but with some imagination, some events could be shown to be funny without being blasphemy or disrespectful.
Please people, don’t be afraid to tell us what you find amusing.
That’s interesting, because I had some students suggest in a course on the Gospel of John that the Jewish leaders there – with their bumbling malevolence – must be caricatures (as we often do to our opponents), and a comparison was made to the Keystone Cops in that context, too!