Holy Humour

A couple of weeks ago, I quoted from the movie The Life of Brian in my sermon.  Specifically,” It reminded me of that wonderful scene from Monty Python’s The Life of Brian, where someone listening to Jesus deliver the Sermon of the Mount asked the person beside him, ‘what did he say, was it blessed are the cheesemakers.  That doesn’t sound right.  Why should the cheesemakers be blessed?  But I guess that’s what he said.”  That is the first time I have done that i.e. quote form the Life of Brian, but it probably shouldn’t be the last.

I did this in the context of preaching on the parable in the Gospel of Luke in which Jesus seems to be commending the dishonest steward who cheats his master.  One possibility in understanding this puzzling parable is that people did not hear Jesus correctly.  I must admit that this was probably something of a stretch, but it brings up the issue of what the role is of humor in religion. 

Often the religious among us take everything about religion and theology deadly seriously.  There are, of course, many things about religion that should be taken seriously – deadly or otherwise.  Many of us believe that we are dealing with issues of salvation and matters of life and death and eternity.  There is no account of Jesus laughing in the bible.  He did weep a few times, but not laughter that was recorded.  A great example of people taking religion and themselves too seriously is the famous debate about the Life of Brian between two Pythons (of the Monty variety) on one side and Malcolm Muggeridge and the C. of E. Bishop of Suffolk on the other hand.  The two representatives of religion – and I must note specifically Christianity – insisted that this was an attack on Jesus Christ despite all protests that it was not about Jesus but about Brian who was mistaken for the Messiah.  They considered the movie the height – or rather depth – of low humor making jokes at the expense of something essential to humanity.  It was on reflection rather a sad and mistaken view of the movie in my view and shows the nee for some to just lighten up form G’d's sake.

Lorna and I have seen the movie in the past and decided to obtain our own copy of the DVD (I know we are technology dinosaurs)  which we recently watched and enjoyed immensely.  The humor in it is, admittedly, sometimes low as British humor can be.  But it is a triumph of satire on the follies and foibles of people who look for something to believe in, in all the wrong places and in the wrong ways.  One of the many wonderful scenes in the movie has Brian speaking to the crown outside his house.  He tells them, “You’ve got it all wrong.  You’ve got to think for yourself.  You are all individuals.”  The crowd responds in unison, “Yes we’re all individuals.”  Brian responds, “You’ve all different.”  The crowd in turn replies, “yes, we’re all different.”  One lone voice, “I’m not.”  Brian tries again, “You’ve all got to work it out for yourself.” The crowd in unison, “We’ve got to work it out for ourselves.”  Thank God that we all got the point and don’t have the mass appeals of demigods today.

  I realize that this missive on Holy Humour has been rather serious, so let me give you an old joke about Anglicans.  Question - how many Anglicans does it take to change a light bulb.  Answer – we don’t change, we’re Anglicans and anyway that is a memorial light bulb so we can’t replace it. 

So, what then do we make of Holy Humour?  Can there be true humor in such a serious thing as religion?  One author who explores this is Helen Luke in her collection uof essays, The Laughter at the Heart of Things.  One commentary I came upon summarizes the essence of what Luke is saying very well:

What is at the heart of the matter, according to Helen Luke, is a sense of proportion.  Luke quotes T.S. Eliot and notes that, “Eliot is, expressing here (in the quote) the identity of a sense of humour with the sense of proportion and the humility that this engenders”.  What is at the heart of things the joy of seeing disproportion restored to proportion.

At bottom, the humour is getting us in touch with joy – the joy of being part of God’s creation.  After all, to quote a group of musical religious sister – the Medical ones, joy is like the rain.  Perhaps those are raindrops on roses to bring in another song. 

May you be blessed with holy humour on your journey.  Remember joy is a serious matter not to be taken too lightly – too much of the time.