What Has God Ever Done for Us?

Lorna and I were rewatching Monty Python’s, The Life of Brian recently and enjoying it immensely.   One question that comes to mind every time I watch it is, where was the sense of humor and appreciation of satire of Malcolm Muggeridge, and the Anglican Bishop of Southwark, Mervyn Stockwood who debated the Monty Python members in that famous debate that you can see here, https://www.bbc.com/videos/cyxe9180z84o.

This time watching it, what stood out amongst the many hilarious sketches was, "What have the Romans ever done for us?"   Here is a summary of the dialogue for those who aren’t familiar with it or for those who would like a reminder. 

The iconic "What have the Romans ever done for us?" dialogue from Monty Python's Life of Brian features Reg leading a revolutionary group that complains about Roman rule, only for members to list numerous Roman contributions:

REG: Yeah. All right, Stan. Don't labour the point. And what have they (the Romans) ever given us in return?!

XERXES: The aqueduct?

REG: What?

XERXES: The aqueduct.

REG: Oh. Yeah, yeah. They did give us that. Uh, that's true. Yeah.

COMMANDO #3: And the sanitation.

LORETTA: Oh, yeah, the sanitation, Reg. Remember what the city used to be like?

REG: Yeah. All right. I'll grant you the aqueduct and the sanitation are two things that the Romans have done.

MATTHIAS: And the roads.

REG: Well, yeah. Obviously, the roads. I mean, the roads go without saying, don't they? But apart from the sanitation, the aqueduct, and the roads--

COMMANDO: Irrigation.

XERXES: Medicine.

COMMANDO #2: Education.

REG: Yeah, yeah. All right. Fair enough.

And so on until Reg makes his final point, "Apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the freshwater system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?"

XERXES: Brought peace.

REG: Oh. Peace? Shut up!

On reflection, I think that it would be quite appropriate to apply this scenario to God rather than the Romans i.e. What has God ever done for us?  Here’s my attempt at this:

 Reg: Anyway, what has God ever done for us?

Commando 1:  He did create the universe.

Reg:  well yes, That true but that was a long time ago.

Commando 2: He did create us in his own image – male and female He created us.

Reg: O all right but what did He do ne after that?

Commando 3: He did give us the Ten Commandments as the original rules to live by.

Reg: That hasn’t worked out that well a lot of the time.  Who wants a bunch of rules to follow.  It just gets in the way of what I want to do. 

Commando 1:  He did improve on that by sending His son to be one of us.

Reg: Okay, but he did get himself killed didn’t he.  And why would he choose to be born in a stable in a poor country ruled by the Romans anyway.  That showed rather poor judgement.

Commando 2:  He did show us how to live a life doing God’s will.  

Commando 3: Yah, and he gave us a new set of rules when he preached the sermon on the mount.  They are pretty good suggestion about how to live together. 

Reg:  yes, yes, but they seem to be even harder to do that the original commandment.

Commando 2: So rather than a list of different rules such as blessed are the peacemakers – not cheesemakers by the way, He summed it up with, love one another others as he loves us. 

Commando 1:  Also, he did give us the forgiveness of sins when we don’t follow them.

Reg:  Well, I guess so but what’s it all about anyway?

Commandos:  Peace, the peace that passes all understanding. 

Reg: O well, I guess that would be pretty good. 

Commando 1:  Didn’t he say something like: Go and do likewise? 

Reg: Yes, well all right – if I have to, I guess. 

Have a blessed Advent preparing for the Prince of Peace to be born again in that stable in the insignificant little country.

 

 

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.