One definition of humor is this: “complying with the wishes of someone in order to keep them content or happy with us, no matter how unreasonable such wishes might be.” It is in this vein that we might understand God and heaven as having a sense of humor. It may be that in the kingdom that which is serious and that which is comic somehow coalesce or become one.
There is much about the truth of Christ which consoles and challenges, and yet, simultaneously there is much that seems absurd. Creation itself is not immune from the comic. It should be warned that trying to discern this element in God might inadvertently lead to a kind of cynicism. For instance, focusing on God as the author of creation, I have heard it remarked: “Why did God make the most fertile females in the world, only sixteen years old?” Teens that are least able to deal with the needs of children easily have babies while established and mature women struggle to have offspring. Those who work with crisis pregnancies often shake their heads in bewilderment. We can laugh or we can cry about it. God’s ways often seem unfathomable. It is almost as if intelligent design took a wrong turn.
Turning to salvation history, the ministry of Jesus begins with a humorous oddity. His mother tells him that they have run out of wine at a wedding banquet. Our Lord is curt, what has this to do with me— my time has not yet come? Mary tells the servants to do as he says. He has water poured into jars. The stewards are already imagining the disappointment of the gathering when they get water instead of wine. But miraculously water becomes wine; indeed it is the best wine so far. Who would have thought such a thing? Surprise!
If your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out! If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off! Call no man your father! You must be born again! He who loses his life will save it! He who does not hate mother and father is not worthy of me! Let the dead bury their dead! Hebraic hyperbole gives an emphasis to the demands of Christ, but still they seem crazy to our ears. If we were to view such matters in a literal way, we would find ourselves set firmly within a Monty Python script.
There are some elements of the Gospel that readily lend themselves to joking. Even the questions of Jesus can be funny. A blind man comes up to Jesus and our Lord asks, “What do you want?” Is it not obvious? It may be he was hoping that someone would ask for sins to be forgiven, but the given response was more than likely. He says, “I want to see!” No surprise in the response here, only in the question.
When a woman is caught in adultery, our Lord tells the crowd, let the one without sin cast the first stone. The text relates that they all walk away and that our Lord, who could condemn her, forgives her instead. A contemporary joke version has a stone sailing past Jesus and plunking the woman on the head, knocking her down. Surprised, Jesus looks around and then says, “Mother, I told you to stay home!” (This is a Catholic joke as we understand Mary to be the sinless or immaculate Virgin Mary.)
Our Lord tells parables that are familiar to us but which were ridiculous to his first listeners. Which among you would not leave his ninety-nine sheep to go in search of the one lost lamb? Later, he speaks about the shepherd rejoicing in having found it. However, in truth, most shepherds would have written it off. Why risk all the rest to thieves and wolves? And yet, this good shepherd regards the least of his flock as having a value commensurate with all the rest. This is crazy but it is part of the irony or humor of God. Then there is the story of the good housewife. She tears her house apart in search of a lost coin. When she finds it she has a party with her friends that probably amounted to more than the coin’s value. Again, his listeners, probably frugal women, would have thought the whole business was crazy or nonsensical.
Take the last place at gatherings. You must become like little children. Sell all that you have and follow me. The one who would be the greatest must become the least servant of all. Our Lord never lets up. The absurdity is amplified as the topics become more grave or important. Thousands have followed him to an isolated location. When asked to dismiss them so that they might find sustenance, he tells his apostles to feed the crowd themselves. All they have are a few fish and a little bread. Nevertheless the multitude are fed and there is food left over.
His humor is so severe that one day most of his followers walk away. He says that unless we eat his flesh and drink his blood then we can have no life in us. Today, the guys in the white suits would be coming to take him away. And yet, it is precisely this Eucharist that has sustained the Church for two thousand years. Indeed, these are the rations from the promised shore to which we travel as pilgrims of faith. We must become a parable people. We must become fools for Christ.
Everyone likes to receive a gift or reward, so Jesus assures us of a litany of favors. Our Lord gives a series of benedictions, assuring us that we will receive the kingdom, will be comforted, inherit the land, have justice satisfied, know mercy, see God, become God’s children, and one more thing—know persecution, including torture and murder. It sounded pretty good until that last bit. But such is the humor of God. “Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you [falsely] because of me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven” (Matthew 5:11-12).
“For as I see it, God has exhibited us apostles as the last of all, like people sentenced to death, since we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels and human beings alike. We are fools on Christ’s account, but you are wise in Christ; we are weak, but you are strong; you are held in honor, but we in disrepute. To this very hour we go hungry and thirsty, we are poorly clad and roughly treated, we wander about homeless and we toil, working with our own hands. When ridiculed, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we respond gently. We have become like the world’s rubbish, the scum of all, to this very moment “(1 Corinthians 4:9-13). Our Lord writes his straight lines with our crooked ones. He shows his greatness, not by calling the best of men but making the least and the weakest into his ministers and messengers.
These are the ones that make up the great saints of heaven. Yes, the joke is on us, but it is a joke that brings not brief laughter but eternal joy. The infinite and omnipotent God has filled his house with the likes of thieves, prostitutes and traitors. Just as he could change water to wine and wine and bread into his flesh and blood, he can transform the weakest of sinners into the greatest of saints. I suspect, albeit in a spiritual manner, there erupts a celestial guffaw that the children of heaven appreciate and which leaves the devils of hell scratching their heads. They do not get it and that is why they have cast themselves outside the gates to paradise.
The greatest humor or ironic sign of contradiction is found in the heart of the incarnation. It is here that we discover the full scope of infinite power, love and humor. The perfect Spirit, the Creator of this and all dimensions and universes, the one who is truly omnipotent and omniscient, the one that stands outside and yet sustains all that he has made— makes himself almost infinitely small, weak and subject to all the petty jealousies and enmity of humanity. The devil is the first to distance himself from God in utter disbelief— something ridiculous and impossible happens— the great Unmoved Mover moves… and the Word becomes flesh.
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