Thanks, I Needed That!

This week we will celebrate Thanksgiving, that holiday when we take off work, get together with family and friends, cook meals, stuff ourselves along with our turkeys, watch the big game, nap, and oh yeah . . . give thanks. For some of us it means worshiping at church, and hopefully for everyone, it includes moments to pause, consider our blessings, and thank the One who is the Giver of all good gifts (James 1:17 – “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights . . .”).

For the many across our land who attend Thanksgiving services or read Thanksgiving Day devotionals, they will be challenged and encouraged to list the many blessings for which they should be grateful. Those lists often include such things as: family, friends, food and other material provisions, home and work, health and happiness, our country, our pastors 🙂 and life itself, both now and in eternity. I have included such blessings in my own sermons and in the prayers of the church during our Thanksgiving Day services. These blessings are in a sense as traditional as the meals (and naps) we enjoy over this holiday.

But today, I would like to offer additional thanks to God for one other blessing that often gets overlooked, and that is this: I thank God for giving us a sense of humor.

As my wife said just today, she is grateful that I make her laugh, and that she can still laugh at me, I mean, with me, after 43 years of marriage. Actually, I think I give her more things to laugh about now than in our early years, since we have experienced more funny things over all those years, which have accumulated like gray hairs and “love handles.” (Now, if we could just remember all of them!)

Certainly, there is humor to be found in puns, in jokes, and in the routines of stand-up comedians. There is slap-stick humor and prat-falls, and even the barbed witticisms of insult kings like the late Don Rickles. But even though I have laughed at humor expressed in all those varied forms, the sense of humor I’m talking about is not contrived by someone to make others laugh, but rather is found in our ability to find humor in our life events and circumstances. This sense of humor provides a relief valve that protects us from being overwhelmed by frustrations and difficulties that come from living in a fallen world. It allows us to laugh in the face of danger or disappointment, and to endure pain and poverty. It keeps us from taking ourselves too seriously, and can’t help but keep us humble when we can laugh at ourselves and our own foibles. To quote The Joker from the Batman movies, “Why so serious?” We are told by the Lord to remove the log from our own eyes before we criticize someone else’s speck (Matthew 7:5), but shouldn’t we laugh at our log, too, when we find it?

Certainly, I have been blessed with the gift of being able to laugh at myself (maybe because the Lord knew I would need it so much!) and at many of the circumstances which I have faced. This has lessened disappointments, softened insults, and helped keep me balanced in a world (certainly, not me!) that often seems so crazy. It doesn’t mean that I have laughed out loud at everything, but that I have seen the events from a different perspective. I offer you the following as examples of what I’m talking about:

1. This last week, I had some dental surgery that involved a tooth extraction and a bone graft in my jaw. Not what you would consider a funny situation (though I could tell you it left me in stitches!). But add to that the fact that the oral surgeon used bone from a cow for the graft, and the possibilities are almost endless. When the surgeon asked how I felt afterward, I said, “Moo!” (Which from his reaction, I guess he’s heard before). Then they gave me post-op care instructions which advised cold, soft foods the first couple days, progressing to grass and alfalfa by day four. Even though I am sore and bruised from the surgery, I’m not mad (no mad cow here) at the surgeon, because after all, “To err is human, but to forgive is bovine.”
2. Then there was the time one Sunday morning when a fellow pastor and the men’s choir set me up. Having established early on that I am not skilled at singing, I decided not to sing with the men at either morning service for their traditional Super Bowl Sunday anthem. During the announcements at the first service, I commended the men for singing, but apologized for not joining them at rehearsal, which meant I couldn’t sing with them that day. Knowing my quality of singing, most people chuckled and I went on with the rest of the announcements. Came time for the second service, the other pastor encouraged me to make the same announcement again. But when I did, I realized why he asked me to do so. Between the services, the men had prepared a little surprise: as soon as I said I wouldn’t be singing with them, they broke out in the Hallelujah Chorus, leaving me speechless and the congregation roaring in laughter. The pastor who did that to me has since wisely moved to Tanzania.
3. One time I took a flight where I was sitting next to a man with a prosthetic leg. We had purchased the “Cheap seats” and found ourselves sitting with our backs to a bulkhead, so we couldn’t recline our seats. This was fine until the seats in front of us leaned back, which left us no room; also, his prosthesis got jammed by the now-reclined seat. We looked at each other’s discomfort, and began to discuss the preference of sitting anywhere else in the plane, which led to our dreaming about moving to first class. We chuckled about it, and then he asked, “I wonder how much it costs for a first-class seat?” To which I innocently replied, “Probably an arm and a leg.” Which I instantly regretted saying, especially as he got up and found a vacant seat elsewhere in the plane.
4. On another flight, my sense of humor got me in trouble. It was a packed plane, and being the last to board, I was forced to sit between two guys as big as me. They frowned as I squeezed into my seat, and once the plane took off, we all three took out paperback books to read. There we were, all three holding up books in front of us, crammed together in those small seats. The situation struck me as funny, so wanting to lighten things up I said, “Why don’t I just hold up one book and we can all read it?” Apparently, they failed to appreciate just how hilarious I was, as they continued to read their books and sat in stony silence for the entire flight.
5. Finally, there is an incident from my early twenties which I will now share with you, but you must NEVER TELL anyone else! I went to the doctor for a routine checkup, and after the usual poking and prodding, the doctor sent me to get a urine sample. The nurse directed me to the bathroom, which I entered and prepared to “collect” the required sample. Only there weren’t any cups or vials in the bathroom, just a sign above the toilet that read, “Aim to Center of Bowl.” I looked around again, but still there was only that sign. So I figured, they must have a collecting device in the toilet, that would trap the sample as long as I “aimed to the center of the bowl.” So I did, washed my hands, and returned to the exam room. The nurse looked at me kind of funny and asked where my sample was; I told her how I had followed the instructions. With a big grin, she led me back to the bathroom and opened a little sliding window, behind which was a nice little collecting bottle. As she walked away, I am sure I heard her laugh and I knew that I would be the subject of their next staff meeting. I blame it on the inexperience of youth, but though I almost died of embarrassment at the time, now I just laugh at it.

In Umberto Eco’s book, The Name of the Rose, the plot revolves around a monastery that houses a secret collection of writings that present God as having a sense of humor. This is considered so scandalous and threatening to the Christian faith that the monks will even kill to keep the books hidden from view. This is similar to ancient Greek dramas which were of two types: comedies, which were about people, and tragedies, which were about the “gods.” To many, the very idea that God could laugh or find humor is considered heretical. But if that is true, where does our humor come from? Is having a sense of humor part of the image of God in which we were created? And why can good, clean Christian comedy be so funny, if God is not the source of our sense of humor? Is humor a sin? A vice, or a virtue? A blessing or a curse?

I believe our ability to find humor and laugh is like other human abilities: it is God given, but like our other gifts, it can be used for good or evil. If we deride other people, make “fun” of them before others, or mock them, we have sinned. If we laugh at someone’s misfortune, guffaw when they trip and fall, or chuckle at their embarrassments, then we have broken the commandment to love our neighbors as ourselves. But if we can use humor to entertain people positively, defuse tense or embarrassing situations, help people improve behavior by pointing out ironies, and keep ourselves humble, then humor is a good thing. So I say to God for his gift of humor, “Thanks, I needed that!”

I also believe God does himself have a sense of humor, though the evidence for it will have to wait for another time. For now, let me just offer one word: platypus.

In the meantime, have a great Thanksgiving celebration, and remember the reason for the day, which is to give thanks to God for all his blessings. May God continue to grant you those in abundance!

May the Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you, the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. Amen.

Read and enjoy: Numbers 22:1-35