The Pastor’s Page
I recently read an article by a Lutheran pastor from Colorado who, before going into ministry, made a living as a stand-up comic! I think having a sense of humor is very important in ministry, and I often wish I could work more humor into my sermons. But this pastor has the opposite problem. Here’s what he wrote:
“In the early 1990s I worked for a few years as a stand-up comic. Now, 20 years later, I’m a Lutheran pastor. I have a pulpit instead of a mic stand and a congregation instead of an audience of drunks. Each of us preachers face different challenges in writing sermons. Mine is to cut out most of the jokes from my manuscript before I preach. But its hard because I just find the Bible to be so darned funny. Especially parables.”
He’s right! Many people fail to see the subtle and often sly humor that underlies many of Jesus’ parables. He goes on to say:
“Parables are living things meant to mess with our assumptions and subvert things we never even thought to question. They are more like jokes than anything else, and as you know, to explain a joke is to make it no longer funny.”
As an example, he cites the Parable of the Mustard Seed. There were probably at least a few people in the crowd who laughed out loud when Jesus said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? It is like a tiny mustard seed!” Jesus is comparing God’s kingdom to a mustard seed, the smallest of all seeds, which when planted grows into a small bush that only reaches a foot or two in height. I can picture everyone’s jaw dropping, many of them offended that Jesus would compare the kingdom of God to a mustard bush! Most farmers in Israel considered it a weed because it invaded their fields and destroyed their good crops. But a couple of people in the back get the joke and break out laughing, before realizing that no one else thinks it’s very funny.
Jesus goes on to say about the mustard seed: “It is the smallest of all the seeds in earth; yet when it is sown it grows up and become the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”
There are just a few problems here, and that’s where this parable becomes humorous. A mustard bush hardly gets big enough to have birds nest in it! That’s how you can tell that Jesus must have told this as a joke. The author of Mathew’s gospel apparently didn’t get the humor either, because in his retelling of the story from Mark, he changes the line about the mustard seed growing into a “great shrub” to a “great tree.” Some people just have no sense of humor!
But humor is widespread in Jesus’ parables, kind of like mustard plants in Palestine. The parables of Jesus are like God’s joke in the form of an invasive species that spreads everywhere. But there is a point to the humor, there is a punchline to the joke. The establishment of a kingdom that started with small and humble beginnings is a wonderful joke on all of us. God’s kingdom is coming into the world and it’s spreading like weeds! It started in the humble beginnings of the tiny nation of Israel, a nation that was a laughingstock to the mighty empires of the Middle East. It continued through a rag-tag bunch of followers of a crucified messiah who were a laughing stock to the Romans.
The Good News of the coming of the kingdom of God started with the subversive humor of a God who came in the form of a lowly servant. It was inaugurated with the ironic nobility of a homeless unwed mother and the joke of the royal greatness of a carpenter from an insignificant little town. God’s jesting continued with a Messiah who dined with prostitutes and cavorted with sinners. God’s grand cosmic joke continued in the ironically stately procession of a beaten criminal carrying his cross to his place of execution. The laughter literally resounded from Jesus’ enemies as God’s Christ died a pathetic death on a tree.
And last, but certainly not least, there is the resurrection—the punch line to the greatest joke in human history—God’s practical joke on Satan and all the forces of evil at work in the world. Many are offended by God’s joke. But some of us, who are Christians, are laughing out loud, laughing in the face of Satan, laughing in the face of evil and death because we get the joke! We are laughing all the way to the kingdom.
Nope, not everybody gets it. But the church continues to tell the joke. One day a mustard bush that some consider an invasive weed will become a tall and mighty cedar. One day this little weed called the church will have spread to every corner of the earth. It is the nature of weeds to spread. One day the mustard bush will become a tree which will one day become a dense forest. And as Jesus wryly said of the birds nesting in a mustard bush, all the people of earth shall one day nest in the shade of God’s kingdom.
Today the church still has a lot of ground to cover. But like a weed it will spread. And while we wait and hope, on many Sundays we hear parables—Jesus jokes—in which we catch a glimpse of what will one day be. God’s kingdom will come. And all the peoples of earth shall laugh together forever and ever.
I recently read an article by a Lutheran pastor from Colorado who, before going into ministry, made a living as a stand-up comic! I think having a sense of humor is very important in ministry, and I often wish I could work more humor into my sermons. But this pastor has the opposite problem. Here’s what he wrote:
“In the early 1990s I worked for a few years as a stand-up comic. Now, 20 years later, I’m a Lutheran pastor. I have a pulpit instead of a mic stand and a congregation instead of an audience of drunks. Each of us preachers face different challenges in writing sermons. Mine is to cut out most of the jokes from my manuscript before I preach. But its hard because I just find the Bible to be so darned funny. Especially parables.”
He’s right! Many people fail to see the subtle and often sly humor that underlies many of Jesus’ parables. He goes on to say:
“Parables are living things meant to mess with our assumptions and subvert things we never even thought to question. They are more like jokes than anything else, and as you know, to explain a joke is to make it no longer funny.”
As an example, he cites the Parable of the Mustard Seed. There were probably at least a few people in the crowd who laughed out loud when Jesus said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? It is like a tiny mustard seed!” Jesus is comparing God’s kingdom to a mustard seed, the smallest of all seeds, which when planted grows into a small bush that only reaches a foot or two in height. I can picture everyone’s jaw dropping, many of them offended that Jesus would compare the kingdom of God to a mustard bush! Most farmers in Israel considered it a weed because it invaded their fields and destroyed their good crops. But a couple of people in the back get the joke and break out laughing, before realizing that no one else thinks it’s very funny.
Jesus goes on to say about the mustard seed: “It is the smallest of all the seeds in earth; yet when it is sown it grows up and become the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”
There are just a few problems here, and that’s where this parable becomes humorous. A mustard bush hardly gets big enough to have birds nest in it! That’s how you can tell that Jesus must have told this as a joke. The author of Mathew’s gospel apparently didn’t get the humor either, because in his retelling of the story from Mark, he changes the line about the mustard seed growing into a “great shrub” to a “great tree.” Some people just have no sense of humor!
But humor is widespread in Jesus’ parables, kind of like mustard plants in Palestine. The parables of Jesus are like God’s joke in the form of an invasive species that spreads everywhere. But there is a point to the humor, there is a punchline to the joke. The establishment of a kingdom that started with small and humble beginnings is a wonderful joke on all of us. God’s kingdom is coming into the world and it’s spreading like weeds! It started in the humble beginnings of the tiny nation of Israel, a nation that was a laughingstock to the mighty empires of the Middle East. It continued through a rag-tag bunch of followers of a crucified messiah who were a laughing stock to the Romans.
The Good News of the coming of the kingdom of God started with the subversive humor of a God who came in the form of a lowly servant. It was inaugurated with the ironic nobility of a homeless unwed mother and the joke of the royal greatness of a carpenter from an insignificant little town. God’s jesting continued with a Messiah who dined with prostitutes and cavorted with sinners. God’s grand cosmic joke continued in the ironically stately procession of a beaten criminal carrying his cross to his place of execution. The laughter literally resounded from Jesus’ enemies as God’s Christ died a pathetic death on a tree.
And last, but certainly not least, there is the resurrection—the punch line to the greatest joke in human history—God’s practical joke on Satan and all the forces of evil at work in the world. Many are offended by God’s joke. But some of us, who are Christians, are laughing out loud, laughing in the face of Satan, laughing in the face of evil and death because we get the joke! We are laughing all the way to the kingdom.
Nope, not everybody gets it. But the church continues to tell the joke. One day a mustard bush that some consider an invasive weed will become a tall and mighty cedar. One day this little weed called the church will have spread to every corner of the earth. It is the nature of weeds to spread. One day the mustard bush will become a tree which will one day become a dense forest. And as Jesus wryly said of the birds nesting in a mustard bush, all the people of earth shall one day nest in the shade of God’s kingdom.
Today the church still has a lot of ground to cover. But like a weed it will spread. And while we wait and hope, on many Sundays we hear parables—Jesus jokes—in which we catch a glimpse of what will one day be. God’s kingdom will come. And all the peoples of earth shall laugh together forever and ever.