Wednesday, October 19, 2016

            My wife, Susan, found a baby’s onesie that said on the front “Saw it. Wanted it. Told Grandpa. Got it.” So, when little, two and half month-old Spencer blessed me with some drop-dead cute, wrinkled-up nose smiles on Sunday I was a puddle of mush. Want some candy? Sure, chocolate O.K.? A tricycle? Sure, blue or red?  A pony? Well, we probably should ask your parents. Oh, what the heck; white with black spots O.K.?

            You know what they say – smile and the whole world smiles with you. Smile at your grandpa and the world is your oyster.

            It is somewhat sad how seldom the words “smile” and “laughter” actually can be found in the Bible, and on the rare occasion they do, it is often not referring to anything very positive. Sarah laughs somewhat mockingly when God promises her a son in her old age. “God has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me,” (Genesis 21:6). Laughter is sometimes seen as mocking and taunting. God can scoff. Even Jesus warns about casual, cavalier laughter, “Woe to you who are well fed now, for you will go hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep,” Luke 6:25. No wonder Christians are seen as a humorless bunch of up-tight, over-serious curmudgeons.

            But though the actual words may not show up very often, I would argue that there is an implied and real joy of smiles and laughter hiding in the corners of our beloved scriptures. There are lots of uses of wit, double meanings, puns, irony, and hyperbole that support the deeper lessons that we discover. For example, I am pretty sure that Jesus’ parables must have caused many a twitter, smile and much amusement, nudging one’s neighbour in the side, at least until the listeners realized that they were the target of his humour and point. Surely, Jesus could not have been in the company of children and not be infected by their laughter, smiles and wonderful joy. As a counterpoint to the Jesus’ quote above, he also said, “Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh,” (Luke 6:21).

            My point is this: there is a time to laugh and a time to mourn. I am not advocating plastering some phony-baloney, insincere smile on your face all the time, but I am suggesting that a good sense of humour, joy and the gift of smiles and laughter can soothe even the achiest of hearts and spirits.  I would never have survived ministry without a good sense of humour. C’mon, some of the stuff we do as churches, as pastors and lay folk alike, is downright foolish and silly and funny as all get-out. One might as well laugh as to cry.

Of course, being a follower of Jesus entails some serious character building, but the occasional spiritual pie-in the-face or a slip on a banana-peel piece of life can still be funny once in a while. I have found that it is in these moments of hilarity (from Latin and then Middle English hilarite, good spirits) that God can reveal some very important insights, lessons and values. At the very least, it has always knocked me off my high-horse. And then I think, ‘Who says that God doesn’t have a sense of humour?’  I’m pretty sure that I hear him chuckling somewhere.

Probably the closest Biblical word which we can associate with smiles and laughter is the “joy”.  Again listen to Jesus, “I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete, (John 15:11).

And that, my friends, puts a smile on my face; what about yours?

Dale