Psalm 33: 1-7, 18-22
August 12, 2012
Rejoice in the Lord, O you righteous. Praise befits the upright.
Praise the Lord with the lyre;
make melody to him with the
harp of ten strings.
Sing to him a new song;
play skillfully on the strings,
with loud shouts.
For the word of the Lord is upright,
and all his work is done in
faithfulness.
He loves righteousness and justice;
the earth is full of the
steadfast love of the Lord.
By the word of the Lord the heavens were made,
and all their host by the
breath of his mouth.
He gathered the waters of the sea as in a bottle;
he put the deeps in
storehouses.
Truly the eye of the Lord is on those who fear him,
on those who hope in his
steadfast love,
to deliver their soul from
death,
and to keep them alive in
famine.
Our soul waits for the Lord; he is our help and shield.
Our heart is glad in him, because we trust in his holy name.
Let your steadfast love, O Lord, be upon us,
even as we hope in you.
Some of you who are newer members of Calvin Presbyterian
Church don’t necessarily know this, but about five years ago we were part of a
large, national study of churches. Diane Butler Bass—a church historian,
researcher, and writer—studied mainline churches that were growing, but not
necessarily in the way most megachurches were growing. The churches she studied
weren’t necessarily offering contemporary worship services and a ton of
programs. Instead, they were growing by emphasizing prayer and
spirituality—what Diana called “spiritual practices.”
She studies 75 churches overall, and 12 churches
intensively. Calvin Presbyterian Church was one of the 12. She wrote about her
study in a book titled Christianity for
the Rest of Us. The book focused mostly on particular practices, especially
as evidenced by the 12 churches. Calvin Church is mentioned prominently and
constantly in the book, and the particular practice she noted us for was
discernment and listening to God as a community and as individuals. She wrote
about how we run our meetings, how we encourage listening for God in budgeting
and stewardship, and how we teach the congregation to make listening to God a
priority.
I had a conversation with her after her book was
published, and she told me that she and her research assistant, Joe, noticed a
“practice” that we have that no other churches had to the extent that we had.
According to her, we use humor in a way that no other church does. She gave me
an example of what she meant.
In one service she sat in on, Connie Frierson, who at the
time was our seminary intern, was doing a children’s sermon. As part of the
sermon she wanted to play a CD. The problem was that we couldn’t get the CD to
play on our soundboard computer. So she then looked to Bruce to see if he knew
the song and could play it on the piano. He shrugged and said that he had no
idea. Then Toni yelled out that she thought there was a portable CD player in
the nursery of the church. So someone ran out of the sanctuary to go look for
it. We then had Bruce play some sort of kid’s song on the piano while we
waited. When Connie came back in with the portable CD player, it took us a
while to figure out where to plug it in. Finally, she got it working to great
applause by the congregation. Diana she said that what impressed her most was
how much fun we seemed to have as a congregation with all of it. At every step
along the way, we made fun of the predicament. The members laughed at each
failed attempt, and when we finally got it going there seemed to be a genuine
sense of joy over everything.
Diana said that how we handled all of it was so rare. She
said that most seminary interns and pastors would have flipped out a bit over
things not working. The congregation would have been a bit irritated. Members
would have complained afterwards. We just thought it was funny. She told me
that this may be one of our greatest gifts as a church. She just didn’t know
how to highlight it as a “spiritual” practice.
Why do we find humor in so much of what we do? Part of
the reason humor is so much a part of Calvin Presbyterian Church has to do with
our staff’s personalities. Pretty much everyone on our staff loves to laugh and
crack jokes. It’s awfully hard to get us all together for meetings, or other
events, and not have us joke about things. Another reason is that I grew up in
a REALLY serious church, and its seriousness was part of what turned me away
from church at age 15. We had a pastor at the time who used to preach about how
awful we all were, how totally depraved we all were, and how we were all were
lower than worms. But God’s grace saved us, though through merit of our own. He
wasn’t criticizing the congregation. He simply was a strict Calvinist who
believed that all humans are depraved sinners and are unworthy of God’s grace. I
swore, when I was training to become a pastor, that when I became a pastor my
approach would be one of joy and humor, not criticism and denigration.
Those are two reasons having to do with us on the staff.
There’s also a spiritual reason, and it’s an intentional reason. Simply put, Christians
are meant to have a sense of joy, and we believe that this joy should
especially be apparent in worship. I don’t know why it is, but I think that Christianity
in general has gone through a long period of being SO SERIOUS. I have a favorite
Christian joke that I think captures perfectly how Christians have approached
faith for centuries, and it’s a way that I don’t think fits with what Jesus
taught.
There was a man who suffered from terrible
headaches. Being a typical man, though,
he refused to go to the doctor. Finally,
his wife had had enough and forced him to go.
The doctor began his questioning:
“Do you smoke?” The man replied,
“I would never touch that evil weed! It
is the devil’s plant” “Do you drink?” Again the man replied, “Booze is the devil’s
drink. Beer and wine shall never touch
these lips of mine!” “Do you dance?” He replied, “Dancing is the devil’s
playground. It lets the devil into our
bodies.” “Do you watch movies?” “Nothing they make nowadays is
worthwhile. It’s all about sex and
violence. The devil uses Hollywood to
pollute our souls.”
The doctor thought for a while and said, “I think I know
what’s causing your headaches. Your halo
is on too tight!”
To be Christian should mean to have a sense of humor. Why?
Because real humor keeps us humble, and there’s a connection between humility,
humor, and being human. The words “humility,” “humor,” and “human” all have
same root. They come from the world humus,
which means “dirt” or “earth.” Think about most humor. It generally makes fun
of being human. Not to be too irreverent (of course, in my first church I was
called by several of our members the “irreverent reverend”), but most of what
we think of as funny has to do with typically human things like burps, farts,
eating, sleeping, peeing, sex, and stuff like that. Most good humor makes fun
of being human, and it keeps us humble. Let me give you an example.
There was a priest, a pastor, and a rabbi. The three used
to meet every week to discuss religion, but often they ended up having bad
arguments. So they decided to do something that would bond them. They decided
to go fishing.
So there they were, sitting in their boat, with lines
dangling over the side. The priest looked at the other two and said, “I’m
thirsty. We left our cooler on the shore. I think I’ll go get something to
drink.” He stepped out of the boat and, walking on the water, walked to the
shore, grabbed a drink, and walked back to the boat. The pastor then said, “I’m
thirsty, too.” With that he stepped out of the boat and walked on the water to
the cooler, grabbed a drink, and walked back. The rabbi felt a lot of pressure.
He had to uphold his faith and show it was the equivalent to the other two.
Otherwise the priest and the pastor would forever think that Christianity was
superior to Judaism. So he stepped out of the boat, praying that God would help
him walk on the water. His foot hit the water and he immediately sunk.
Embarrassed and confused, he quickly swam to the shore to grab a drink. The
priest looked at the pastor and said, “Do you think we should have shown him
where the stones were so the he could have walked to the shore?”
Good humor makes fun of both human pride and frailty.
There was a 13th century Muslim mystic named Nasruddin who used
humor as a way of teaching spiritual lessons. His stories are well known today
among Christians, although, as is typical of many Christians, his stories are
changed a bit so that people don’t know that they are Muslim. I love Nasruddin
because of how his stories point out our human and spiritual foibles. He was an
interesting man, too, because in all of his stories he is the main character, but
he’s also almost always a fool. He teaches by first making fun of himself.
One of my favorite Nasruddin stories is this: One day a
man found Nasruddin on his hands and knees outside of his house, looking
intently for something on the ground.
The man asked Nasruddin what he was doing, and Nasruddin told him that
he was looking for the keys to his house. So, the man got down on the ground
with him and began looking. For thirty
minutes they both looked intently, but neither could find the keys. Finally,
the man asked Nasruddin, “Where exactly did you lose your keys?” Nasruddin responded, “Over there by the
bushes.” “Then why have we been looking over here?”
Here’s another. The local mosque invited Nasruddin to
preach a sermon. When it came time for him to preach, he stood up, looked at
the assembled congregation and asked them, “Do you know what I’m about to
preach?” They said no, and he said, “Well, I’m not going to preach to a bunch
of people who don’t know what I’m talking about.” With that he walked out.
The congregation was stunned and confused. They decided
to invite him back the next week, and they knew what to say when he asked the
same question. Once again Nasruddin stood before them and asked, “Do you know
what I’m about to preach?” They shouted, “Yes!” He replied, “Well, if you
already know what I’m going to say, I’m not going to waste my time preaching to
you.” And he left.
They decided that they had to ask him to come back a
third time. Again he stood before them and said, “Do you know what I’m about to
preach?” Half the congregation said yes, the other said no. Nasruddin said to
them, “Well, the half of you that know what I’m going to say can just say it to
the half that doesn’t.” And with that he walked out.
These jokes are funny because they poke fun of human
ignorance and pride, and they are profound because they also point out how
ignorant and prideful we can be. Whether we realize it or not, Jesus had this
kind of joy and humor. We don’t get to hear jokes that Jesus told, but we know
that he was humorous and joyful because he was criticized for it. The Sadducees
and the Pharisees complained that he was a drunkard, a glutton, and that he
cavorted with all the wrong people. Their attraction to Jesus was that despite
Jesus’ depth and brilliance, he also could be a normal person. He laughed and
enjoyed life.
The connection between humor and joy is that real
humility opens us to find humor and joy in all of life. Of all the Christians
I’ve known, the deepest ones have always been filled with joy, even if their
lives have been hard. Basically they laugh, their eyes twinkle, and they enjoy
the life God has given them, even if that life is hard. My first real exposure
to this kind of person was Virginia.
Virginia was a member of First Presbyterian Church in
Murrysville, Pennsylvania, where I served as an associate pastor before coming
here. She was like many other church members. She served on committees, as a
deacon and an elder, and in the women’s association, but it wasn’t her service
in these that made her exceptional. If you were judging her on her influence
and leadership, you wouldn’t necessarily notice anything special about her. The
thing that made her exceptional was the quality of her heart and her character.
She had a spiritual something about her that you noticed fairly quickly. She
was a woman who seemed at ease with herself, who knew what mattered in life,
and who seemed to flow with God’s grace. No matter how difficult the situation
was, Virginia was able to see the positives.
She lived a difficult life. She grew up in Fayette County
during the Great Depression, and she had to work from an early age to help
support her family. Even though she went to school, almost all of her free time
was devoted to work. She met her husband, Charlie, after high school, and they
got married, only to have Charlie ship out as a marine during World War II. For
several years they maintained their marriage by letter as Charlie fought in the
South Pacific.
After the war, they settled down, but Virginia soon found
that they could not have children. So, they decided to adopt two special needs
children. This was at a time when people didn’t really adopt special needs
children. The two children they adopted were deaf. Virginia and Charlie learned
sign language so that they could communicate with their children.
Virginia lived a difficult life, but no matter how
difficult it was, she always had hope and a smile. Nothing seemed to faze her. I
noticed this especially after she was diagnosed with liver cancer. I visited
her several times in the hospital, and talked with her about her cancer. I was
sure that she had deep-seated fears, and that I could help put her mind at
ease. That’s what I had been taught to do in seminary. We learned that when
people end up in hospitals with terrible diseases, they all have deep fears that
they need to express. As pastors, we need to bring that out and help them deal
with these traumas emotionally. I wasn’t prepared for Virginia’s response.
When I visited Virginia, she was smiling. I asked her
about her cancer and she told me that the doctors only gave her a few weeks or
a month to live. I asked her how she felt, hoping to get to that deep fear. Virginia
said that she felt fine. When I probed a bit more, she told me that the cancer
didn’t faze her because she was ready to die. She didn’t fear death and was looking
forward to meeting God. We talked for a while about what that would be like. Virginia
had no deep-seated fear. She had a sense of hope, joy, and acceptance of what
was happening. By the end of our time together, she had gotten me to talk more about
my life than about hers. This is what I mean by her being exceptional. She had such a deep faith that even the
trauma of death couldn’t extinguish it. As a gift from God, Virginia slipped
into a coma a few days later, and died a week later. Virginia inspired me in
both life and death.
Over the years I’ve met many people like her—members of
this church such as Jo Jones, Bill Uhl, John McMillan, Banks Brown, Betty
Alexander… many more. They were a living testimony to the fact that faith could
be serious as well as humorous, faithful as well as joyful.
Joy comes from being so open to God’s presence in our
lives that we see God in everything, even in our difficulties. Joy comes from
living a spiritual life filled with gratitude for al that God has given us, humility
in recognizing that we are nothing special outside of God, and lives in the now,
letting go of fears and worries so that we can experience God in the present.
We were created to live in joy. I want you to reflect on a
question about the state of your joy. When you die, will people be able to say
that you were filled with God’s joy?
Amen.
