“ ‘Aslan! Aslan! Have I made the first joke?
Will everybody always be told how I made the first joke?’
‘No, little friend,’ said the Lion. ‘You have
not made the first joke; you have only been the first joke.’”
C. S. Lewis, The
Magician’s Nephew (1955)
One thing I think we often don’t realise about
the Bible is how extraordinarily funny it often is.
 |
| A Bible. Open to the Psalms, which are, admittedly, probably not the funniest bit. |
I mean, I don’t exactly blame us for that;
several obstacles to our getting the jokes have been unfortunately cast before
us. First off, we’re in a totally different cultural context to those in which
the books of the Bible were written. In addition, the text has been squeezed
out of the original languages where it was at home and at ease, into English renderings
that have inevitably left wordplay and clever linguistic structure and nuance
of meaning in the dust, and on top of that frequently sound ungainly and
archaic and theologically dense. On top of that, when it’s read aloud, that
tends to happen in a measured, solemn sort of tone that would be hard to laugh
at in any circumstances.1 And then we immediately set about trying
to pull the thing apart and understand it, without pausing to discern any more
primal effect that it’s had on us. Taking all that together, we’re probably
only going to catch uncertain glimpses of the funny bits – like, is that
a joke? It sounds as if it might be, but I’m not totally sure. And if you’re
not totally sure whether or not the God and King of the universe, your Lord and
Saviour and Commander and Judge, is joking, well, you’re probably not going to
do something so risky as laugh at what might not actually be a joke.
But please be reassured that God does have
a sense of humour. In an attempt to demonstrate as much, I’d like to spend the
rest of this post narrating you through a few of my favourite funny episodes
from the scriptures.
Exodus 23
So Moses has just come down from his very
important meeting with God on Mount Sinai to find that in his absence, the
people of Israel have persuaded his brother Aaron, the High Priest, to make
them a golden calf-shaped idol to worship – a plan he acceded to readily enough.
Moses is, consequently, Not A Happy Bunny.
“Aaron, what were you thinking? You’ve
made the people commit a horrific sin! God was all set to destroy them for it
before I pleaded with him to keep his promises to our ancestors! What did the
people ever do to you that you’d bring that on them?”
“Don’t be cross, Moses!” Aaron begs him. “It’s
not my fault! It’s the people! They’re downright evil. See, they asked
me to make them gods, because they weren’t sure what had happened to you after
you disappeared up the mountain.” Well, that last sentence is true enough. “So
I told them to give me any gold they had, and they did.” OK, that’s true too. “And
then I – well, I took the gold and I threw it straight in the fire like
a good High Priest, and, blimey, Moses, would you believe it, out of the fire
came this calf here!”
Yeah, that last bit wasn’t true, oddly
enough.2
Judges 8
So Gideon the judge has just led a very
successful military campaign, and the people of Israel are keen to make him
king over them.
“Oh no, I couldn’t possibly,” says Gideon. “I
won’t be your king and neither will my heirs after you. Don’t you know that the
LORD is supposed to be your only ruler?”
Wow, well done, Gideon, how very righteous and
humble of you! Now please don’t ruin it by going and doing something like –
“I tell you what, though,” continues Gideon, “there
is one thing I’d like you guys to do for me. Can I have all the gold earrings
you took from the enemies we defeated as spoil?”
“Sure you can,” say the people.
“Oh, and I’ll also take the jewellery that we
nabbed off the kings of Midian,” Gideon goes on. “And their royal purple
garments.”
“Um, sure. But, um, Gideon, we thought you
said you didn’t want to be a king?”
“Not a king! Definitely not a king!” insists
Gideon, busily making an ephod (for priestly service of some sort, presumably,
which was only supposed to happen in Jerusalem3) and setting it up
in his own city, Ophrah.
“Right … but you are kind of making your own
city into a religious capital, which does seem a bit like the sort of
thing a king might do…”
“Totally not a king!” repeats Gideon. “I’m
totally not a king! The LORD is your only king! By the way, have you met my
son? His name is My-Father-Is-A-King.”
*Sigh.* Something like that.4
 |
| Gold earrings. |
Esther 6
King Ahasuerus of Persia can’t sleep. He needs
a bedtime story. And what better bedtime story than the official account of all
his own great achievements? He has someone read it to him. They get to a bit
where a Jew called Mordecai foiled a plot against him.
“Hey, how did we reward this guy for that?”
Ahasuerus asks those attending him.
“Um … we didn’t,” they reply.
“Well, that’s no good,” reckons Ahasuerus. “We
should definitely do something for him.”
At this point, into the court comes Haman, one
of the king’s top officials. He’s on his way to ask the king about having
Mordecai hanged on a gallows he’s had specially built for the purpose, because
Mordecai doesn’t bow to him or pay him homage like the other officials, and that
really annoys him.
“Haman’s outside,” the king’s attendants tell
him.
“Let him in,” says the king. “Hey, Haman! Can I
get an opinion on something? What should I do for someone I want to honour?”
Hmm, thinks
Haman, I wonder who the king wants to honour? You know, surely there can’t
possibly be anyone he wants to honour more than me?
“How about this,” suggests Haman. “Dress him in
royal robes that you’ve worn yourself, and put him on a horse you’ve ridden,
and give him a crown, and have your most noble officials lead him through the
streets proclaiming that this is what you do for those you honour.”
“What a great idea!” agrees Ahasuerus.
Haman’s dead pleased with this turn of events:
it’ll be great to be honoured like that. Now if only he can enact his plan to
get rid of that annoying Mordecai, life will be pretty much perfect.
“Go right away and have exactly what you
described done for Mordecai the Jew,” orders the king.
We’re not told about Haman’s facial expression
at that point, but I bet it was priceless.5
Acts 19
Paul and his missionary buddies are busy
preaching the gospel in Ephesus. A silversmith called Demetrius is none too
pleased about this, because Paul’s preaching against idolatry presents a bit of
a threat to his business selling silver shrines to Artemis, so he gets together
the people in the city who work in similar trades and makes a stirring speech
denouncing Paul’s gospel activities. Everyone gets very het up and starts
yelling, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” They manage to get hold of a
couple of Paul’s companions and drag them to the local theatre, which served as a general sort of venue for public assemblies.
“Brilliant!” exclaims Paul. “I do love a bit
of being dragged before pagan authorities to give testimony! Hold on, give me a
mo and I’ll be right with you guys-”
“Um, no you won’t,” interject the other
Christians. “Like, could you maybe this once stay put and keep out of trouble?
It’s total chaos in that theatre.”
And it is total chaos, because most of
the people there have no idea what’s happening or why they’re all there. They’re
all yelling over one another. After a bit, a Jew called Alexander gets shoved
to the front to say something, but when the crowd realises he’s Jewish, they
prevent him from addressing them by yelling, “Great is Artemis of the
Ephesians!” again. Solidly. For two hours.
Eventually, a town official gets them to shut
up, and basically says, “Guys, we know, OK? We all already know Artemis
is great. Nobody has been suddenly enlightened of that fact by the past two
hours of yelling. Plus, nobody here has done anything sacrilegious. Now, if
Demetrius and his colleagues have an actual lawsuit to file against
anybody, there are the usual court procedures. But there is literally no
reason for us all to be gathered here right now, and if we keep this up, we’re
going to be accused of rioting. For literally no reason. So for goodness’
sake, go home, all of you.”
And with that, they all went home. And bear in
mind that most of the crowd had no idea what they were doing there in the first
place, and that nobody had actually managed to deliver a speech to them except
that last one telling them what a waste of time their being there was. What an
anticlimax. I bet Paul was glad he agreed to give it a miss.6
A few of my favourites, as I say; there’s
plenty more to be found in the scriptures in the way of hilarity. Try Genesis
31, which surely has to constitute the first recorded instance of a woman using
her period as an excuse to get herself out of a sticky situation; Exodus 8,
where Pharoah’s magicians respond to the plague of frogs by proving that they
can make frogs come up on the land too – hey presto, even more frogs, what a
helpful development; Judges 3, where King Eglon’s been stabbed to death but his
officials think he’s just taking a really long time on the toilet; 1 Samuel 5,
where the Philistines attempt to assert their military victory over Israel by
putting the ark of the covenant in the temple of their god Dagon, only to find
that the statue of Dagon keeps prostrating itself in front of the ark whenever
they’re not looking; Isaiah 44, which is a stunning bit of satire exposing the
ludicrousness of idolatry; I could go on.
The Bible is funny, folks. I mean, not
all of it, granted, but a lot more of it than I think most of us realise. Laughter
is not automatically irreverent; on the contrary, it can reflect the heart of
God. A healthy sense of the ridiculous can help keep us humble. Satire and
amused scorn can be amazing weapons against sin.
Take your sense of humour and dedicate it to
the glory of God. The Bible is funny, folks. Laugh.
Footnotes
1
If I recall rightly, a lot of similar points were made by the speaker in an
evening comedy session I went to at Word Alive earlier this year: https://wordaliveevent.org/. Sadly I can’t
seem to remember or track down the chap’s name. He was very funny, though,
especially about John’s excessive emphasis on the fact that he reached
the tomb first in the twentieth chapter of his gospel.
2
Here’s the original account, https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus+32&version=ESVUK,
in case you want something a bit more infallible than my paraphrasing.
3
As per Deuteronomy 12, https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Deuteronomy+12&version=ESVUK,
and, ooh, try 1 Kings 11, https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Kings+11&version=ESVUK.
4
Again, here’s the chapter: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=judges+8&version=ESVUK.
5
Honestly, my paraphrasing for maximum comic effect felt pretty pointless with
this one; it’s so neatly amusing already: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=esther+6&version=ESVUK.
No comments:
Post a Comment