HUMOR OF JESUS

During worship this Sunday morning at Amelia Plantation Chapel, the New Testament reading was from the Gospel of Matthew.

“When you do a charitable deed, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing” (6:3).

“Therefore whatever they tell you to observe, that observe and do, but do not do according to their works; for they say, and do not do. For they bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers” (23:3-4).

Although the worship leader had chosen these words of Jesus for another reason, I was struck by Jesus’ use of humor. Of course, it is ridiculous to think that your left hand does not know what your right hand does. Putting a heavy load on someone’s shoulder, but being unwilling to lift a finger to help, seems pathetic and devious. “Do as I say and not as I do” has been paraphrased as the epitome of being a hypocrite.

Jesus did not say a funny or tell a story just to get a laugh, but to make a point. Later today as I got home I remembered so many other occasions when Jesus used humor, whether irony or paradox or sarcasm or some other method of humor, to get people to see the truth.

He gave His disciples nicknames. Peter he called the Rock. Perhaps Peter was impressive in size, and certainly big and strong in talk, but a coward when it came to tell the truth before a lowly servant woman. James and John, who wanted to rule and share first place, in truth were hotheads, and dubbed “Sons of Thunder.”

Jesus poked fun at the religious legalists of his day. He said they were like a man who polished the outside of his drinking cup, but forgot to clean the inside. "You are like a person," said Jesus, "who picks a fly out of his drink and then swallows a camel.” He described them as “the blind leading the blind.” Even stronger he called them “whitewashed walls.” He talked about people who gave stones to the hungry in the place of bread.

Jesus made his point by a humorous exaggeration. "It is much harder for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle."

Jesus might have chuckled when he talked about the fault-finder. "Why do you notice the little piece of sawdust that is in your brother's eye, but you don't notice the big piece of wood that is in your own eye?”

Imagine the results of this query of Jesus. "Does anyone bring a lamp home and put it under a washtub or beneath the bed?” Can you imagine the folly of putting a fiery lamp under a bed!?!

The irrational and disingenuous statements of the people drew a sharp tongue from Jesus. Maybe he would say similar words to us as he did to his own generation:

“To what then shall I compare the men of this generation, and what are they like? ‘They are like children who sit in the market place and call to one another, and they say, “We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not weep.” ‘For John the Baptist has come eating no bread and drinking no wine, and you say, “He has a demon!”' ‘The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, “Behold, a gluttonous man and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!” 'Yet wisdom is vindicated by all her children.’" (Luke 7:31-35)