Mustaches on Babies and Resurrection: That's Funny!

 Alexander Crispin

It has been said that humans have five senses: touching, tasting, hearing, seeing, and smelling. I would submit that humans universally have a sixth sense: the sense of humor. Just as we all have a different sense of what is “spicy”, so too we all have a different sense of what is humorous and what is not. We all know something is funny when we see it, but we all don’t laugh at the same things or with the same intensity. Whatever we find funny, humor is built on the same principle: incongruence. For instance, if you drew a mustache on a baby that would be an example of incongruence. Now a baby with a mustache may not be that funny to you. The more you see the same incongruity, the less funny it becomes. However, children who see babies with mustaches laugh the most because it is the first time they are seeing this incongruence.

In order to recognize incongruence, you must first have a sense of what is congruent. In order to know what is extraordinary, you must know what is ordinary. Even the lightest chuckle means that you recognize something is “out of sorts” (incongruence). The ability to see what is “out of sorts” is not only being funny, it is also being prophetic. The prophets would point out the things that were out of the ordinary - like when Amos called out those who had so much food they were throwing it away while the people they ruled were starving (Amos 4). Or when Jesus told a parable about workers getting paid the same wage regardless of the amount of time they worked in the field (Matthew 20). We should laugh at these because they are not “normal.” When we experience resurrection, we should laugh because we have been told that it is normal for death to be the end and to have the last word. Resurrection is the great laugh of God in the face of what we think is normal.

It is true that in trying to explain a joke, the joke becomes less funny. Humor is funny like that: it thrives with understanding but diminishes with explanation. Humor is best experienced rather than dissected. Humor is relational rather than clinical. In this way, humor is much like the Christian life: it is to be understood rather than explained. If we struggle with the irony and complexity of understanding humor, then we can safely assume that we may also struggle with understanding resurrection!

And so, may we enter God’s world with a sense of awe and wonder at all the ways it is congruent so that we can have a fuller understanding of the incongruent nature of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. May we see with prophetic eyes the things in this world that are out of sorts or not normal so that we can work to usher in justice and peace. May we be the people of God who laugh, even in the dark times, knowing that the Light cannot be extinguished.

Best Preachers Practice, Not Rehearse, Sermons

Not only do the best preachers deliver sermons and develop a point of view they also practice their sermons. This is something that every homiletic class (the fancy title for preaching class) in seminary teaches. Practicing sermons are vital to the delivery and to the development of the point of view. However, practicing sermons is not the same as rehearsing sermons.

One does not have to rehearse sermons, but they must be practiced. 

Practicing sermons, or "practice what you preach", is the idea that we need to do what we preach not just speak it. So if you are a preacher that preaches about the need for reconciliation, then your sermons will be made great if you practice reconciliation. If you are a God accepts all people sort of preacher, then you should practice that sermon. 

The beautiful part is that when you practice your sermons, then you will not have as much of a need to rehearse them. The sermon will come from your being and doing. The people can see your sermon each time you stand in the pulpit.

You can rehearse all you want, but the best preachers practice their sermons.

There is a great little story by Henri Nouwen (Time Enough to Minister, 1982) that speaks to the need to practice your sermons, even when you don't have time to rehearse them. It goes like this:

"Often we're not as pressed for time as much as we feel we're pressed for time. I remember several years ago becoming so pressed by demands of teaching at Yale that I took a prayer sabbatical to the Trappist monastery at Geneseo, New York. No teaching, lecturing, or counseling--just solitude and prayer.  

"The second day there, a group of students from Geneseo College walked in and asked, 'Henri, can you give us a retreat?'
""Of course at the monastery that was not my decision, but I said to the abbott, 'I came here from the university to get away from this type of thing. These students have asked for five meditations, an enormous amount of work and preparation. I don't want to do it.'

"The abbot said, 'You're going to do it.'
"'What do you mean? Why would I spend my sabbatical time preparing all those things?'

"'Prepare?' he replied. 'You've been a Christian for forty years and a priest for twenty, and a few high school students wan to have a retreat. Why do you have to prepare? What those boys and girls want is to be a part of your life in God for a few days. If you pray half an hour in the morning, sing in our choir for an hour, and do your spiritual reading, you will have so much to say you could give ten retreats.'

"The question, you see, is not to prepare but to live in a state of ongoing preparedness so that, when someone who is drowning in the world comes into your world, you are ready to reach out and help. It may be at four o'clock, six o'clock, or nine o'clock. One time you call it preaching, the next time teaching, then counseling, or later administration. But let them be a part of your life in God--that's ministering."

Ecclesiastical Chemotherapy?

Not long ago Mark Cuban (the owner of the Dallas Mavericks) said that he feels President Trump is Political Chemotherapy. The point he was making is that regardless of how you feel about Trump, everyone in the American political system is having to examine what it is we want to be normative and what are values are and what it means to be a public servant today. This is for some, a painful process and for others a sense that this is the last chance to "fix" the sick system. It is an interesting metaphor regardless of how one feels about President Trump. 

The UMC faces among her more difficult future in the months ahead. The ruling of the Judicial Council on Bishop Oliveto, the Commission on the Way Forward, the called session of the General Conference, local churches voting to leave the denomination and the evolving of renewal/schismatic groups - just to name few of the challenges. While the future is not something that I would have desired for my denomination and I have no doubts that there will be a great discomfort and pain, but perhaps the UMC is not dying but going through chemotherapy?

Part of the intensity of chemotherapy is that it does not discriminate - even healthy cells are affected. All of this facing the UMC, of course there will be a number of good people who will leave the denomination, and perhaps the Universal Church. There will be indiscriminate pain and hurt across the UMC. So what do we do? 

I submit that we look to how we would minister to those going though chemotherapy. Sit. Pray. Be still. Cry. Find the moments of joy where we can. Remind one another we are not alone. Try not to get too bogged down in the days ahead, but be present right now. 

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Note: It is not my intent to downplay the intensity of cancer, and I only offer this as a metaphor and like all metaphors it breaks when stretched passed its usefulness. I have witnessed the effects and in no way mean to imply that the struggles of the UMC are of the same level of pain and fear that come with medical chemotherapy.