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Humor as a Religious Affirmation
A Sermon Given
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| There is a bewildering variety of moods involved in different forms of humor, but whatever the mixture, it must contain one basic and indispensable ingredient: an impulse, however faint, of aggression, apprehension, or even malice. Sometimes the aggressiveness in humor is obvious, as in children's practical jokes or in the pratfalls of adults. At other times, it may be more subtle, as when a pun suddenly makes an earnest conversation appear ridiculous. The elements of aggression and apprehension are so universally common in humor that some writers have theorized that its function is to discharge these emotions in a socially acceptable manner. Laughter serves as a safety valve for the overflow of redundant tensions. |
The science fiction writer, Robert A. Heinlein, made almost the same point in his 1961 book Stranger in a Strange Land. I want to paraphrase a story he told in his book.
Robert Heinlein invites us to imagine that a highly rational and logical Martian named Mike comes to Earth, where he tries to understand our culture. What humans call humor puzzles Mike. He struggles to understand why we think things are funny.
One day Mike is walking through a zoo with his friend Jill, and they stand in front of a monkey cage. They watch the monkeys eat, sleep, court, nurse, groom, and swarm aimlessly around, while Jill tosses them peanuts.
She tosses one peanut to a monkey, but before he can eat it, a larger male not only steals his peanut but also gives him a beating. The little fellow does not try to pursue his tormentor; he pounds his knuckles against the floor and chatters in helpless rage. Mike watches solemnly.
The mistreated monkey rushes across the cage, picks a monkey still smaller, bowls it over, and gives it a beating worse than the one he had suffered. The third monkey crawls away, whimpering. The other monkeys pay no attention.
Suddenly Mike the Martian throws back his head and laughs and goes on laughing uncontrollably. He gasps for breath, starts to tremble, and sinks to the floor, still laughing.
Jill takes Mike home, and he becomes quiet but continues to chuckle, laugh aloud, chuckle again, while she wipes his eyes. Finally Jill says, "Mike, what happened?"
He says to Jill, "Tell me a joke I have never heard, and see if I laugh at the right place. I will; I am sure of it, and I will tell you why it is funny . . . I have found out why people laugh. They laugh because it hurts . . . because it is the only thing that will make it stop hurting."
Jill looks puzzled, and Mike the rational Martian tries to explain. He tells Jill: "You understand it so automatically that you do not have to think about it because you grew up with people. But I didn't. I have been like a puppy raised apart from dogs, never learning how to be a dog. So I had to learn. Today I got my diploma, and I laughed. That poor little monkey."
Jill is still puzzled. "Which monkey was funny?" She asks. "I thought that big one was just mean, and the one I flipped the peanut to turned out to be just as mean. There certainly was not anything funny."
Mike explains, "Of course it was not funny; it was tragic. That is why I had to laugh. I looked at a cage full of monkeys, and suddenly I saw all the mean and cruel and utterly unexplainable things I have seen and heard and read about in the time I have been on Earth, and suddenly it hurt so much, I found myself laughing."
"But," Jill protests, "laughing is what you do when something is nice, not when it's horrid."
Mike responds, "Find me something that makes you laugh a joke, anything, but something that gives you a belly laugh, not a smile. Then we'll see if there isn't a wrongness somewhere and whether you would laugh if the wrongness wasn't there. I had thought," Mike went on, "that a 'funny' thing is a thing of goodness. It is not. The goodness is in the laughing. I understand it is bravery and sharing against pain and sorrow and defeat. Death, for example."
Jill again protests, "Death is not funny."
"Then why are there so many jokes about death? Jill, with humans, death is so sad that we must laugh at it. All those religions, they contradict each other on every other point, but each is filled with ways to help people be brave enough to laugh although they know they are dying."
I agree with Robert Heinlein. Humor is about the tragedies in our lives, both small and large. For example, church newsletters and orders of service are famous for their typographical errors. Under the pressure of a deadline and with limited staff, we often make embarrassing mistakes. There is a list of announcements taken from church bulletins that has been circulating for at least thirty years:
The stress of church politics is also a topic of humor. Consider, for example, a list that Ed Farley, a member here at Cedar Lane, sent to the church. Ed Farley is no stranger to tragedy. His wonderful wife, Joan, died of a brain tumor last August. However, Ed has not lost his sense of humor. He sent a list for ministers with the title:
YOU KNOW IT'S A BAD CHURCH MEETING WHEN . . .
Humor is about the little and the big tragedies in our lives. Humor about professional evaluations is another example. My wife, Rev. Leslie Westbrook, serves on the Fellowship Committee of the Unitarian Universalist Association. The committee interviews all ministerial students and passes on whether they can become "Fellowshipped." Fellowship is the ministerial equivalent of accreditation or certification or passing the bar exam. The interviews are often tense, not only for the candidates but also for the committee. About a year ago, after a long day of evaluating students, the committee took time out to look at excerpts from British Military Officer Fitness reports. The following are said to be actual excerpts taken from officer fitness reports:
Humor contends with tragedy, whether it is the small tragedies such as typographical errors, office politics, or a job evaluation or the big tragedies such as illness and death.
Most of the great humorists have a profound understanding of the tragic dimension, based on bitter experience. They have led troubled lives. W.C. Fields was an alcoholic. Lenny Bruce died of a drug overdose at the age of forty. Richard Pryor was nearly burned to death making crack cocaine. John Belushi died of a drug overdose 1982, and Chris Farley died of a drug overdose just last December.
When a friend asked Woody Allen about his childhood in Brooklyn, he placed his hands over his ears and said "Don't talk to me about that place. I hated everything about that period." One of his movies features a character whom his parents lock in a closet when he misbehaves. When he is particularly unruly, they punish him by locking themselves in the closet with him. Today, many people avoid Allen's movies because his personal life troubles them.
A new book on Charlie Chaplin reports that Chaplin's mother lived a stormy, terrifying life, filled with many unfaithful lovers and plagued by metal illness. Chaplin was a genius who left behind him several of the greatest films ever made, but he was also a troubled man capable of self-pity, anger, and cruelty. He had a tendency to take control of the lives of young women who caught his eye. And he was a tyrant toward his children.
Steve Allen put it this way: "I have never known a successful comedian who was not somewhat neurotic. The unsuccessful ones must be in even worse condition."
There are those who claim that humor is not appropriate on Sunday mornings.
They are sober, solemn, dedicated people who look upon humor as silly or
mundane and therefore out of place in a church. I do not agree. I believe
there is goodness in laughing. In humor is bravery and sharing in response
pain and sorrow and defeat. Laughter is a religious affirmation.
The story is told of a Unitarian Universalist minister who tossed and turned all night, unable to sleep because God was trying to tell him something. When he got up, the morning was so clear and bright that his church looked shabby. He realized God had been trying to tell him that the church needed a new coat of paint.
With the resolve of that message, he rummaged through the church basement but could find only one can of white paint. But if he thinned the heck out of it, he thought he could stretch it to cover the whole church.
He went to work, painted through lunch, and finished as the sun was setting. The last drop of paint just covered the last part of the wall. When he was done, he climbed down from the ladder and looked at his work. He was very pleased.
Suddenly a small dark thundercloud scooted out of the cloudless sky and settled over the church. It sent down a torrent of rain that soaked him and washed all the paint off the church walls.
The minister looked up incredulously at the cloud, from which came a booming
voice that said,
"Repaint. And thin no more!"
| For more Unitarian Universalist humor, visit The Caffeinated Chef |
Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist
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