Do you ever have a senior
moment? Those of us who are seniors know
all about them, and you younger people will one day learn about them. Like the man who telephoned the newspaper
office and shouted: “Where is my Sunday
paper, I’ve been waiting all morning?”
”Sir,” said the calm employee, “today is Saturday. The Sunday paper is
not delivered until tomorrow, on Sunday.”
There was a long pause on the other end of the phone and then the man
replied: “Well, heck... so that's why no one was at church today.”
There are some key propositions
which pertain to life. One life is hard.
Don’t think anyone would argue with that.
Two, life is not always fair.
Sadness, tragedy, injustice is a part of life like we saw in Dallas last week. Proposition three - Life is also enjoyable
and can be humorous. I believe all three
propositions are true. What about you?
Which takes us to our morning
lesson. First, laughter is a gift from
God, a marvelous gift, which God has blessed us with! We may infer that God has a sense of humor
since we are made in God’s image. Sydney
Harris wrote: “God cannot be solemn or he
would not have blessed man with the incalculable gift of laughter.” I
agree. God must have a sense of humor because He made aardvarks, orangutans,
and me. I truly believe God has a sense
of humor which He has passed on to us.
Comedians play an important role in our culture. They get us in touch with the humorous said
of our nature.
Second, having a sense of humor
is critical in life. If you don’t have a
good sense of humor, I suggest you work on it.
It is an invaluable resource, an essential quality, which can help get
one through many of the trials we face.
It means we need to remember not to take ourselves too seriously. It means we need to be able to laugh at
ourselves. It’s important to recognize
and appreciate our own imperfections and idiosyncrasies, and not get all worked
up when others tease us, or when we say or do something foolish or when we
don't get the respect we believe we are due or when we make a mistake and feel
embarrassed or frustrated with ourselves.
I remember when our family first came back to visit FPC Santa Monica , after we were in CO for a
couple of years. We knew the people in Santa Monica well having
served there as pastor for many years. I
walked in and people crowded around Nancy and me welcoming us back. It felt good to be back and to get all this
attention. Then one woman looked at me
and said: “Hi pastor, welcome back. You look about the same, except your cheeks
are chubbier.” There are times when
we take ourselves and the things which happen to us too seriously. English author G.K. Chesterton said: “Angels can fly because they take themselves so lightly.”
We need a balancing factor in
life with all of the bad and sad things that are part of life and one of the
best is humor. Humor is one of the most
important qualities for good mental health and a balanced state of mind. I get a little suspicious when I'm around
someone who never laughs, who doesn't seem to see humor in anything, especially
in themselves.
What a joy to not only see
something that strikes you as funny and sets you laughing, but to see and hear
others laugh around you. What a gift to
have a friend whom you can laugh with.
Laughter is contagious. It
brightens the day. It lifts the
mood. Being around such people is a blessing
from God.
Our granddaughter makes us
laugh. I’m sure you who have
grandchildren know what I mean. Our
3-year-old granddaughter Haven was down last weekend. She calls me Hopper. She loves to listen to stories and read
stories to you. Of course she makes up
the words since she doesn’t know how to read.
She was reading me a story and I said something and she said: “Hopper,
don’t talk, the other children’s can’t hear.”
Then I stood up for a second, and she said: “Hopper don’t stand up, the
other children’s can’t see.” Then I
apparently broke another rule and she asked me to leave the room and sit in the
hallway with the toys in a time out.
Being able to see some humor in
life’s surprises or unexpected twists and turns is indeed a blessing. There are people who live unhappy, miserable
lives because everything is serious and they can't seem to see humor. A life without laughter, is empty and barren
and joyless.
So how is your sense of
humor? What kinds of things strike you
as funny? God has created us to be able
to appreciate irony, satire, to see humor in the mundane, to see hilarity in
the ordinary and be amused by amusing things.
If one can learn to see humor in
life's events, one will be able to experience the joy and happiness which is fundamental
to the life God has given to us.
Laughter generates the equilibrium we need, it becomes a stabilizing
factor, when things begin to reel out of control around us. Laughter is an essential ingredient in one's
life survival kit.
You never know when funny things
will happen. At another church I was
serving, I was wearing my robe and had a cordless mic underneath. The receiver was hooked on my belt. Somehow the receiver dropped off my belt and
was dangling down. The weight of it
began to tighten the cord around my arm.
I was leading communion at the time.
As I tried to loosen the cord, and break the bread at the same time, the
cord tightened around my arm and began pulling my hand toward my shoulder. I had to lean down to try to pour the wine
and break the bread but as I did I became more and more twisted up and tangled
up and realized I now had only one hand to use for communion. At first I started to panic, I thought, do I
say hold on a second, and take my robe off and untangle myself, or just push on
through. Finally, I just relaxed, saw
the humor in it, and God somehow guided me to finish the sacrament. I don’t know if anyone noticed or not.
I like the stories in the book of
Genesis where Sarah, Abraham’s wife, speaks about laughter. In Genesis chapter 18 mysterious visitors
come to visit Abraham and he offers them the customary hospitality. One of them tells Abraham that Sarah will
have a son. Sarah overhears the man and
laughs at this preposterous idea given her advanced age. The visitor says to Abraham, “Why did Sarah
laugh, is anything too wonderful for the Lord?”
Sarah quickly says, “I didn't laugh.”
The visitor says, “Oh yes you did laugh.”
In Genesis 21 we celebrate the
joy of the birth of a son and Abraham names him Isaac. The name Isaac in Hebrew means – he
laughs. The earlier promise of the
three mysterious visitors is fulfilled.
And Sarah exclaims, “God has
brought laughter for me, everyone who hears will laugh with me. Who would ever had said to Abraham that Sarah
would nurse children. Yet, I have borne
him a son in his old age.” God surprises Abraham and Sarah with the gift of
a son in their old age. And they are
filled with joy.
In the book of Ecclesiastes, we
read in the third chapter: “For
everything there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven, a time
to weep and a time to laugh.” The
psalmist in psalm 126 writes: “Our mouths
were filled with laughter, our tongues with shouts of joy.”
We read in the book of Proverbs:
“A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a
downcast spirit dries up the bones.”
Laughter is good for the soul.
Having a sense of humor helps to keep us healthy: spiritually, mentally,
emotionally, and physically. It’s a
powerful antidote to stress, pain and conflict.
It lightens your burdens, inspires hope, connects you with others, and
keeps you grounded.
Studies have shown that laugher
has healing properties and powers.
Norman Cousins, a well-known writer at the time was diagnosed in 1964 as
having a serious disease involving the connective tissues. He was told that his chances for survival
were 1 in 500. Dr. Cousins’ decided to
design his own plan for recovery. He
designed a program which required daily use of all the positive emotions. Among them were faith, love and hope and
laughter. He asked: “How do you laugh when you’ve been told you
have an irreversible disease and don’t have long to live?”
Cousins’ developed a systematic
program for getting daily doses of hearty laughter. He watched reruns of the old Candid Camera
programs and the Marx Brothers movies, anything which would make him
laugh. Later on he wrote of his healing
experiences in his book Anatomy of an Illness. He writes: “It worked.
I made the joyous discovery that ten minutes of genuine belly laughter
had an anesthetic effect and would give me at least two hours of pain free
sleep.” Yes, laughter is good
medicine. It stirs up the blood, it
expands the chest, it electrifies the nerves, it clears the brain and renews
the body and mind.
A sense of humor contributes to
healing, to changing attitudes, to reducing oversized egos, to expanding
undersized egos, to deflating inflated pride, and putting a smile on a solemn
face. It opens up a fresh breeze of
humility and spontaneity, self-acceptance, gratitude and appreciation for life.
Thomas Edison attributed his
success in the seriousness of life to appreciating the less-serious. He was renowned for working long hours and
enduring thousands of frustrations.
What’s not well known are his methods for sustaining himself while working
on scientific experiments. He discovered
that humor put his mind at ease. In
addition to maintaining hundreds of notebooks full of scientific equations, he
filled several others with nothing but jokes.
He found that comic relief was valuable for both him and his staff. He used it as a tension breaker and as a
morale builder. He said that people who
laugh together can work longer and more effectively together.
The Psalmist says: “Our mouths were filled with laughter, our
tongues with shouts of joy. Then it was said among the nations, ‘The Lord has
done great things for them.’ May God fill your mouth with laughter and your
lips with shouts of joy.” Amen!
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