Out Our Way: Sometimes you have to laugh

"Why do the nations conspire and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth rise up and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and His Messiah (literally "the Anointed One"). 'Let us break their chains,' they say, 'and throw away their fetters!' The One enthroned in heaven laughs!"  - Psalm 2:14

Out our way, sometimes you just have to laugh. You got to have a sense of humor if you are a rancher or a farmer on the Hi-Line. After all, what else can you do when your calves drop at 3 a.m. during the worst Alberta Clipper in recent history, or that fantastic wheat crop you babied all through the frost and the drought and the insect manifestation - and then just before harvest along comes the "White Combine." Yet somehow, year after year, most of us make it.    

Down the road we will be at McDonald's or the Lunchbox or wherever and over coffee joking about how close we came to losing it all, and invariably someone will tell the old joke about why Montana has so many casinos ... 'cause the odds are better than farming or ranching.

When you realize the people of the Bible were largely people of the land - farmers and shepherds and such - it's not surprising to discover that the scripture is filled with humor. Sadly, many of our modern rabbis and preachers are city folk who don't get the jokes. To paraphrase Will Rogers: They think a joke is prophetic ... and that true prophecy is a joke!

Although most of my professors and instructors at Seminary were city folks, there were enough "educated hicks" amongst them to keep us from taking them or ourselves too seriously. This was especially true for me as I entered the terrifying world of Biblical languages. To be a Presbyterian pastor you have to study the Scripture in Greek and Hebrew.    Now when it comes to languages, I am dumber than a box of rocks. I am a worse language scholar than I am a cowboy - and that's saying something!    But God has a sense of humor.

He called me specifically into the Presbyterian Church and, therefore, I couldn't opt out, as some of my classmates did, and seek ordination in less demanding denominations.  Nope, I was stuck and, as it turns out, I was stuck in the most demanding of any of the Presbyterian seminaries when it came to Biblical languages.      I would never had made it if God hadn't delighted in me anyway and showed me, in the midst of these long and difficult grammar and language studies, the light of laughter. For you see, it turns out God loves to laugh and loves to hear His people laugh as well. And while many of us go right past the jokes in our English translations, in the original languages there are puns, and alliterations, and just out and out jokes that were meant to tickle the funny bone as they were read aloud to the people.  There is a reason why so many great comedians are Jewish! In Hebrew much of the Old Testament was written to make us smile, if not laugh out loud.   And the joke is almost always a variation on the same thing:

A silly little grain of sand on an infinite beach thinks he or she is the whole beach ... now that is funny! A tiny speck that insists it is the whole of creation ... that is hilarious!   But wait. The joke gets better. For as we grow and mature, we  begin to see that grain of sand and that speck of dust is us! And despite how tiny and insignificant we are, we are still the apple of God's eye!   How can we not laugh at our foolishness and also in celebration of our infinite value in God's eyes?

To think I am the center of the Universe when I am really a pretty insignificant speck is pretty funny - a good joke on me.   But to also recognize that despite my insignificance, God loves me anyway, well that invokes a different kind of laughter ... the laughter of relief, of celebration, of eternal joy.

God laughs at our foolishness. When you really think about it, it is pretty pathetic.   But God smiles with delight on His beloved Children as well - and laughs with joy when we stumble and take our first steps toward His waiting arms as the beloved redeemed and reclaimed children of God.

(John Bruington, Scout and "Old Doc" Goliath can be reached at [email protected].   Their book, "Out Our Way: Theology Under Saddle" is available on amazon.com. "Out Our Way" columns,  "Bruin Town Tales" and sermons are also available at http://www.havrepres.org.)