Looking on the bright side: First Methodist, Rogers, keeps its humor for Lent

The Rev. David Bentley, pastor of First United Methodist Church in Rogers, opened last Sunday's worship service with a joke:

It was about this time of year when a Catholic priest was working in the inner city.

He was walking down an alley one evening -- on his way home -- when a young man came down the alley behind him and poked a knife against his back.

"Give me your money," the young man with the knife said.

The priest opened his jacket and reached into an inner pocket to remove his wallet -- exposing his clerical collar.

"Oh, I'm sorry, Father," said the young man. "I didn't see your collar. I don't want YOUR money."

Trembling from the scare, the priest removed a cigar from his shirt pocket and offered it to the young man. "Here," he said. "Have a cigar."

"Oh, no, I can't do that," the young man replied. "I gave cigars up for Lent."

Church leaders declared Sunday as "Laughter Sunday" at First Methodist "to share the profound message of God's joke on the devil: Raising Jesus from the dead," Bentley said.

A growing tradition in Christian churches, Bentley said his church chooses to celebrate one Sunday with humor to break up the sense of "gloom and foreboding in Lent."

Christians enter the liturgical season of Lent on Ash Wednesday, roughly 40 days before Easter. During the time, Christians variously focus on simple living, sacrifice and prayer to grow closer to God. Lent ends at the start of Holy Week, which marks the episodes of the final days leading up to Jesus' crucifixion on the cross. Christians believe Jesus died for forgiveness of mankind's sins, and mark Easter as a celebration of the resurrection of Jesus to eternal life as Christ.

"(Lent) is a time when Christians consider our mortality, our need for forgiveness," Bentley said. "We remember that we are immortal, but that we are mortal and need deliverance from sin. We review just exactly what Jesus did overcome as a mortal for the forgiveness of our sin."

As Lent progresses, the scripture readings in Christian worship service share details of Jesus' suffering and death. "The scripture readings become more and more intense," Bentley said. "For a serious, liturgical Christian, the feeling can become very heavy."

TRADITION

In Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant countries, the faithful traditionally spent the day after Easter with parties and picnics to honor Jesus' resurrection. "The faithful played practical jokes on each other, drenched each other with water, sang and danced," reads information from the United Methodist Church provided by Bentley. "It was a time for clergy and lay people to have fun. Risus paschalis -- the Easter laugh, the early theologians called it.

"In 1988, observing that the celebration of Easter had been sorely neglected in Western Christianity, the Fellowship of Merry Christians began encouraging churches and prayer groups to celebrate April as Holy Humor Month -- starting with April Fool's Day -- and to resurrect the old Christian customs of Easter Monday and Bright Sunday (the Sunday after Easter) festivities," the UMC material continues.

Terry L. Lindvall, considered an authority on the humor of C.S. Lewis, suggested that April Fool's Day should be added to the calendar of the Christian year.

He wrote: "There are two kinds of fools in the world: damned fools and what Paul calls, 'fools for Christ's sake.' Paul himself is the one who legitimizes April Fool's Day for Christians. The cross is foolishness to those who do not believe; it is salvation, hope, love and joy to those who do. It is a divine joke on Satan, the great deceiver.

"April Fool's Day in most years, is a day of preparation for the divine folly of the Easter surprise. April Fool's Day offers a choice to us. Presently, we are all fools. The choice lies in for whom we play the fool, for ourselves or our Christ."

CELEBRATION

First Methodist, Rogers, however, followed another church tradition, choosing to laugh during Lent.

"We need to break out of our shell in Lent and celebrate Easter that's at the middle of it all," Bentley said. "It's a novel idea of a different way to observe Lent."

First, Bentley outlined ground rules for this hilarity to his congregation. "In these jokes, we are only allowed to poke fun at ourselves. They can be jokes about church life, religious practices and general Christian silliness. We hope that the golden rule will prevail and that we can resist humor which is judgmental or deprecating of others."

Yet, he said, "We religious people sometimes get a little too full of ourselves, and it doesn't hurt to have someone bring us down a peg or two every once in a while." Sarcasm, he said, is part of laughter.

Three open microphones were set up around the First Methodist sanctuary Sunday for members to share jokes.

"You would think this wasn't a Methodist Church," said member Jimmy Schulthess, a normally quiet man, pointing. "There's people on the front row."

"Moses brought down from the mount the stone tablets with the 10 Commandments," began member Kathy McClure. "'I've got good news, and I've got bad news,' Moses told them. 'The bad news is they wanted 20. The good news is that I got them down to 10.'"

Even Jesus "resorted to some very pointed sarcasm" with the Pharisees, Bentley continued. "He once observed that their approach to religious laws was so nit-picky, they'd strain out a gnat and then gladly swallow a camel."

"We all need our foibles pointed out to us," Bentley said, "if for no other reason than we just need to be kept honest about who we are." At this point, he began to answer the "How many people does it take to change a light bulb?" question in the form of various stereotypical religious groups -- including Methodists: "We don't know, but we'll form a committee and get back to you," he said to the laughter of the congregation.

"Honest humor catches and humbles us," Bentley said. The words humor and humility both come from the same Latin root humilis, which means "of the earth," he said.

"Humor reminds us of our fragility, our earthiness, our dustiness, our propensity to mess things up, even when we have the best of intentions," Bentley continued.

"Humor serves to remind us of our powerlessness apart from God. Humor shows each of us how far short we have fallen from the glory of God. We're all just humans, and we shouldn't take ourselves so seriously."

Bentley shared the words of 1920s evangelist Paul Rader: "When God chooses a man, he puts laughter into his life. God is delighted to fill the hearts of men and women with laughter. The anointing oil that was poured upon the head of David put laughter into David's life. Laughter, after all, is the surplus of life; it is a bubbling over the emotions, a kind of spasm of exuberance, a delight of the human heart that makes the thorax cackle. It is something that warms the heart and brain and imagination so that men and women are moved to over flowing delight."

"The joy of the Lord is our strength," Bentley continues Rader's comments with his own. "Is there a victorious glorious life within your heart in spite of conditions that are round about? Whenever, this anointing oil that Jesus bestows is put into your heart, you will be able to laugh. It's the oil of his presence that makes holy laughter in the life."

And not just the ability to laugh at a joke, Bentley noted, but also to laugh at calamity and death.

"Jesus puts a real laugh into the life. As God's spirit moves to sink into the heart of a person, it turns it to right side up. Old things are passed away and behold all things are become new.

"Remember, God is greater than the world, and there is no force in this world -- or in the next -- that can keep us from serving God with rejoicing and laughter," Bentley concluded.

NAN Religion on 03/19/2016