Where Do We Find Humor in the Bible?

Published Sep 2, 2023, 6:00 AM

Welcome back to season five of Enter the Bible, a podcast in which we share "Everything You Wanted to Know about the Bible...but were afraid to ask."

In episode 9 of season 5, our hosts are joined by the Rev. Dr. Karl Jacobson (M.Div., Luther Seminary; Th.D., Providence) who served as Senior Pastor at Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd in Minneapolis, Minn. Prior to that, he was Assistant Professor of Religion at Augsburg College.

Today our theologians will be answering the listener-submitted question, "Where Do We Find Humor in the Bible?"

Do you have Bible questions you would like answered? Go to our website at https://enterthebible.org/about to get started.

This episode of the Enter the Bible podcast was recorded at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, MN on July 12, 2023.

Watch the video version on our Youtube channel, https://youtu.be/4lh9iaMUB5M

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Enter the Bible podcast where you can get answers or at least reflections on everything you wanted to know about the Bible but were afraid to ask. I'm Katie Langston.

And I'm Kathryn Schifferdecker . And our guest today is Reverend Dr. Karl Jacobson, who is pastor of Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd in Minneapolis and also an Old Testament scholar. So welcome, Karl.

Thank you.

So glad to have you here. This is an unusual podcast in that we are all actually in the same room in the flesh so.

Breathing the same air.

That's right. So if you see us looking at each other and not the camera, that is why. So we're so happy to have you here.

Thank you. Good to be with you.

Our first listener question for our podcast today is where do we find humor in the Bible? So and just to remind our listeners, if you have a question about the Bible, you are we encourage you to go to the enter the bible.org website and and enter your question there. So so here's the issue, Carl right. Many people think the Bible has no humor. It's all serious. It's very, very yeah.

It is no laughing matter.

No laughing matter.

It is no laughing matter.

That's true. And. I think that's symptomatic of of kind of the way we've tended to treat scripture in our tradition, which is and you can see it almost every Sunday morning if we have a in my congregation, one of our members reading scripture, suddenly they don't sound like themself anymore. That's I put on my "I'm reading God's Word" voice, right? And that is a reflection, I think, of the way we tend to approach it, right? And what that does, in my estimation, is it flattens the text and we miss a lot of the nuance and there's actually humor all over the place. And that if we can understand where the humor is, recognize it, the text will mean differently for us, which is critical. So I would say humor is is all over the place in the Old Testament, in the new. Um, and one of the things I like to emphasize when talking about humor in the scriptures is to say really three things. We can identify what is funny, what's intended, if we can get to that, what is funny, we can have a funny take on something in Scripture where we actually bring humor to it. And then lastly is to observe how, when something is funny, when it brings laughter, joy, it changes things.

Um,

It helps us reshape not just our perspective, but I would even go so far as to say it reshapes our reality. That's the power of both the surprise of humor and the surprise of God's intrusion into our world. So they're really, I think, hand in hand partners.

Yeah, I'm reminded of there's a there's a book, I think it's from the 1970s by Frederick Buechner called Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy and Fairy tale. Exactly right. And that middle one comedy, right, is, is both laughter. I mean, it's certainly about joy. It's about laughter. It's also comedy in the kind of classical sense of the word where the unexpected was something so good happens, so unexpected, that it we can't help but laugh.

Hm Yeah. And actually, one of the things Rolf and I drew on in our book was from Buechner. Yeah, who I think he was the first to suggest that sometimes the parables of Jesus are probably meant to be humorous.

Yeah.

Which, you know, we would say, Wait a minute.

Are you even allowed to say that?

Right? That's a good question. If Buechner did, I feel like I can.

Sure, sure.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Fair enough. So give us an example of humor. Yeah.

So I'll use the probably the most famous example of laughter in scripture, which is Sarah laughing at God's promise.

Yes. Yes.

That we identify that as Sarah's. Sarah's laughter is sort of the key. But actually, if you look at the story, there's a bunch of humor in the way that story is told. Yeah.

Genesis 18.

Yeah, Genesis says it.

Just to remind the listeners, this is when Sarah is very old and then is promised that she will have a child. And she's like, What? That's not a thing.

Right, exactly. Got it. So there's, I think, several things going on in that story that some of it is probably intentional and some of it is just sort of strange. So, you know, Abraham is sitting in the tent, open tent flap and the door of the tent in the heat of the day. And suddenly you've got these three strangers standing there when nobody in their right mind would be traveling.

Sure.

And Abraham doesn't in the story doesn't say, oh, how strange that we've got these three men standing here now. He just immediately becomes hospitable. Then out of the blue, they say, Well, where's your wife, Sarah? We've had no introductions. We have no sense that they should know Sarah is anywhere, that there is a Sarah, especially since Sarah is the only person in scripture with that name. It's an unusual name, at least in the Bible. And I mean etymologically. It's a strange name. Um. And Abraham doesn't say, Well, wait a minute. How do you know?

How do you know Sarah?

So he just says, Oh, she's in the tent.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Then there's all the exchange, right? There's the promised stuff and Sarah's response. And then suddenly the Lord is there. Apparently, having been looking over Abraham's shoulder the whole time, and he has something to say about Sarah's laughter. So it's kind of a quirky story in and of itself, with at least as we would tell stories, it's got sort of a strange rhythm to it.

I love my favorite part. Well, there's a couple parts that I love, but one is. The Lord. Well, the Lord says to Abraham, Why did Sarah laugh? But Sarah denied saying, I did not laugh for she was afraid. He said, Oh, yes, you did laugh, right? Yeah. And I've heard interpretations of that that are like, Oh, God doesn't want us to laugh. And I'm like, No, it's the exact opposite, right? Like, I think, of course, everything depends on the tone in which you hear that, right? Oh, yes. You did laugh.

Yeah,

but I hear it as: God can take a joke and and God delights and laughs with Sarah at the divine absurdity of a woman in past menopause. Having a having an infant in her golden years. Right?

I think that's exactly right. And then so she she says, "I did not laugh" because she's afraid. Right. And then the Lord says, Oh, yes, you did. And then the punchline is coming because everybody knows the story. The baby's named Isaac, which means. Laughter. Yeah, right. So every time in his youth, right, Sarah turns around and he's broken a, you know, a pot or he's doing something he shouldn't.

He's colored on the wall

Right, Exactly. And it's laughter. Right. And I think, again, it might have been Buechner, who first suggested can you hear God's laughter in the background, which I just I love that image.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But there's there's actually more to this, right? That that's hidden in the language. So, so Sarah laughed herself saying, after I have grown old and my husband is old, shall I have pleasure? And what surprises people is that the word pleasure, we often, I think, anticipate, oh, pleasure in the birth of my child. That's not what they're talking about. Yeah, this is about the process.

Yeah, This is the PG 13.

Yeah, it's making love. Yeah, right. And. And Sarah goes, This is not possible.

We're too old for this.

It's done, right, over. Um, and so, yeah, there's. There's that little tension in the story that again, because because of the way Christian in particular tradition has held scripture and used it in worship. We can't possibly talk about that, can we?

Right. Right.

So this this is, I think, a key example. And then, you know, something really similar happens in in Isaac's story when Isaac and Rebecca are playing the old passing her off as my sister trick. Right, right, right. And then in. In that story. The NRSV translation is the king sees Isaac fondling.

Yes.

Rebecca

Right. Well, the word fondling is from the same root word as Isaac, right? So, yes.

Isaac is isaacking...

Yes. Rebecca. Which is a little bit salacious, right?

But this is Genesis 26, by the way.

Right. Yeah. So. Literally things get lost in translation.

Yeah, for sure. Yeah.

Because you can't say Isaac is Isaack ing, right? It makes no sense.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But there's something sweet about it too. I mean, it's. It's a beautiful kind of humor, right?

Yeah. Yeah.

Revealed in their relationship. So this story, Isaac's story, I think, is all just full of humor in that, for sure.

Yeah. Yeah. I love to just go back briefly to Genesis 18. I love the rabbis' take on that same passage that you were talking about. They So Sarah laughter herself saying, After I have grown old and my husband is old, shall I have pleasure? Right? But then the angel or the Lord says, Why did Sarah laugh and say, "Shall I indeed bear a child now that I am old?" Well, what's missing, though? My husband has one foot in the grave, right? He's as good as dead. Right? And so the. The Lord is like telling a little white lie in order to spare Abraham's feelings. Right. Or omitting that. Omitting that Sarah thinks that he's, you know, as good as dead.

That he's much too old.

So the rabbis say so, you know, we know from this that it's okay to tell a little white lie in order to save someone's feelings.

Oh, that's great. Yeah, that's good.

This is it was a sin of omission. That's.

That's not really a white lie. I just. Yeah, Yeah.

So just one last. Yeah, one last thing on that story. The because we're talking about humor and the key to humor is timing or. Yes, one of them. Yes. This story is all about timing. Sarah and Abraham are saying Sarah in particular in this part of the story, it's too late. The the opportunity for God to make good on God's promises passed. Right. But and first, the angels, presumably. Right. The the visitors say in due season, I will return and Sarah will bear a son. That phrase in due season in Hebrew is. Eight. Higher. The time of life.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Which might mean spring, but the play on words is so key to the story. The time of life has passed.

That time of life is.

But no, right. The. The punchline here is God's timing is surprising, but it's coming. And then God, the Lord says the same thing, that at the right time, in due season, at the time of life and.

There will be life.

Yeah. Yeah. It's it's a beautiful and funny little play on words there.

That's lovely.

Well and I like how it affirmed like there's a sense sometimes that, you know, we have to be so stoic. We have to be so pious. We, you know. But here it's, you know, it really is taking joy in, you know, marriage and sex and love and children and, you know, and laughter and some of the things that might feel, you know, oh, we you know, that's inappropriate. We can't laugh about such things. And indeed, God delights in. You know, in surprises and our lives and our bodies. That's the thing.

And it's and it's transformative.

Right.

So as I was saying earlier, that when we find humor in things, when things are funny, it can change reality.

Right.

By helping us see things differently and realize that as dark as a day might look. When when God is at work, when God is present in those dark times. Something different is possible. Yeah. Yeah.

Let's. Let's go to another example. One of my favorite books, Jonah, is full of humor as well. Right. So and I know I think that this is also in your book, right?

I think so. Yeah. We deal with it a little bit.

So Jonah is, you know, the most successful prophet in the whole Old Testament. He preaches this like forward sermon and five would sermon and everybody repents, including the cattle.

I could preach a sermon that would make the cattle repent. Exactly.

Yeah. The cattle, the cattle of Nineveh, where sackcloth and ashes bellow out their repentance to God.

Good for that. Good job.

But. But. But Jonah doesn't like it. In fact, he's really pissed off.

Yeah, Yeah.

Excuse my language, but, yeah, he's really mad. So. So I have I grew up in a in a conservative Lutheran church. And I remember the pastor doing a Bible study on Jonah and reading it as a historical tale. Right. And and just completely missing the the humor and the exaggeration in this story.

Are you saying that Jonah did not get swallowed by a big fish?

Well, I will leave that up to the reader to listen to the side. But there's just there's a lot of hyperbole. There's a lot of exaggeration in the Book of Jonah. Yeah. Everything's big. Yeah. The big fish. The big storm. Yeah, Yeah. But go ahead and also riff.

Yeah. When it comes to Jonah, you know, the the ending is also it's the one place where that that descriptive sort of confessional formula. Slow to anger abounding in steadfast love. Jonah is the only one in scripture who uses that as an accusation.

How dare you?

This is why I didn't want to do this. Because I know what kind of God you are. And if I preach to them, they'll repent and you'll forgive them. And is there anything worse than a Ninevite? Right. So Jonah's.

Yeah.

Positive description...

The people you don't like are right on the Internet, right? You're like this person I disagree with on everything. And yet they've said something true. Is there anything more annoying than that?

You know. Exactly.

Exactly. And. And so, Jonah finally and I'm sure this is obvious, but and many people have made this observation, but Jonah and Jonah's message are not for the Ninevites. This is for the people of Israel.

Yeah. Yeah.

To say. You know, forgiveness belongs to God. Yeah. And or is maybe we should say and is godly. Yeah. And so holding on to this deep anger for the people of Nineveh Is not what God wants for us and we get trapped like so a good joke will catch you by surprise. This story. You know, you're sympathetic to Jonah, and suddenly you realize. Oh, wait a minute.

Oh, Uh oh.

He's kind of a jerk. Me, Right. I'm the problem. I'm the problem. The problem is me. Yeah.

I love. I love in Jonah too, the the well, the ninevites and the, you know, the pagan sailors and the and the animals and plants are more responsive to God than Jonah the Israelite. Right? So God, God appoints a worm and God appointed Bush and God appoints a sultry east wind. And, you know, previously God appoints the the, the big fish to swallow Jonah And all of these things respond to God's command. And I led a Bible study once for college students. And we we were going to make on Jonah and we were going to make shirts. That said "and God appointed a worm". God says, take greatness.

That is great.

Great, right?

Yeah. Anyway, well, and you know, when I've used Jonah, especially with, like, youth group stuff. Yeah. Um, another example of how we. We tend to tame what Scripture actually says. The Lord speaks to the fish and it spewed Jonah out. No, vomit. This fish cannot stand the taste of Jonah.

And the fish is sick of him.

Right, Exactly. Even the fish.

Literally. It's sick of him.

That's good. Yeah. Vomits him. That is amazing. Oh, we should probably look at the New Testament. True. Yeah. Yeah. Give us an example. Yeah, I'm curious.

You said the parables are supposed to be funny. Is there a parable in particular?

Well, let's see if I can pull up the right one here.

Um, I just get confused by the parables.

Well before a parable. Let's start with Luke 7. Luke 7 starting in verse 36, where the Pharisee invites Jesus to eat with him. He goes to the Pharisee's house and there's the sinful woman who washes his feet. And so the way the story gets told, I'll start in verse 39 now, when the Pharisee who had invited him saw it, he said to himself, "If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what kind of woman this is, who is touching him, that she is a sinner." And Jesus reads his mind and says revealing he is a prophet and he knows exactly what's going on. He has a far better idea than the Pharisee, so we might not automatically think of that as funny. But it's it's this again, this surprise, a revelation that catches us sort of off guard. And I actually do find it very funny that that he just in a moment Jesus then speaks up and says, I know. I know exactly what's going on here.

I have something to say to you

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's good. That's good.

Um, so in terms of parables. Well, just as an example of the ridiculous communicating the sublime, right? There's the parable of the woman and the lost coin. Yes. And, you know, tears the house apart to find this lost coin and finding it throws a party.

Yeah, right.

It doesn't make any sense.

That's right.

She's going to spend the lost coin on the party.

Many, many multiples of the last coin on the party.

So, yeah, that that whole idea that this is, this is how God works in a ridiculous, unexpected, surprising way. Um, another example might be what probably the most famous parable. Where is there humor in the story of the prodigal son? In part, it's in the brother, right? Who's just disgusted by this whole thing and reacts pretty childishly, right? Right. His brother returns and he's thrown back to probably this is how it always was, right? As parents were always preferring the younger brother, which, of course, Scripture always does because it's God's word. And so as the younger brother being younger.

Yes. Karl is the youngest brother. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, yeah, the tension in that story and the release that comes with it, and the fact that the older brother never quite gets the joke, he never understands. At least as I recall the story. I don't have it in front of me at the moment, but there's no resolution for him.

No, No.

And so we're invited into that tension.

Yeah. Kind of like Jonah at the end of Jonah. Yeah. How are you going to respond?

Right. Exactly.

To God's.

Grace.

Ridiculously extravagant grace. Yeah. How are you going to respond to that? Yeah.

Another example, not from the parables, but from Paul and to me. Uh, I don't know if folks would have recognized this necessarily, but in in Corinthians 15, the the famous.

First Corinthians.

First Corinthians 15. We hear this at funerals all the time. Yep. Uh, when this perishable body puts on imperishable and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled. Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where o death is your victory? Where O death is your sting? Paul's quoting from Hosea and his quotation is incomplete. In Hosea, God continues and essentially says, and you're not going to get relief from either. This, in Hosea it's judgment.

It's judgment. Right.

And Paul takes that and twists it. And if and again, we don't know for sure, but if Paul's audience is at all familiar with scripture and perhaps they know Hosea and they know what's coming, and then suddenly, Paul says the sting of death is sin. The power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. You expect one thing and Paul flips it on its head, which is precisely what the gospel does.

Yeah.

And so again, I don't know that that we can read that humorously, but understanding how humor works and the comic intrusion can help us see the theological intrusion that's happening here.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The unexpected. The the almost too good to believe, right?

Kind of absurd. The absurdity of it almost.

In the best sense of that word.

Yes, exactly. Right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, lots to think about and lots more we could talk about. But I love that that take on on Scripture that in fact, God invented laughter and humor and joy and that and that the gospel that we should be laughing. In in in the sense of of this kind of. News that is almost too good to believe, but it's true. And so we we can't help but be joyful and laugh at that. So. So thank you, Karl.

Well, thank you. I appreciate.

The invitation. Thank you for bringing that that that insight to us. And again, Karl's book is Divine Laughter Preaching and the Serious Business of Humor. So we recommend that you go out and get it. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Enter the Bible Podcast. Get high quality courses and commentaries, resources, videos and more reflections at Enter the Bible, dot org. Thanks for joining us.