I hope today’s blog will be of use for youth ministries, family devotionals, Sunday school classes, and family home evenings.
It’s interesting when one can make an attempt to be funny and it can result in being rude or discourteous. Let me give you a specific example. One of my current responsibilities at church is to prepare the program for the weekly meeting of the Relief Society. I make sure of all the announcements, birthdays and songs, etc. I frequently try to be funny, sometimes I succeed and sometimes I don’t. And today, I realized I went too far. This experience can be very useful in other parts of my life and especially in my efforts to teach or to do storytelling.
Today’s situation was that when I was folding one of the programs into an airplane. I wanted to fly it to the back of the room in an attempt of humor. I made some comment about the Spirit of St. Louis thinking of historical event of Charles Lindbergh flying his plane across the ocean. I then tried to compare it to the Holy Spirit, making a play on the word ‘Spirit’ and trying to compare the Spirit of St. Louis and the Holy Spirit, or more specifically the Holy Ghost. The joke fell flat. It wasn’t funny and it was an insult to one of the members of the Godhead, the Holy Ghost.
As a LDS person, or a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day Saints, I believe that there are three distinct individuals that comprise the Godhead. God the Father, his Son Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost.
Even though the word ‘Spirit ‘was used in both Lindbergh’s plane and the Holy Spirit. I realized too late that it was inappropriate to try to reference the Holy Spirit in such a manner. I realized I was belittling the Holy Ghost unintentionally. I did have the opportunity to express my regret of making comparison to my small audience, and that my statements were inappropriate. I am glad I did. The experience gives me the opportunity to realize that as a person who attempts to do humor, I and perhaps others, need to be much more diligent in treating certain topics with better respect.
Let me give some examples of some Bible jokes I’ve heard:
1. Did you know that tennis was played in the Bible? For Joseph served in the court of the Pharaoh.
2. Do you know that there were 11 people in the Garden of Eden before Adam and Eve are cast out? During the temptation, Eve 8, Adam 2 and Satan 1, making the total to be 11.
3. Joshua drove a Triumph sports car with a hole in its muffler: “Joshua’s Triumph was heard throughout the land.
Each of these jokes is funny and can be told in an appropriate manner and in an appropriate situation. But sometimes when we’re in public, and we might be amongst friends and fellow Christians, we might be tempted to make light of a religious topic. One example might be to make light the concept of chastity or one of the 10 Commandments. The thing I realize is that as a teacher I would want to be very cautious on what humor I present while in public. This also is a warning for me in private.
Maybe one thing that might help me, and others, remember what to avoid and what might have a little bit more flexibility with humor is to evaluate what I’m trying to say. Personally, I don’t have any jokes related to the last week of Christ life. I don’t particularly seek them out. But I suspect there could be humor created that might belittle the actions of Christ. If I would ever be tempted to use such type of humor, maybe I would resist doing so when I think of the significance of the last week of Christ life. I could envision the suffering in the Garden of Gethsemane, his flogging and Christ being nailed on the cross. Christ gave up his life for me and the rest of God’s children.
Would I really want to be belittling such actions of the son of God with humor? Yet today I belittled the Holy Spirit. So today’s blog topic is dedicated to be a reminder of being more conscientious of what we might say casually. I caught myself too late in my humor today, but maybe the experience can teach me to be more cautious in the future.
Sorry Holy Ghost.
There’s many ways that we can add a rich variety in our religious dialogue and in teaching religious topics to children and our peers. We might be able to provide situational humor that can better emphasize a certain topic. An alternative might be to give a personal experience that gives relevance to the subject or to give a clean one-liner joke. We might even make reference to a newspaper article. Humor can have its place, and as the instigator of that humor we can determine when and how it is distributed.
Sometimes, humor can be used, and it can work out.
I have to admit, I can be a bit of a smart-alec. Once, during a lesson, a teacher asked: What does paradigm mean? I raised my hand and said ‘20 cents!’. Once I intentionally misspelled words on the board and told my class that I did it to tease the school teachers who were members in the class. They took it a good spirit. The thing I have to be careful of is to restrain myself in doing a one-liner joke that can break the reverent spirit that has developed during a lesson. Fortunately, I have been successful in resisting some of my temptations to blurt out a response, and the reverent spirit of the lesson is maintained. It is a constant struggle to keep my mouth shut.
If you have in the recommendations for this topic, you are invited to share them in the comment section of this blog.
Here are some sites that give some nice clean religious humor:
http://www.swapmeetdave.com/Humor/Religious.htm
http://www.anunseenworld.com/biblehumor.html
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1165/are-there-any-jokes-in-the-bible
http://www.answergrab.com/search/?q=bible+humor&t=U176469&sid=CM_rwCSvc1P-1Py6HQREGg&utm_source=U&utm_medium=paid&utm_campaign=U176469
