¶1There are people who say Jesus never existed or that Jesus was a psychedelic mushroom. But did you know some people say that Jesus Christ never laughed because laughter is contrary to divinity. And this isn't just some random people who say this. You can find modern-day clerics, Protestant reformers, and even some of the church fathers arguing to one degree or another that Jesus never laughed in some cases because laughter is a bad thing. So in today's episode, we will take on this joke of an argument and talk about how humor helps us share the gospel.
¶2First, let's take a look at set of aontist bishop Donald Sanborn's thoughts on this question. >> Does our Lord have a sense of humor? >> No. >> And why is that your excellency? >> Because humor involves the association of absurd cont concepts.
¶3For example, in slapstick comedy, think of, you know, a lady at a table. This was in the little rascals, you know, sitting there beautifully dressed and then somebody puts a pie in her face. You see, that's two ideas, dignity and indignity together and then you laugh because she has a pie in her face. You see that? That's slapstick comedy.
¶4Anything humorous is the association of two absurd things. In other words, things that contradict each other. And uh so our lord in his is obviously divine intellect and in his sacred human intellect with infused knowledge could not do that. So a few things I need to mention. First, I love his example of comedy sounds like a bad routine from Crusty the Clown.
¶5Second, it's obvious that Jesus Christ had a sense of humor because Jesus would often make absurd comparisons in order to educate people. He said, for example, that you should take the plank out of your own eye before removing the speck in your brother's eye, which is an absurd comparison, but also kind of humorous in pointing out hypocrisy. You can also see Jesus's humor in his use of puns or play on words, like when he scolded the Pharisees for fixating on minor Jewish laws and ignoring the major laws. He said, "You blind guides, straining out a gnat, a tiny, ritually unclean animal, and swallowing a camel, a huge unclean animal. But what makes us funny is that it's a play on words in Aramaic.
¶6A gnat is a galma, while a camel is a gumla. You avoid galmas, but eat glas, you hypocrites." Third, this is all very ironic coming from Bishop Sanborn who was validly ordained to the Episcopy but broke away from the SSPX to form the SSPV or the Society of St. Pius I to promote set of accountantism which says there's been no valid pope since 1958. Honestly, I'm waiting for someone to found the SSPI or the Society of St. Pius I and restore the liturgy to its true roots in coin a Greek spoken in the 2nd century.
¶7Sedicontum itself is an absurd proposition that promotes laughter because it claims the one true church Christ established is the Catholic Church. But that Catholic Church has been reduced to a handful of priests and bishops scattered around the world who have lacked a pope to unify them for nearly 70 years. This claim contradicts Pope's Bishop Sanborn does believe in like Pope Leo I 13th who said the church must uniformly remain to the end of time and Pope Pius I 9th who said that schismatics deny also the inddeffectability of the church and blasphemously declare that it has perished throughout the world and that its visible head and the bishops have aired. Set of accountantism makes me laugh in the same way I laugh when I see so-called sovereign citizens argue in a courtroom. They say the US government doesn't have valid jurisdiction over them and make a series of convoluted arguments related to obscure legal codes like spelling their name differently to represent their true legal standing in court.
¶8But of course, no matter how technical your argument is, the US government really does exist and you have to obey it just like the rest of us. And likewise, no matter how technical your set of a contant argument from some obscure canon law is, Christ's one holy, Catholic, and apostolic church headed by the successor of St. Peter does exist and you have to obey it just like the rest of us. Second, to say that Christ couldn't laugh because the divine is incompatible with the absurd totally undermines the incarnation because in becoming man, the divine dwells among us, which means the divine is in the midst of an absurd and sinful world. And so Jesus could produce laughter by pointing out these absurdities.
¶9This would be like saying because grief refers to a state of sadness related to loss and because God cannot lose anything. This means Jesus could never cry in grief. Even though the shortest verse in the Bible, John 11:35 plainly says Jesus wept. Our Lord would smile. But you wouldn't say that he he he laughed at.
¶10>> Sure. He smiled when the little children were brought to him. You know you know he he was very approachable. He was humble. those children did something.
¶11Could that have made him laugh perhaps? >> I don't know. You'd have to ask our blessed >> because that's the I think that's the zeroing in on the sense of humor, what that that means and what that relates to. And you say you're relating to dignity and indignity and >> yes, I I I would tend to say that he didn't laugh, but he smiled. Now you might be thinking this is just one crank set of a contantis bishop but you can find many examples of people throughout history making this kind of argument for a variety of reasons.
¶12Someone once told the Protestant evangelist Billy Graham that they have a friend who's very solemn. And he says he doesn't believe in laughing or cracking jokes because Jesus never laughed and we ought to be like Jesus. To which Graham responded, "I feel sorry for your friend." In 1928, the Episcopal Bishop Irving P. Johnson wrote about the need for more pious hilarity, but also said, "Of course, Christ himself was not hilarious." He could not laugh because he bore the sins of the world and was constantly facing humiliation and death. John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist Protestant body, said one of his personal resolutions was to labor after continual seriousness, not willingly indulging myself in any the least levity of behavior or in laughter.
¶13No, not for a moment. In 1652, the Scottish clergyman Alexander Ross wrote, "It is strange then that neither prophet, historian, apostle, nor evangelist should speak a word of his or Christ laughing, and yet so punctually mentioned to us his grief, sorrows, and weeping. Therefore, not without cause did Chrysum, Austin, Basil, Bernard, and others conclude negatively that Christ never laughed." And he also wrote, "Seldom or never is laughing in scripture taken in a good sense. It is called madness and like the cracking of thorns. Laughing is threatened to end in sorrow and woe is denounced to those that laugh but a blessing to the mourers.
¶14You can see a few different kinds of errors in this thinking. One is a version of solos scriptor which says X didn't happen or we shouldn't do X unless X is described in scripture. But the end of John's gospel says there are also many other things which Jesus did were every one of them to be written. I suppose that the word itself could not contain the books that would be written, which is of course a humorous exaggeration. Jesus and the apostles could have done many things that are not described in scripture, like sitting around laughing about the reactions of infants that they baptized.
¶15So merely pointing to a silence in scripture and then saying, "This silence proves something never happened," puts your argument on really shaky ground. But another version of this argument appeals to hypertraditionalists who idealized the past so much they failed to see where it may have been an error or is subject to development. For example, when we look at the church fathers, there were some who treated laughter as a bad thing. The second century author Clement of Alexandria has a whole chapter on laughter in his pedagogos where he criticizes the galatoapooi which comes from the words for laughter and make literally they are the laughter makers which later English translators called wags for some reason. Clement writes if then wags are to be ejected from our society we ourselves must by no manner of means be allowed to stir up laughter.
¶16A few centuries later St. John Chrysum was very worried about laughter and said, "Let us shed tears which are the seeds of great joy and not laugh with that laughter which brings forth the nashing of teeth for us." Though in other contexts, Chrysum says laughter can be nonsinful, especially when you laugh at evil things or bad things like death. But Chrysism was admirable of not laughing given that he says of Christ that nowhere did he laugh. And again in his homalies on Hebrews, he says, "Tell me, do you laugh? Where do you hear of Christ doing this?
¶17Nowhere. And he wept. And do you laugh? If he who grieavves not over the sins of others deserves to be accused of what consideration will he be worthy, who is without sorrow for his own sins, yay, laughs at them. This is the season of grief and tribulation, of bruising and bringing matter, the body, of conflicts and sweatings.
¶18And do you laugh? About 130 years after Chrysum died, the rule of St. Benedict made laughter pretty much anathema among monks. It advised those practicing spiritual discipline to advise the monks not to speak useless words or words that move to laughter and not to love much or boisterous laughter. Now, modern Benedictans will say that this rule is really referring to inappropriate laughter or laughter that doesn't fit an occasion.
¶19But we see in church history a gradual shift away from a really uptight or rigid attitude towards laughter. In Peter Jones's book, Laughter and Power in the 12th century, Jones notes how scholastic theologians of the time focused more on the interior disposition of laughter rather than the mere act of laughing. You can see this in St. Thomas Aquinas correcting those who tried to use Ambrose and Chrysism to condemn all humor. Joan shows that during this period, laughter wasn't just for entertainment.
¶20It was intimately bound up in temporal and spiritual power. He talks for example about laughter or reus in Latin related to reissus mysticus or laughter that comes from mystical or supernatural knowledge. Reus blasphemous or laughing at sacred things and reus regalius the laughter of a king that communicates confidence and leadership. This can be seen in the 12th century English monarch Henry II, who used witty banter in his court to signify his personal control over his kingdom, even in the midst of unprecedented bureaucratic expansion that seemed to dilute his authority. Now wait a minute.
¶21A world leader who would lean on humor to signify his authority or to humiliate a rival. H >> it's just awfully good that someone with the temperament of Donald Trump is not in charge of the law in our country. >> Yeah, because you'd be in jail. Secretary Clinton. >> As you see, some things never change.
¶22But in the court of King Henry II, Thomas Beckett became known as the laughing saint because he went from being the witty and fun Lord Chancellor in Henry's court to being the Archbishop of Canterbury, who in spite of being appointed by Henry, refused to bring the English church under Henry's control. Henry blurted out once, "Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?" To which four knights took up the challenge and killed Becket in his own cathedral in 1170. St. Thomas Becket was canonized 3 years later and in 1174, Henry undertook penance for his role in Beckett's death. Now, it's important to remember that while church fathers and theologians discuss laughter, I'm not aware of specific magisterial teaching on the subject throughout church history.
¶23Though, we do have some low-level teaching in the contemporary church on this issue. In Pope Francis's apostolic exhortation Gaudete ed exaltate he has a whole section on humor and writes Christian joy is usually accompanied by a sense of humor. We see this clearly for example in St. Thomas Moore St. Vincent Depal and St.
¶24Philip Neri. Ill humor is no sign of holiness. Remove vexation from your mind. We receive so much from the Lord for our enjoyment that sadness can be a sign of ingratitude. We can get so caught up in ourselves that we are unable to recognize God's gifts.
¶25St. Philip Neri is a great example of holy humor because he would do things like shave half of his face or dress in silly attire in order to be humble when other people would fawn over his holiness. This is why it can be okay to have fun depicting the saints. One of my favorite being a surfing Madonna or star of the sea in the beachside town of Encenus. Though one has to be careful of treating sacred things in people in a profane way.
¶26Otherwise, one might commit the sin of sacrilege. Since the catechism says sacrilege consists in profaining or treating unworthily the sacraments and other lurggical actions as well as persons, things or places consecrated to God. This is why we of course should not idolize all kinds of modern humor. A lot of it isn't even really humor, but just offensiveness for its own sake. But that also doesn't mean we can't recognize good gifts of God given to imperfect people.
¶27In 2024, Pope Francis addressed a group of comedians and told them, "You remind us that homo sapiens is also homo ludens for playful fun and laughter are central to human life to express ourselves, to learn and to give meaning to situations. Though he also said humor does not offend, humiliate or put people down according to their flaws. In fact, one way to evangelize is to help people laugh in the context of the church and Christianity itself. And we can show them that we aren't a bunch of dow ideologues who take ourselves too seriously. You can see this in comedians like John Christ who poke fun at the absurdities in Christian life through self-deprecating humor, which can also help point out things we might need to change in the Christian life.
¶28Like in this video about the typical Christian mission trip leader. Day four, you guys, is when we really get down to business. We're going to paint a school. Are there skilled painters in that country that could probably do a better job than us? Yes, there are.
¶29Does this country have high unemployment? and they could probably use the work. Again, also true. Was this school painted last week by the mission team that came before us? Again, yes, but that's not important.
¶30Okay, we're going to paint the school and we're going to get some photos to send back to the church. >> And ultimately, scripture itself gives us rules to guide laughter. So, for example, Sierra says, "A fool raises his voice in loud laughter while a wise person smiles quietly, which expresses wisdom in not being a person who engages in obnoxious laughter." That's why Ecclesiastes says there's a time or a season for everything. A time to weep, and a time to laugh, a time to mourn, and a time to dance. And Genesis 21:5-7 says, "Abraham was 100 years old when his son Isaac was born to him." Now Sarah said, "God has brought laughter for me.
¶31Everyone who hears will laugh with me." And she said, "Who would ever have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age." This is why their child was named Isaac or in Hebrew yet meaning he who laughs. So when God gives us an unexpected trial, it's okay to cry. And when he gives us an unexpected blessing, it's okay to laugh. Pope Benedict the 16th, who wasn't as jolly as Pope Francis, understood this.
¶32When he was asked about humor in the life of the Pope, he said the following. I think it is very important to be able to see the humorous side of life and its joyful dimension and not to take everything too tragically. I would also say it is necessary for my ministry. A writer once said that angels can fly because they do not take themselves too seriously. Maybe we could also fly a bit if we did not think we were so important.
¶33Maybe we could indeed. Thank you all so much for watching and I hope you have a very blessed day.