The Joy of Holy Humor Truly Last final update

There’s a season for everything    

and a time for every matter under the heavens:     

a time for giving birth and a time for dying,    

a time for planting                                                                

and a time for uprooting what was planted,  

a time for killing and a time for healing,    

a time for tearing down and a time for building up,  

a time for crying and a time for laughing...

    

Ecclesiastes 3:1-4a

             A preacher's little boy inquired, "Daddy, I notice every Sunday morning when you first come out to preach, you sit up on the platform and bow your head. What are you doing?" 
             The father explained, "I'm asking the Lord to give me a good sermon." 
             The little boy said, "Why don't he?" 

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"This isn’t the time or the place for that!"  I’ve heard this phrase wielded countless times about what is and is not appropriate for worship. We all agree, it seems, that there is a time for dying to self, time for uprooting sin, a time for tearing down defenses, a time for crying, a time for mourning, a time for avoiding embraces, a time for tearing our hearts (not our clothes), a and a time for hating evil.

                Season of Lent is there to help us to focus on these things.  But unfortunately, we get stuck at times.  We take ourselves quite seriously to the point that we miss the reason for giving up so much.  There is a reason that we take up our cross; it’s because we were meant to be emptied so that God might fill us with something different – with joy.  God wants our lives to be filled with, well, life. We are to be as faithful to the delight that God wants to share with us as to the guilt of our sin.  Let's not neglect these other parts of the scripture…for there are also times for giving birth, planting, building up, for repairing, for healing, for embracing, for dancing, for laughing, and for loving.
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The Reverend Billy Graham tells of a time early in his ministry when he arrived in a small town to preach a sermon. Wanting to mail a letter, he asked a young boy where the post office was. 

When the boy had told him, Dr. Graham thanked him and said, "If you'll come to the Church this evening, you can hear me telling everyone how to get to Heaven." "I don't think I'll be there," the boy said. "You don't even know your way to the post office."

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One day God was looking down to earth and saw all of the evil that was going on and decided to send an angel down to earth to check it out.  so God sent an angel to earth for a time. When the angel returned it told God, "yes it is bad on earth, 95% is bad and 5% is good."

Well, God thought for a moment and said “maybe I had better send down a second angel just in case.” So God sent a second angel to earth for a time. This angel returned to God and said “yes the earth was in decline, 95% was bad and 5% was good.”

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God said this was not good and decided to send a letter to the 5% that were good and encourage them, something to help them keep going. Do you know what that letter said?






Oh, you didn't get one either?!

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There once was an Illinois man who left the snow-filled streets of Chicago for a vacation in Florida. His wife was on a business trip and was planning to meet him there the next day. 

When he reached his hotel, he decided to send his wife a quick e-mail. Unable to find the scrap of paper on which he had written her e-mail address, he did his best to type it in from memory. 

Unfortunately, he missed one letter, and his note was directed instead to an elderly preacher's wife, whose husband had passed away only the day before. When the grieving widow checked her e-mail, she took one look at the monitor, let out a piercing scream, and fainted to the floor.

At the sound, her family rushed into the room and saw this note on the screen: 

"Dearest Wife, 
          Just got checked in. Everything prepared for your arrival tomorrow. 

Signed, 
Your eternally loving husband. 

P.S. Sure is hot down here."

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Edited from H.A. Williams' book Tensions:
No wonder the Pharisees, who seem to have been always wholly serious, had to have Jesus put down. He made their piety look ridiculous.

Who in reality had ever witnessed a pious man blowing a trumpet before he put a dollar in the offering plate? And then there were camels going through the eyes of needles, not to mention camels being swallowed easily by those who choked when they swallowed a gnat.

And worse: idlers who were given full pay, stewards who were successful cheats, wicked sons being distinguished on their return home - what had all this nonsense have to do with religion?

…but Eternity had the last laugh after all. Here are Caiaphas, Pilate, Herod and all theirs, have done their duty getting rid of a dangerous fool. He is safely dead. Now they can concentrate on the serious matters to which their lives are dedicated.

But behind their backs,  the fool has popped up again like a Jack-in-the-box and is dancing about even more vigorously than before. People here, there and everywhere are falling under his spell…

If that isn't funny, nothing is. The resurrection is the supreme, the

final, the ultimate joke. And since laughter is highly contagious, perhaps even the hardest heart will in time catch the disease, turn around, see the joke, and then laugh with the rest of creation because the kingdom of God has drawn near."
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          There was a Christian lady who lived next door to an atheist. Every day, when the lady prayed, the atheist guy could hear her. He thought to himself, "She sure is crazy, praying all the time like that. Doesn't she know there isn't a God?"

          Many times while she was praying, he would go to her house and harass her, saying "Lady, why do you pray all the time? Don't you know there is no God?" But she kept on praying.

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          One day, she ran out of groceries. As usual, she was praying to the Lord explaining her situation and thanking Him for what He was gonna do. As usual, the atheist heard her praying and thought to himself, "Humph! I'll fix her."
          He went to the grocery store, bought a whole bunch of groceries, took them to her house, dropped them off on the front porch, rang the door bell and then hid in the bushes to see what she would do. When she opened the door and saw the groceries, she began to praise the Lord with all her heart, jumping, singing and shouting everywhere! The atheist then jumped out of the bushes and told her, "You ol' crazy lady, God didn't buy you those groceries, I bought those groceries!" At hearing this, she broke out and started running down the street, shouting and praising the Lord.
          When he finally caught her, he asked what her problem was. She said, "I knew the Lord would provide me with some groceries, but I didn't know he was gonna make the devil pay for them!" 

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The child and his mother:

              A curious child asked his mother: “Mommy, why are some of your hairs turning grey?”

             The mother tried to use this occasion to teach her child: “It is because of you, dear. Every bad action of yours will turn one of my hairs grey!”

             The child replied innocently: “Now I know why grandmother has only grey hairs on her head.”

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There was a terrible blizzard and it was snowing and snowing all weekend. Sunday morning came and the Pastor saw that the snow had reached his window. He didn't think anyone would be coming to church this morning, but he felt obliged to go anyway. The pastor fought his way through the icy wind and snow to get next door to the church. He waited in the sanctuary, reading, for ten minutes. He was about to go when the door opened, and a man staggered through. 

" Hello!" said the pastor. "Church will have to be cancelled today. You're the only one who has come."

The man replied, "Reverend, if you had a big herd of sheep, and only one came home that night to feed, would you still feed him?" 

The pastor was amazed and cried, "Yes! I would!" He then was filled with the spirit, and decided to preach the best sermon ever. He talked and talked about all of life's trials and joys. He referred to passages from Genesis to Job, Psalms to John, Acts to Revelation. He did so with profound excitement and conviction. This went on for a long time. 

After the minister had come to his final conclusion, he went down and talked to the other man. " Did that satisfy you, sir?" he asked happily. 

The man replied, "Reverend, if you had a herd of sheep and only one came home that night to feed, would you make sure he ate the whole bale of hay!?"
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A young woman teacher with obvious liberal tendencies explains to her class of small children that she is an atheist. She asks her class if they are atheists too. Not really knowing what atheism is, but wanting to be like their teacher, their hands explode into the air like fleshy fireworks. There is, however, one exception. A girl named Lucy has not gone along with the crowd. The teacher asks her why she has decided to be different. 

"Because I'm not an atheist." 

"Then," asks the teacher, "What are you?"

"I'm a Christian."

The teacher is a little perturbed now, her face slightly red. She asks Lucy why she is a Christian. 

"Well, I was brought up knowing and loving Jesus. My mom is a Christian, and my dad is a Christian, so I am a Christian."

The teacher is now angry. "That's no reason," she says loudly. "What if your mom was a moron, and you dad was a moron. What would you be then?"


A pause, and a smile. "Then," says Lucy, "I'd be an atheist!"

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  One day a group of scientists got together and decided that man had come a long way and no longer needed God. They picked one scientist to go and tell Him that they were done with Him. 

The scientist walked up to God and said, "God, we've decided that we no longer need you. We're to the point that we can clone people and do many miraculous things, so why don't you just go on and get lost."

God listened patiently and kindly to the man and, after the scientist was done talking, God said, "Very well! How about this? Let's have a man-making contest."

To which the man replied, "OK, great!"

But God added, "Now we're going to do this just like I did back in the old days with Adam."

The scientist said, "Sure, no problem" and bent down and grabbed himself a handful of dirt.

God just looked at him and said, "No, no, no. You go get your own dirt!"  

------------------------------- 
An elderly pastor was searching his closet for his collar before church one Sunday morning. In the back of the closet, he found a small box containing 3 eggs and 250 $1 bills. 

He called his wife into the closet to ask her about the box and its contents. Embarrassed, she admitted having hidden the box there for their entire 30 years of marriage. Disappointed and hurt, the pastor asked her, "WHY?" 

http://www.buildingchurchleaders.com/multimedia/cartoons/

The wife replied that she hadn't wanted to hurt his feelings. He asked her how the box could have hurt his feelings. She said that every time during their marriage that he had delivered a poor sermon, she had placed an egg in the box. 

The pastor felt that 3 poor sermons in 30 years was certainly nothing to feel bad about, so he asked her what the $250 was for. 

She replied, "Each time I got a dozen eggs, I sold them to the neighbors for $1." 

          

In Honor of Holy Humor Sunday

A preacher's little boy inquired, "Daddy, I notice every Sunday morning when you first come out to preach, you sit up on the platform and bow your head. What are you doing?"

The father explained, "I'm asking the Lord to give me a good sermon."

The little boy said, "Why don't he?"

Edited from H.A. Williams' book Tensions:

            No wonder the Pharisees, who seem to have been always wholly serious, had to have Jesus put down. He made their piety look ridiculous.

            Who in reality had ever witnessed a pious man blowing a trumpet before he put a dollar in the offering plate? And then there were camels going through the eyes of needles, not to mention camels being swallowed easily by those who choked when they swallowed a gnat.

            And worse: idlers who were given full pay, stewards who were successful cheats, wicked sons being distinguished on their return home - what had all this nonsense have to do with religion?

            …but Eternity had the last laugh after all. Here are Caiaphas, Pilate, Herod and all theirs, have done their duty getting rid of a dangerous fool. He is safely dead. Now they can concentrate on the serious matters to which their lives are dedicated.

            But behind their backs,  the fool has popped up again like a Jack-in-the-box and is dancing about even more vigorously than before. People here, there and everywhere are falling under his spell…

            If that isn't funny, nothing is. The resurrection is the supreme, the final, the ultimate joke. And since laughter is highly contagious, perhaps even the hardest heart will in time catch the disease, turn around, see the joke, and then laugh with the rest of creation because the kingdom of God has drawn near."

---

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An elderly pastor was searching his closet for his collar before church one Sunday morning. In the back of the closet, he found a small box containing 3 eggs and 200 $1 bills.

He called his wife into the closet to ask her about the box and its contents. Embarrassed, she admitted having hidden the box there for their entire 30 years of marriage. Disappointed and hurt, the pastor asked her, "WHY?"

The wife replied that she hadn't wanted to hurt his feelings. He asked her how the box could have hurt his feelings. She said that every time during their marriage that he had delivered a poor sermon, she had placed an egg in the box.

The pastor felt that 3 poor sermons in 30 years was certainly nothing to feel bad about, so he asked her what the $200 was for.

She replied, "Each time I got a dozen eggs, I sold them to the neighbors for $1."

At the conclusion of the sermon, the worshipers filed out of the sanctuary to greet the minister. As one of them left, he shook the minister's hand, thanked him for the sermon and said, "Thanks for the message, Reverend. You know, you must be smarter than Einstein."

Beaming with pride, the minister said, "Why, thank you, brother!"

As the week went by, the minister began to think about the man's compliment. The more he thought, the more he became baffled as to why anyone would deem him smarter than Einstein. So he decided to ask the man the following Sunday.

The next Sunday he asked the parishioner if he remembered the previous Sunday's comment about the sermon. The parishioner replied that he did. The minister asked: "Exactly what did you mean that I must be smarter than Einstein?"

The man replied, "Well, Reverend, they say that Einstein was so smart that only ten people in the entire world could understand him. But Reverend, no one can understand you."

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A farmer named Muldoon lived alone in the Irish countryside except for a pet dog he for a long time.

The dog finally died and Muldoon went to the parish priest, saying
"Father, the dog is dead. Could you possibly be saying a Mass for the poor creature?"

Father Patrick told the farmer "No, we can't have services for an
animal in the church, but I'll tell you what, there's a new denomination down the road apiece, and no telling what they believe in, but maybe they'll do something for the animal."


Muldoon said "I'll go right now. By the way, do you think $50,000 is enough to donate for the service?"

Father Patrick replied "Why didn't you tell me the dog was Catholic."

A slightly "humor impaired" preacher attended a conference to help encourage and better equip pastors for their ministry. There were many well known and dynamic speakers present to provide the guidance necessary.

One speaker boldly approached the pulpit and, gathering the entire crowd's attention, said, "The best years of my life were spent in the arms of a woman that wasn't my wife!" The crowd was shocked! He followed up by saying, "And that woman was my mother!" - The crowd burst into laughter and he delivered the rest of his talk, which went over quite well.

The next week, the pastor decided he'd give this humor thing a try, and use that joke in his sermon. As he surely approached the pulpit that sunny Sunday, he tried to rehearse the joke in his head but it suddenly seemed a bit foggy.

Getting to the microphone he said loudly, "The greatest years of my life were spent in the arms of another woman that was not my wife!" The congregation inhaled half the air in the room. After standing there for almost 10 seconds in the stunned silence, trying to recall the second half of the joke, the pastor finally blurted out, "...and I can't remember who she was!"

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The teacher who was helping one of her kindergarten students put on his boots.

He asked for help and she could see why. With her pulling and him pushing, the boots still didn't want to go on. When the second boot was on, she had worked up a sweat. She almost whimpered when the little boy said, "Teacher, they're on the wrong feet." She looked and sure enough, they were.

It wasn't any easier pulling the boots off than it was putting them on. She managed to keep her cool as together they worked to get the boots back on, this time on the right feet. He then announced, "These aren't my boots."

She bit her tongue rather than get right in his face and scream, "Why didn't you say so?" like she wanted to.

Once again she struggled to help him pull the ill-fitting boots off. He then said, "They're my brother's boots. My Mom made me wear them."

She didn't know if she should laugh or cry. She mustered up the grace and courage she had left to wrestle the boots on his feet again. She said, "Now, where are your mittens?"

He said, "I stuffed them in the toes of my boots..."

Her trial starts next month.

---

  

          A woman left work right away after receiving a call that her daughter was at home sick with a fever. She stopped by the pharmacy to get some medication but discovered when she got back to her car that she had locked her keys inside.

She didn't know what to do, so she called home and told the baby sitter what had happened. The baby sitter told her that her the fever was getting worse and suggested, "You might find a coat hanger and use that to open the door."

The woman looked around and found an old rusty coat hanger that had been left on the ground, possibly by someone else who had locked their keys in their car. Once back at her car, she had no idea what to actually do with the coat hanger.

So she bowed her head and asked God to send her some help. Within five minutes an old rusty car pulled up, with a dirty, greasy, bearded man who was wearing an old biker skull rag on his head. The woman thought, "This is what you sent to help me?" But, she was desperate and also very thankful for the assistance.

The man got out of his car and asked her if he could help. She said, "Yes, my daughter is very sick. I stopped to get her some medication and I locked my keys in my car. I must get home to her. Please, can you use this hanger to unlock my car?"

He said, "Sure". He walked over to the car, and in less than a minute the car was opened. She hugged the man and through her tears she said, "Thank You So Much! You are a very nice man."

The man replied, "Lady, I am not a nice man. I just got out of prison today. I was in prison for car theft."

The woman hugged the man again and with sobbing tears cried out loud, "Oh, Thank you God! You even sent me a Professional!"

         One day God was looking down to earth and saw all of the evil that was going on and decided to send an angel down to earth to check it out.  so God called on a female angel and sent her to earth for a time. When she returned she told God, "yes it is bad on earth, 95% is bad and 5% is good."

          Well, God thought for a moment and said maybe I had better send down a male angel to get both points of view. So God called a male angel and sent him to earth for a time. When the male angel returned he went to God and told him yes the earth was in decline, 95% was bad and 5% was good.

          God said this was not good and decided to send a letter to the 5% that were good and encourage them, something to help them keep going. Do you know what that letter said?.........................................

          Oh, you didn't get one either?!

In honor of Holy Humor Sunday

Peace and joy,
James


If Noah lived in 2010:

The Lord spoke to Noah and said, "In six months I am going to make it rain until the whole world is covered with water and all the evil things are destroyed. But, I want to save a few good people and two of every living thing on the planet. I am ordering you to build an ark." And, in a flash of lightning, he delivered the specifications for the ark. "OK," Noah said, trembling with fear and fumbling with the blueprints, "I'm your man."

Six months passed, the sky began to cloud up, and the rain began to fall in torrents. The Lord looked down and saw Noah sitting in his yard, weeping, and there was no ark.

"Noah!" shouted the Lord, "Where is My ark?" A lightning bolt crashed into the ground right beside Noah.

"Lord, please forgive me!" begged Noah. "I did my best, but there were some big problems. First, I had to get a building permit for the ark's construction, but Your plans did not meet their code. So, I had to hire an engineer to redo the plans, only to get into a long argument with him about whether to include a sprinkler system.

"My neighbors objected, claiming that I was violating zoning ordinances by building the ark in my front yard, so I had to get a variance from the city planning board.

Then, I had a big problem getting enough wood for the ark, because there was a ban on cutting trees to save the spotted owl. I tried to convince the environmentalists and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that I needed the wood to save the owls, but they wouldn't let me catch them, so no owls.

"Next, I started gathering up the animals but got sued by an animal rights group that objected to me taking along only two of each kind.

"Just when the suit got dismissed, the EPA notified me that I couldn't complete the ark without filling out an environmental impact statement on Your proposed flood. They didn't take kindly to the idea that they had no jurisdiction over the Supreme Being. Then, the Corps of Engineers wanted a map of the proposed flood plan. I sent them a globe!

"Right now, I'm still trying to resolve a complaint with the Equal Opportunities Commission over how many minorities I'm supposed to hire. The IRS has seized all my assets claiming that I am trying to leave the country, and I just got a notice from the state that I owe some kind of use tax. Really, I don't think I can finish the ark in less than five years."

With that, the sky cleared, the sun began to shine, and a rainbow arched across the sky. Noah looked up and smiled. "You mean you are not going to destroy the world?" he asked hopefully.

"No," said the Lord. "The government already has."

--Anonymous