蜜芽传媒

Good morning. I鈥檝e been re-reading Peter Ackroyd鈥檚 Life of Thomas More recently, prompted to do so by watching Wolf Hall. More鈥檚 characterisation in Wolf Hall seemed to drain him of his well attested sense of humour. It puzzled me. Ackroyd has reminded me of More鈥檚 wit. Sometimes it鈥檚 assumed that no seriously religious person will have a sense of humour at all. 鈥榃here are the jokes in the gospels?鈥� I was once asked.

That Jesus had a sense of humour became evident to me once I began to preach. In the Church of England scripture readings are set for every day. One of the many purposes of what鈥檚 called the Lectionary is to stop clergy just using their favourite bits of the Bible. Years ago as a curate I remember having to address these words of Jesus 鈥� 鈥淕ive to everyone who begs from you, and when someone takes away your goods do not ask for them back.鈥� Well, I didn鈥檛 give to every beggar and I wasn鈥檛 fond of burglars. How could I avoid being a hypocrite preaching on that? The temptation was to explain it all away.

The extreme sayings of Jesus seem to challenge ordinary morality. And when we鈥檙e challenged we often have a sense of humour failure. So convinced were some people that Jesus had no sense of humour they invented a gate in Jerusalem called the Needle鈥檚 Eye. That was to explain away his parable about it being easier for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle. The disproportion is laughable. He鈥檚 being deliberately ridiculous. It鈥檚 impossible for any of us to get to heaven on our merits, wealth or virtues. That was the point. Jesus鈥檚 teaching about God鈥檚 undeserved compassion and kindness gets obscured when you make him solemn faced.

So we ruin these sayings of Jesus by removing their irony. Which takes me back to Wolf Hall. Thomas More was noted in his own day for both his religious devotion and his humour. He may have spent every Friday in prayer but he also knew how to laugh. He even had a quip for his executioner 鈥� 鈥淧luck up thy spirits, man, my neck is very short.鈥� His famous book Utopia is about an imaginary perfect society but he undercuts it by a whole series of jokes. He believed in ideals but he also understood that human beings often seem ridiculous when pursuing them. No wonder he prayed 鈥淕rant me, O Lord, a sense of good humour.鈥�

Earlier this week I thought of another saying of Jesus. 鈥淲oe to you when all people speak well of you.鈥� I fancy I could see Jesus smiling as he said it.

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