0:04

Hello and welcome to another episode of

0:06

the Enter the Bible podcast where you can get

0:08

answers or at least reflections on

0:10

everything you wanted to know about the Bible but

0:12

were afraid to ask. I'm Katie Langston.

0:15

And I'm Kathryn Schifferdecker . And our guest

0:17

today is Reverend Dr. Karl

0:19

Jacobson, who is pastor of Lutheran

0:21

Church of the Good Shepherd in Minneapolis

0:24

and also an Old Testament scholar. So

0:26

welcome, Karl.

0:27

Thank you.

0:28

So glad to have you here. This

0:31

is an unusual podcast in that

0:33

we are all actually in the same room in

0:35

the flesh so.

0:37

Breathing the same air.

0:37

That's right. So if

0:39

you see us looking at each other and not the camera,

0:42

that is why. So we're so happy

0:44

to have you here.

0:44

Thank you. Good to be with you.

0:46

Our first listener

0:49

question for our podcast

0:51

today is

0:53

where do we find humor in

0:55

the Bible? So and just to remind

0:58

our listeners, if you have a question about the Bible,

1:00

you are we encourage you to go

1:02

to the enter the bible.org website

1:04

and and enter your

1:07

question there. So so

1:09

here's the issue, Carl right. Many

1:11

people think the Bible has no humor. It's

1:13

all serious. It's very, very yeah.

1:16

It is no laughing matter.

1:17

No laughing matter.

1:18

It is no laughing matter.

1:20

That's true. And. I

1:24

think that's symptomatic of of

1:26

kind of the way we've tended to treat scripture

1:29

in our tradition, which

1:31

is and you can see it almost every

1:34

Sunday morning if we have a

1:36

in my congregation, one of our members reading

1:39

scripture, suddenly they don't sound

1:41

like themself anymore. That's I put on

1:43

my "I'm reading God's Word" voice,

1:45

right? And that is a reflection, I think,

1:47

of the way we tend to approach it, right? And

1:50

what that does, in my estimation,

1:52

is it flattens the text and

1:54

we miss a lot of the nuance and

1:56

there's actually humor all

1:58

over the place. And that if we can

2:01

understand where the humor is, recognize

2:03

it, the text

2:06

will mean differently for us, which

2:08

is critical. So I would say

2:10

humor is is all over the place in

2:12

the Old Testament, in the new. Um,

2:15

and one of the things I like to emphasize

2:18

when talking about humor in

2:20

the scriptures is to say really three things.

2:23

We can identify what is

2:25

funny, what's intended,

2:27

if we can get to that, what is funny,

2:30

we can have a funny take

2:32

on something in Scripture where we actually

2:34

bring humor to it. And then

2:36

lastly is to observe how,

2:40

when something is funny, when it brings laughter,

2:43

joy, it

2:46

changes things.

2:47

Um,

2:48

It helps us reshape not

2:50

just our perspective, but I

2:53

would even go so far as to say it reshapes

2:55

our reality. That's

2:58

the power of both

3:00

the surprise of humor and

3:02

the surprise of God's intrusion

3:04

into our world. So they're really,

3:07

I think, hand in hand partners.

3:09

Yeah, I'm reminded of there's

3:11

a there's a book, I think it's from the 1970s

3:13

by Frederick Buechner called Telling

3:16

the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy,

3:19

Comedy and Fairy tale. Exactly right.

3:21

And that middle one comedy, right, is,

3:24

is both laughter. I mean, it's

3:26

certainly about joy. It's about laughter. It's also

3:28

comedy in the kind of classical sense of the

3:30

word where the

3:32

unexpected was something

3:34

so good happens, so

3:36

unexpected, that it we can't help

3:38

but laugh.

3:39

Hm Yeah. And actually,

3:42

one of the things Rolf and I drew on

3:44

in our book was from Buechner. Yeah,

3:46

who I think he was the first

3:49

to suggest that sometimes the

3:51

parables of Jesus are

3:53

probably meant

3:55

to be humorous.

3:56

Yeah.

3:56

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

3:59

Are you even allowed to say that?

4:01

Right? That's a good question. If

4:03

Buechner did, I feel like I can.

4:04

Sure, sure.

4:05

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Fair

4:07

enough. So give us an example of

4:10

humor. Yeah.

4:11

So I'll

4:13

use the probably the most famous example

4:16

of laughter in scripture, which is Sarah

4:18

laughing at God's promise.

4:20

Yes. Yes.

4:20

That we identify that as

4:23

Sarah's. Sarah's laughter is sort

4:25

of the key. But actually, if you look at the

4:27

story, there's a bunch of humor

4:29

in the way that story is told. Yeah.

4:32

Genesis 18.

4:33

Yeah, Genesis says it.

4:34

Just to remind the listeners, this is when

4:37

Sarah is very old

4:39

and then is promised that she

4:41

will have a child. And she's

4:43

like, What? That's not a thing.

4:46

Right, exactly. Got it. So

4:49

there's, I

4:51

think, several things going on in that story that

4:54

some of it is probably intentional and

4:57

some of it is just sort of

4:59

strange. So, you

5:01

know, Abraham is sitting in the tent,

5:03

open tent flap and the door of the tent

5:06

in the heat of the day. And suddenly

5:08

you've got these three strangers

5:10

standing there when nobody

5:12

in their right mind would be traveling.

5:14

Sure.

5:15

And Abraham doesn't in

5:17

the story doesn't say, oh,

5:19

how strange that we've got these three men

5:21

standing here now. He just immediately becomes

5:24

hospitable. Then

5:27

out of the blue, they say,

5:30

Well, where's your wife, Sarah? We've

5:32

had no introductions. We have no sense that

5:34

they should know Sarah is anywhere, that

5:37

there is a Sarah, especially

5:39

since Sarah is

5:41

the only person in scripture

5:43

with that name. It's

5:45

an unusual name, at least in

5:47

the Bible. And

5:50

I mean etymologically. It's a strange

5:52

name. Um. And

5:55

Abraham doesn't say, Well, wait a minute. How do

5:57

you know?

5:58

How do you know Sarah?

5:58

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

6:00

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

6:01

Then there's all the exchange, right? There's the promised

6:03

stuff and Sarah's response. And

6:05

then suddenly the Lord is there. Apparently,

6:08

having been looking over Abraham's shoulder

6:10

the whole time, and he

6:12

has something to say about Sarah's

6:14

laughter. So it's kind of a

6:16

quirky story in and of itself, with

6:20

at least as we would tell stories, it's

6:23

got sort of a strange rhythm to it.

6:27

I love my favorite part. Well,

6:29

there's a couple parts that I love,

6:31

but one is. The

6:34

Lord. Well, the Lord says to Abraham,

6:37

Why did Sarah laugh? But Sarah denied

6:39

saying, I did not laugh for she was afraid. He

6:41

said, Oh, yes, you did laugh, right? Yeah.

6:44

And I've heard interpretations of that that

6:46

are like, Oh, God doesn't want us to laugh. And I'm

6:48

like, No, it's the exact opposite, right? Like,

6:50

I think, of course, everything depends

6:52

on the tone in which you hear that, right? Oh, yes.

6:55

You did laugh.

6:55

Yeah,

6:56

but I hear it as: God

6:58

can take a joke and and God delights

7:01

and laughs with Sarah at the divine

7:04

absurdity of a woman in

7:06

past menopause. Having a having

7:08

an infant in her golden years. Right?

7:11

I think that's exactly right. And then so

7:14

she she says, "I did not laugh" because she's afraid.

7:16

Right. And then the Lord says, Oh, yes,

7:18

you did. And then the punchline is coming

7:21

because everybody knows the story. The baby's named Isaac,

7:23

which means. Laughter. Yeah, right. So every

7:25

time in

7:28

his youth, right, Sarah turns

7:30

around and he's broken a, you

7:33

know, a pot or he's doing something

7:35

he shouldn't.

7:35

He's colored on the wall

7:37

Right, Exactly. And it's

7:39

laughter. Right. And I

7:41

think, again, it might have been Buechner, who first

7:43

suggested can you hear

7:45

God's laughter in the background,

7:49

which I just I love that image.

7:51

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

7:52

But there's there's actually more to this,

7:54

right? That that's hidden in

7:56

the language. So, so Sarah

8:00

laughed herself saying, after I have

8:02

grown old and my husband is old,

8:04

shall I have pleasure? And

8:06

what surprises people is that the word pleasure,

8:09

we often, I think, anticipate,

8:11

oh, pleasure in the birth of my child. That's

8:14

not what they're talking about. Yeah, this is

8:16

about the process.

8:17

Yeah, This is the PG 13.

8:19

Yeah, it's making love. Yeah, right. And. And

8:21

Sarah goes, This is not possible.

8:24

We're too old for this.

8:25

It's done, right, over.

8:29

Um, and so, yeah, there's.

8:32

There's that little tension in the story that again,

8:34

because because of the

8:36

way Christian in particular

8:39

tradition has held scripture

8:41

and used it in worship. We

8:43

can't possibly talk about that,

8:46

can we?

8:46

Right. Right.

8:48

So this this is, I think,

8:50

a key example. And

8:53

then, you know, something really similar happens

8:55

in in Isaac's

8:57

story when Isaac

9:00

and Rebecca are playing the old passing

9:02

her off as my sister trick. Right, right, right.

9:05

And then in. In

9:08

that story. The NRSV translation

9:10

is the

9:13

king sees Isaac fondling.

9:17

Yes.

9:17

Rebecca Right. Well, the word fondling

9:20

is from the same root word as Isaac, right?

9:22

So, yes.

9:23

Isaac is isaacking...

9:25

Yes. Rebecca. Which is a

9:27

little bit salacious, right?

9:29

But this

9:31

is Genesis 26, by the way.

9:32

Right. Yeah. So. Literally

9:36

things get lost in translation.

9:37

Yeah, for sure. Yeah.

9:38

Because you can't say Isaac is Isaack ing,

9:41

right? It makes no sense.

9:42

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

9:44

But there's something sweet about it too. I

9:46

mean, it's. It's a beautiful kind of humor,

9:48

right?

9:49

Yeah. Yeah.

9:50

Revealed in their relationship. So

9:52

this story, Isaac's

9:54

story, I think, is all just

9:57

full of humor in that, for sure.

9:59

Yeah. Yeah. I love to just go

10:01

back briefly to Genesis 18. I love

10:03

the rabbis' take on that same

10:05

passage that you were talking about. They So

10:08

Sarah laughter herself saying, After

10:10

I have grown old and my husband is

10:12

old, shall I have pleasure? Right? But

10:14

then the angel or the Lord says,

10:17

Why did Sarah laugh and say, "Shall I indeed

10:19

bear a child now that I am old?" Well, what's

10:21

missing, though? My husband

10:23

has one foot in the grave, right? He's as good as dead.

10:25

Right? And so the.

10:28

The Lord is like telling

10:30

a little white lie in order to spare Abraham's

10:32

feelings. Right. Or omitting that.

10:35

Omitting that Sarah thinks that he's,

10:37

you know, as good as dead.

10:39

That he's much too old.

10:40

So the rabbis say so, you know, we

10:42

know from this that it's okay to tell a little

10:45

white lie in order to save someone's

10:47

feelings.

10:48

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

10:49

This is it was a sin of omission.

10:52

That's.

10:52

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

10:54

Yeah, Yeah.

10:55

So just one last. Yeah, one

10:57

last thing on that story. The because

11:01

we're talking about humor and the key to humor is

11:03

timing or. Yes, one of them. Yes.

11:05

This story is all about timing. Sarah

11:08

and Abraham are saying Sarah in particular

11:11

in this part of the story, it's too late. The

11:13

the opportunity for God to make good on God's

11:15

promises passed. Right. But

11:18

and first, the angels,

11:21

presumably. Right. The the

11:23

visitors say in

11:27

due season, I

11:29

will return and Sarah will bear a son. That

11:31

phrase in due season in Hebrew is.

11:35

Eight. Higher.

11:39

The time of life.

11:40

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

11:41

Which might mean spring, but

11:44

the play on words is so

11:47

key to the story. The

11:49

time of life has passed.

11:51

That time of life is.

11:52

But no, right. The. The punchline here

11:54

is God's timing is

11:57

surprising, but

11:59

it's coming. And then God, the Lord

12:02

says the same thing, that at the right

12:04

time, in due season, at

12:06

the time of life and.

12:08

There will be life.

12:09

Yeah. Yeah. It's it's a beautiful and

12:11

funny little play on words there.

12:13

That's lovely.

12:13

Well and I like how it affirmed like there's

12:16

a sense sometimes that, you know, we have to

12:18

be so stoic. We have to be so

12:20

pious. We, you know. But

12:23

here it's, you know, it really is

12:25

taking joy in,

12:28

you know, marriage

12:30

and sex and love and children

12:33

and, you know, and laughter and some

12:35

of the things that might feel,

12:38

you know, oh, we you know, that's

12:40

inappropriate. We can't laugh about such things.

12:43

And indeed, God

12:46

delights in. You

12:48

know, in surprises

12:50

and our lives and

12:52

our bodies. That's the thing.

12:54

And it's and it's transformative.

12:56

Right.

12:57

So as I was saying earlier, that

13:00

when we find humor in things, when things

13:02

are funny, it can change reality.

13:05

Right.

13:06

By helping us see things differently and

13:08

realize that as dark

13:10

as a day might look. When

13:13

when God is at work, when God

13:15

is present in those dark times.

13:18

Something different is possible. Yeah.

13:20

Yeah.

13:21

Let's. Let's go to another example. One of my

13:23

favorite books, Jonah, is

13:25

full of humor as well. Right. So

13:29

and I know I think that this

13:31

is also in your book, right?

13:33

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

13:35

So Jonah is,

13:38

you know, the most successful prophet in the

13:40

whole Old Testament. He preaches this like

13:42

forward sermon and five would sermon and everybody

13:44

repents, including the cattle.

13:46

I could preach a sermon that would make the cattle

13:48

repent. Exactly.

13:49

Yeah. The cattle, the cattle of Nineveh,

13:51

where sackcloth and ashes bellow

13:53

out their repentance to God.

13:55

Good for that. Good job.

13:56

But. But. But Jonah doesn't

13:59

like it. In fact, he's really

14:01

pissed off.

14:02

Yeah, Yeah.

14:02

Excuse my language, but, yeah, he's really mad.

14:05

So. So

14:08

I have I grew up in a in a

14:10

conservative Lutheran church. And I remember the

14:12

pastor doing a Bible study on Jonah and reading

14:14

it as a historical tale.

14:16

Right. And and just

14:19

completely missing the

14:21

the humor and the exaggeration

14:23

in this story.

14:24

Are you saying that Jonah

14:26

did not get swallowed by a big fish?

14:28

Well, I will leave that up to the reader

14:30

to listen to the side.

14:32

But there's just there's a lot

14:34

of hyperbole. There's a lot of exaggeration

14:37

in the Book of Jonah. Yeah. Everything's big.

14:39

Yeah. The big fish. The big storm.

14:42

Yeah, Yeah. But

14:46

go ahead and also riff.

14:48

Yeah. When it comes to Jonah, you

14:50

know, the the ending is

14:53

also it's the one place where that

14:55

that descriptive sort

14:57

of confessional formula. Slow

15:01

to anger abounding in steadfast love.

15:03

Jonah is the only one in scripture who

15:05

uses that as an accusation.

15:07

How dare you?

15:08

This is why I didn't want to do this. Because I know what

15:10

kind of God you are. And if I preach

15:12

to them, they'll repent and you'll forgive them. And is

15:14

there anything worse than a Ninevite? Right.

15:16

So Jonah's.

15:18

Yeah.

15:18

Positive description...

15:20

The people you don't like are right on the Internet,

15:22

right? You're like this person I disagree with

15:24

on everything. And yet they've said something

15:26

true. Is there anything more annoying than that?

15:28

You know. Exactly.

15:29

Exactly. And. And so, Jonah

15:33

finally and I'm sure this is

15:35

obvious, but and many people have

15:37

made this observation, but Jonah

15:40

and Jonah's message are not for the Ninevites.

15:42

This is for the people of Israel.

15:44

Yeah. Yeah.

15:45

To say. You know,

15:47

forgiveness belongs to God. Yeah. And

15:50

or is maybe we should say and

15:52

is godly. Yeah. And

15:55

so holding on to this deep anger

15:57

for the people of Nineveh Is

16:00

not what God wants for us and

16:02

we get trapped like so

16:04

a good joke will catch you by surprise.

16:07

This story. You know,

16:09

you're sympathetic to Jonah, and

16:12

suddenly you realize. Oh, wait a minute.

16:14

Oh, Uh oh.

16:15

He's kind of a jerk. Me, Right. I'm the problem.

16:17

I'm the problem. The problem is me. Yeah.

16:20

I love. I love in Jonah too, the

16:22

the well, the ninevites

16:25

and the, you know, the pagan sailors

16:27

and the and the animals

16:29

and plants are more responsive

16:32

to God than Jonah the Israelite. Right?

16:34

So God, God appoints a worm

16:37

and God appointed Bush and God appoints

16:39

a sultry east wind. And, you know, previously

16:42

God appoints the the, the

16:44

big fish to swallow Jonah And all of these

16:47

things respond to God's command. And

16:49

I led a Bible study once

16:51

for college students. And we we were going to make

16:54

on Jonah and we were going to make shirts. That said "and God

16:56

appointed a worm". God says,

16:58

take greatness.

16:59

That is great.

17:00

Great, right?

17:01

Yeah. Anyway, well,

17:03

and you know, when

17:05

I've used Jonah, especially with,

17:08

like, youth group stuff. Yeah. Um,

17:11

another example of how we. We

17:13

tend to tame what

17:16

Scripture actually says. The

17:18

Lord speaks to the fish and

17:21

it spewed Jonah out. No, vomit.

17:24

This fish cannot stand

17:26

the taste of Jonah.

17:28

And the fish is sick of him.

17:30

Right, Exactly. Even the fish.

17:31

Literally. It's sick of him.

17:33

That's good. Yeah. Vomits him.

17:35

That is amazing. Oh,

17:38

we should probably look at the New Testament. True.

17:40

Yeah. Yeah. Give us an example. Yeah, I'm

17:43

curious.

17:43

You said the parables are supposed to be funny. Is

17:45

there a parable in particular?

17:46

Well, let's see if I can

17:48

pull up the right one here.

17:51

Um, I just get confused by

17:53

the parables.

17:56

Well before a parable. Let's

17:58

start with Luke 7. Luke

18:03

7 starting in verse 36, where the Pharisee

18:05

invites Jesus to eat with him. He

18:07

goes to the Pharisee's house and

18:10

there's the sinful woman

18:13

who washes his feet. And

18:17

so the way the story gets told,

18:21

I'll start in verse 39 now, when the Pharisee

18:23

who had invited him saw it, he

18:26

said to himself, "If this man

18:28

were a prophet, he would have known

18:30

who and what kind of woman this is, who is touching

18:32

him, that she is a sinner." And

18:34

Jesus reads his mind and

18:37

says revealing

18:40

he is a prophet and he

18:42

knows exactly what's going on. He has a far

18:44

better idea than the Pharisee,

18:46

so we might not automatically

18:49

think of that as funny. But

18:51

it's it's this again,

18:54

this surprise, a revelation

18:56

that catches us sort of

18:58

off guard. And I actually do find

19:01

it very funny that that

19:03

he just in a moment Jesus

19:06

then speaks up and says, I

19:08

know. I know exactly what's going on here.

19:10

I have something to say to you

19:12

Yeah.

19:13

Yeah.

19:14

That's good. That's good.

19:16

Um, so in terms of parables.

19:19

Well, just as an example of

19:22

the ridiculous communicating

19:25

the sublime, right? There's the parable

19:27

of the woman and the lost coin. Yes.

19:30

And, you know, tears the house apart

19:32

to find this lost coin and finding

19:34

it throws a party.

19:36

Yeah, right.

19:37

It doesn't make any sense.

19:39

That's right.

19:40

She's going to spend the lost coin on

19:42

the party.

19:42

Many, many multiples of the last coin

19:44

on the party.

19:45

So, yeah, that that whole idea

19:48

that this is, this is how God works

19:50

in a ridiculous, unexpected,

19:52

surprising way. Um,

19:55

another example might be what

19:57

probably the most famous parable. Where is

20:00

there humor in the story of the prodigal son?

20:03

In part, it's in the brother,

20:05

right? Who's just disgusted by this

20:07

whole thing and reacts

20:11

pretty childishly, right? Right. His

20:14

brother returns and he's thrown back to probably

20:16

this is how it always was, right? As parents were always

20:18

preferring the younger brother, which,

20:20

of course, Scripture always

20:22

does because it's God's word. And

20:25

so as the younger brother being younger.

20:27

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

20:29

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

20:30

So, yeah, the

20:33

tension in that story and

20:35

the release that comes with it, and

20:38

the fact that the older brother never quite

20:40

gets the joke, he never

20:42

understands. At

20:45

least as I recall the story. I don't have it

20:47

in front of me at the moment, but there's

20:50

no resolution for him.

20:51

No, No.

20:52

And so we're invited into that tension.

20:55

Yeah. Kind of like Jonah at the end of Jonah.

20:57

Yeah. How are you going to respond?

20:59

Right. Exactly.

21:00

To God's.

21:01

Grace.

21:03

Ridiculously extravagant grace.

21:05

Yeah. How are you going to respond

21:07

to that? Yeah.

21:09

Another example, not from

21:11

the parables, but from

21:13

Paul and to me.

21:17

Uh, I don't know if folks

21:19

would have recognized this necessarily, but

21:21

in in Corinthians

21:24

15, the the famous.

21:27

First Corinthians.

21:27

First Corinthians 15. We

21:30

hear this at funerals all the time. Yep. Uh,

21:34

when this perishable body puts on imperishable

21:37

and this mortal body puts on immortality, then

21:39

the saying that is written will be fulfilled. Death

21:41

has been swallowed up in victory. Where

21:44

o death is your victory? Where O death is

21:46

your sting? Paul's

21:48

quoting from Hosea and his quotation

21:51

is incomplete. In

21:53

Hosea, God

21:56

continues and essentially says,

21:59

and you're not going to get relief

22:01

from either. This, in Hosea it's

22:04

judgment.

22:04

It's judgment. Right.

22:05

And Paul takes that and twists

22:07

it. And

22:10

if and again, we

22:12

don't know for sure, but if Paul's audience

22:15

is at all familiar with scripture and

22:18

perhaps they know Hosea and they know

22:20

what's coming, and then suddenly,

22:23

Paul says the sting of death is sin. The power of

22:25

sin is the law. But thanks be to God who gives us the

22:27

victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. You

22:29

expect one thing and

22:31

Paul flips it on its head, which is

22:33

precisely what the gospel does.

22:35

Yeah.

22:36

And so again,

22:39

I don't know that that

22:41

we can read that humorously, but

22:43

understanding how humor works and

22:46

the comic intrusion can

22:48

help us see the theological intrusion

22:50

that's happening here.

22:51

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The unexpected. The

22:54

the almost

22:56

too good to believe, right?

22:59

Kind of absurd. The absurdity of it

23:01

almost.

23:02

In the best sense of that word.

23:04

Yes, exactly. Right.

23:05

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well,

23:09

lots to think about and lots more

23:11

we could talk about. But I love that that

23:13

take on on Scripture that

23:16

in fact, God invented

23:19

laughter and humor and joy

23:21

and that and that the gospel that

23:23

we should be laughing.

23:28

In in in the sense of

23:30

of this kind of.

23:33

News that is almost too good to

23:35

believe, but it's true. And so we

23:37

we can't help but be joyful and laugh

23:39

at that. So. So thank you, Karl.

23:42

Well, thank you. I appreciate.

23:43

The invitation. Thank you for bringing that that

23:46

that insight to us. And again,

23:49

Karl's book is Divine Laughter Preaching

23:51

and the Serious Business of Humor. So we

23:55

recommend that you go out and get it. Thank

23:57

you for listening to this episode of the Enter

23:59

the Bible Podcast. Get high quality

24:01

courses and commentaries, resources, videos

24:04

and more reflections at

24:06

Enter the Bible, dot org. Thanks for joining us.