Does God Have a Sense of Humor?

It takes a different kind of faith community to embrace a different kind of pastor.

I guess that’s why I’m in my seventh year as pastor at Green Meadow United Methodist Church — aka “The Meadow.”

Some Christians see the media as anti-Christ and, if Bishop James E. Swanson appointed me to their church, would call for the ritual of exorcism upon my arrival. Thankfully, that’s not been the case at Green Meadow UMC.

Over the years, we’ve found a lot of things in common:

• We embrace the missio dei, the “mission of God,” in seeking and serving others outside of the church walls.
  
• We resist using our size — we average about 20 to 25 people in worship — as an excuse to not engage in that mission.
  
• We believe in the “connectional” system of the United Methodist Church in that we can do far more together for the Kingdom of God than we can do going it alone.
  
• And while the Gospel is serious business, we try not to take ourselves too seriously and believe God wants us to have fun.
  

It’s that last part that appears to raise a few eyebrows around my parish.

When the newspaper isn’t keeping me too busy, I like to put sermon titles on the sign, and sometimes I get a little feedback about those titles.

For instance, a few years ago I preached a sermon based upon Donald Miller’s “Blue Like Jazz” that led to the title of “Christian Belief is Like Penguin Sex.” At least one church member got a call from someone asking, ”I Googled ‘penguin sex’ on the Internet and saw where a study showed some penguins were homosexuals. Is he preaching about homosexuality?” The parishioner assured the caller that, no, the sermon was not about homosexuality.

Sometime after that I received my first anonymous note at the church, the contents of which escape me right now; however, I have the distinct recollection that it was not complimentary.

More recently, I preached another sermon entitled, “The World Needs More Jedi Christians,” the idea for which came from a Leonard Sweet sermon. The next week I received a note that read something like this: “I don’t know Jedi, but I do know Jesus. I can’t find ‘Jedi’ in the Bible.”

This note was accompanied by two Christian tracts. Apparently, this anonymous writer thought I needed some instruction in the very basics of Christianity.

My first thought was, “I wonder if this is the same sort of Christian who leaves tracts instead of tips for waitresses on Sunday mornings?” Which brought to mind another sermon title; “Why Are Christians Such Lousy Tippers?”

I was beginning to think some Christians were a pretty mean bunch until this past Wednesday evening. I had just finished a pre-marital conferencing session (I refuse to call it “counseling,” because I’m not a trained counselor) when the husband-to-be said, “Buzz, when we came in there was a package on the sidewalk. We were afraid to pick it up.”

I thought something along this line: “This guy’s career military, and he’s afraid to pick up a package on my church’s sidewalk? He must have heard about the notes.”

He went on to say, “It’s got a note on it that says, ‘Does God Have a Sense of Humor?’”

We walked out the front door.

On the sidewalk, near the parking lot was a package wrapped in gold foil paper, all poofed up on the top. Sure enough, there was a tag that read, “Does God Have a Sense of Humor?” Inside the card was a smiley face and the expression, “Hmmmmm ...?”

I held the package away from me, untied the note, spread open the foil and peered inside to find a small metal pail holding a purple stuffed animal in the form of a duckbill platypus.

Looking at such an animal, even turn-or-burn, tract-passing Christians must admit that God does indeed have a sense of humor.

I laughed out loud and recalled this passage from G.K. Chesterton’s “Orthodoxy” in which he speaks of the playful child-likeness of God:

“It is possible that God says every morning, ‘Do it again’ to the sun; and every evening. ‘Do it again’ to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.”

God created us in his image, and it’s obvious that there is a divine sense of humor. After all, he played the greatest cosmic joke ever on Death: He raised Jesus from the dead.

What a gas! Brilliant!

Buzz Trexler is pastor at Green Meadow United Methodist Church in Alcoa (www.themeadow.org) and managing editor print/online at The Daily Times. You can e-mail him at PastorBuzz@nxs.net.