Jokes - old and new

A reflection on 2 Kings 5:1-14 and Luke 10:1-11, 16-20, preached Sunday 8 July 2007

Question: What do you have when you have seventy preachers buried up to their necks in sand?

Answer: Not enough sand.

I think I have mentioned before that the Bible is not renowned for its jokes.

What is a joke? What makes a joke?

In my experience, a joke is a joke because the answer or the punch line is not what you expect. Jokes are rarely funny the second time because you already know the answer or the punch line. It is when the line is not known, unexpected, that we respond with laughter.

If that is the criteria for a joke then the Bible is actually full of jokes; it’s just that we have become too familiar with the punch lines to recognise the humour. Today’s reading from Kings is a classic example.

Throughout this reading there are punch lines coming one after the other. To a person of the Ancient Near East, hearing this story for the first time, it may well have seemed like one long glorious joke.

For a start, who would expect a foreign slave girl to offer medical advice to the wife of the great and famous Naaman? Who would have expected Naaman to take that advice? Who could have guessed that, not only would Naaman’s king send him to the king of Israel, but that he would have loaded him up with ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten sets of garments? A king’s ransom for a healing?

And then of course the jokes multiply once Naaman arrives at Elisha’s doorstep: bathing in the muddy trickle of water known as the Jordan River? You must be joking! What’s wrong with the mighty Arbana and Pharpar rivers?

Mind you, the best joke is saved till last: Naaman is healed.

It seems to me that God plays these sorts of jokes all the time. It’s almost as if the point of so many stories is just to show us that God gives us what we don’t expect: we don’t expect our Saviour to come as a baby, do we? We don’t expect an old, old man and his old, old wife to parent a nation more numerous than the stars. We don’t expect Rahab the foreign prostitute to bring victory to the Israelites. We don’t expect the greatest persecutor of the Christians to become their greatest champion.

Time and again, God pulls the rug from under our feet. You were expecting a triumphant Saviour? Well, guess what? He’s heading off to be crucified. He’s dead and gone? Guess what? He has risen!

Of course, the great joke is that we don’t get it. When we plan how God will save us, or how we will save our selves, or how God will punish our enemies for us, each time God introduces the divine joke and catches us by surprise.

Naaman’s tale is a salutary one. God heals the very person no-one expected God to heal. God saves the foreigner, the one we don’t expect to be saved.

And what have we to look forward to?

If God comes to the unexpected, will God come to us?

If God heals the unexpected, will God heal us?

If God saves the unexpected, will we too be saved?

Question: What do you call it when you have seventy preachers at the bottom of Sydney Harbour?

Answer: A good start.

So, where is the joke in today’s gospel reading? Where is the unexpected; where is the surprise?

At first glance, this is a little more difficult to see. We have Jesus equipping his disciples for mission, sending them with clear instructions concerning what to do, what to say, what to expect. It appears that we have a relatively straightforward commissioning story – no surprises, no jokes.

But I like jokes. And I’m not convinced that there isn’t one hidden in today’s gospel.

Perhaps there is the hint of a joke in Jesus’ words: See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves.

After all, we expect disciples to be sent out in the hope of victory rather than in the expectation of being devoured.

Perhaps there is the hint of a joke as Jesus instructs his followers: Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals…

After all, who would send his friends out without money to pay their way, or a bag to carry what they will need, or sandals to show that they are not the lowest of the low?

But perhaps the funniest bit, the joke that the church consistently fails to get, is that proclaiming the good news, preaching the gospel, saving souls, has very little to do with what we do but has a whole lot to do with what we are offered by the people we go to.

To understand what I am getting at, perhaps we need to ask ourselves, “Why does Jesus mention the city of Sodom?” Contrary to popular belief, the story of the destruction of Sodom in Genesis chapter 19 has nothing to do with homosexuality and everything to do with hospitality. When Jesus mentions Sodom in today’s reading he is citing it as the benchmark for lack of hospitality. And a whole lot of this passage is about hospitality: it’s about what the disciples are to do if they are made welcome or if they are not made welcome.

Jesus knows, you cannot proclaim the good news if you are not first given the opportunity to do so. There must be hospitality extended to those who come bearing good news. And this is the bit the church has so often failed to understand: the first thing that we must do as disciples of Christ is accept the hospitality of those who are not disciples of Christ.

Whatever house you enter, first say, 'Peace to this house!' And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person… Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide… Do not move about from house to house. Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you;

The disciples are to accept the hospitality of strangers, just as the man on his way from Jerusalem to Jericho had to accept the care of the Samaritan. There’s the joke! Proclaiming the gospel requires us to depend upon the ones we desire to share the gospel with.

That’s why there are to be no purses or bags or shoes. Instead there is to be the humble acceptance of the kindness of strangers.

Ours is the unexpected God. And what God calls us to is unexpected.

Proclaiming the good news is not taking it upon ourselves to carry the word of God whenever and to whomever we decide. Proclaiming the gospel is making ourselves available; it’s about having relationships with others who may or may not want to hear what we have to say; it’s about waiting to be invited to experience the hospitality of strangers. And that’s no joke. Amen.