IN EXILE
By Ron Rolheiser, OMI
The ability to laugh suggests that we are on good terms with God
In our novitiate, when I was a novice with the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, our assistant novice director, a sincere but overly stern man, cautioned us about too much levity in our lives by telling us that there is no recorded incident in Scripture of Jesus ever laughing. I was a pious novice but, even then, that didn’t sit well with me. I combed the Gospels trying to prove him wrong, but found out that, technically, he is right. But is he?
A couple of years later, during my seminary studies, I read a book by
Peter Berger entitled A rumour of Angels in which he tries to point to
various places within our everyday experience where, he submits, we have
intimations of the divine, rumours of angels, hints that ordinary experience
contains more than just the ordinary, that God is there.
One such experience, he submits, is that of a mother comforting a frightened
child at night, using soothing words and gestures to assure the child
that he or she need not be afraid, that everything is all right, the
world is in order. In saying those words, if she means them, and normally
she does, the mother is, in effect, implicitly praying the creed.
Another such intimation of the divine within ordinary experience, Berger
suggests, is the phenomenon of laughter. In laughter, he submits, we
intuit our transcendence: given that we are able to laugh in any situation
shows that there is something in us that is above that situation, transcendent
to it. In laughter, Berger believes, we have a rumour of angels.
Karl Rahner agrees, suggesting that laughter shows we are
on good terms with reality and hence with God. Laughter praises God because
it foretells our final state in heaven when we will be in an exuberance
of joy. Commenting on the Beatitudes in Luke’s Gospel where Jesus says, blessed are
you who are now weeping, for you shall laugh, Rahner says that what Jesus
is saying suggests that the happiness of the final state will not just
dry away our tears and bring us to peace, it will also bring us to laughter — “to
an intoxication of joy.” Here are his words: “ ‘But
you shall laugh.’ Thus it is written. And because God’s Word
also has recourse to human words in order to express what shall one day
be when all shall have been — that is why a mystery of eternity
also lies hidden, but real, in everyday life; that is why the laughter
of daily life announces and shows that one is on good terms with reality,
even in advance of all that all-powerful and eternal consent in which
the saved will one day say their amen to everything that he has done
and allowed to happen. Laughter is praise of God because it foretells
the eternal praise of God at the end of time, when those who must weep
here on earth shall laugh.”
But is this superficial? Human optimism substituting itself for hope?
An upbeat-spirit masquerading as theology? The naive claim that if I
am happy then God is on my side? Indeed, in the Gospels, where is there
a recorded incident of Jesus laughing?
Good Scripture scholarship has long suggested that looking
for an individual text to prove or disprove a certain point is not a
good approach to Scripture. The teachings of Scripture are best gleaned
by looking to Scripture as a whole. And if we do that in this case, I
believe, we will find that both Peter Berger and Karl Rahner are right.
As Rahner points out, Jesus himself teaches that laughter will be part
of the final state in heaven. You shall laugh! But, beyond that, Jesus’ message
as a whole invites us to joy, a joy that no one can take from us, and
laughter is the exuberant expression of that joy. It is the height, the
apex, the crowning jewel, of our final state in heaven.
Hence, in laughter we do have a rumour of angels and we
do intuit our transcendence. In laugher we do manifest that we are on
good terms with reality, and on good terms with God. In laughter we affirm,
loud, joyously and to the world, the great mantra of Julian of Norwich
that, in the end, all will be well, and all will be well, and every manner
of being will be well — even though our world is not in that state
today.
My assistant novice director was a wonderful, sincere, gentle and overly
serious man. Levity was not his thing and laughter was not his preferred
method of implicitly praying the creed. He showed his deep faith in other
ways, believing that laughter is not the only rumour of angels inside
of ordinary life.
But it is one of intimation of the divine within human life. Laughter, when it is healthy, when it is not forced or cynical, is, as Rahner says, “an intoxication of joy,” the joy of our final state. Thus when we laugh we also pray the creed.
Rolheiser, theologian, teacher and award-winning author, is president of the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio, TX. He can be contacted through his website: www.ronrolheiser.com
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