James Duff August 17th 2014 ~ There is a time to cry {Ecc. 3:4}

“We will laugh a lot over the next few days because of Robin Williams’ death.” This was the first thing I heard on the radio on Tuesday morning as I drove to church. It was also how I first heard of the tragic death of Robin Williams.  We often hear of the death of a famous person and, personally, it rarely impacts me in any significant way. But when I learned of Williams’ death I was shocked and saddened. Much has been written and said about him since. He was a deeply talented man, able to have you in stitches one minute with outlandish humour and then have you spellbound with staid and thought-provoking acting the next. Only a few weeks ago I was flicking through the TV stations and came across the film Good Will Hunting, in which Williams starred as a psychologist. I kept flicking through the stations but would come back to Good Will Hunting to watch again a scene where Williams has us laughing with joy and then quickly has us in a sombre mood. That was the skill of the man.Like many of us, I first saw Williams as the alien ‘Mork’. He was so funny. I was recently asked if I thought Jesus would have been funny.  This is a great question. My answer is a resounding, “Yes, very funny!” The most characteristic form of Jesus’ humour was his preposterous exaggeration. I can imagine the tradies hanging around a building site, having a good chuckle at Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 7:3: “Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?”  The way he poked fun at the Pharisees, to me was his funniest work. He consistently pointed out the stupidity of how they practised the religion they took so seriously. He called them all sorts of names, including a bag of snakes and that their dads were the devil. (I hate to think what that means for their mothers!) He made fun of their tithing, the way they ate and the way they prayed. He was able to show them how ridiculous the way they practised their religion was but then to show them how serious their sin was, both to them and for others.  Just like a person who is naïve enough to sit in the front row of a Dame Edna Everidge concert, not knowing that the Dame will most likely drag them up on stage and mock them terribly, the Pharisees were just easy pickings for Jesus and he took full advantage. To summarise, Jesus made fun of decent, conservative, church-going, private-school men, who prayed wrong, bragged about fasting and made it impossible to go to the footy on the Sabbath! Yes, Jesus was funny and God has given us the gift of humour. There is a time to laugh (Ecc. 3:4) and I am thankful that he gave the gift of humour to Robin Williams who made us laugh.  I’m sure his funeral, like all good funerals will have some very, very funny material. BlessingsJames