Fill Me with Laughter

Just imagine people laughing /
I know some day we will
And even if it's far away /
Get me through another day

Songwriters: Maureen Mcdonald / Amy Allen
Cover Me In Sunshine lyrics © Artist Publishing Group West, Kenny + Betty Tunes, Superreal Songs, Way To Go Mo

Every now and then, all those classes in theatre history come in handy. I was reading our psalm for this week, and a term from one of those classes just jumped out at me: “Restoration comedy.” Oh yeah, you are saying with skepticism clouding your eyes, I remember not reading a single thing about that!”

Restoration comedy, also called Comedy of Manners, was a late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century theatrical style that was all the rage among the classes in England and the Continent. Part of the reason for its popularity was that it made fun of the aristocracy. The lower classes loved seeing those with power g made to look like fools. And those in power enjoyed seeing their colleagues taken down a peg, secure in the knowledge that the object of the joke was that other guy and not them! But in fact, while the antics of the upper crust provided the context of the comedy, it was never designed to question the status quo, and many historians believed it shored up the class system in the minds and hearts of the whole of society.

Yet, boundaries were pushed. Another significant milestone of Restoration comedy was the advent of women! Oh, wait. Of course, women had been around before this period of history. But this is the first time in modern history that women acted on the stage in any significant numbers. In the Elizabethan period, young boys played all the female parts because ... well, because.

Not only on stage, however—the first women playwrights appeared writing Restoration comedy. That was a good thing, too, because the subject matter was, well, let’s just say, a little more palatable when presented between men and women. Ribaldry was the term that fit—risqué humor, flirtations, and innuendo. What was once taboo was now subject to public humor, not explicit by today’s standards, but earthy, human, real-life men and women, relationships and misunderstandings, longing and desire, failure and success, hope and disappointment, anything and everything played out on the stage of human experience, and played for laughs.

That’s how they got away with it, you know. Because it was comedy, no one thought to take it seriously. No one thought that humor could change reality from an oppressive social system into something more, something different. And yet, changes were afoot.

Some of the most significant psalms are some of the shortest ones. Like Psalm 23, Psalm 126 is only six verses long. Yet it points to a deep reality. Wait, you are thinking, “a deep reality”? OK, it is a nice psalm, even fun in a way, laughter and shouts of joy, great, good. But deep? It isn’t even the end of tears and proclamation of heaven, because the last couple of verses remind us that we are still in the midst of the struggle. Sowing in tears and going out weeping: It isn’t all good news, no rainbows and unicorns here. There is still the struggle of daily living. There is still the risk of loss, the futility of pouring out, not knowing whether your efforts will bring a return, and there is still the recognition of the fragility of life and hope.

You can’t help but feel lost in these six verses. Is the bad time over? Have we returned home? Are the dreams realized? If so, then why is there a prayer for restoration halfway through? “When the Lord restored the fortunes ...” writes the psalmist, only to turn around a few verses later and write, “Restore our fortunes, O Lord!” Did it happen, and we lost it? Or is the dream only a dream, and we woke up and there wasn’t anything to laugh about, no reason to shout with joy? Are we still waiting for the Lord to do great things for us? Or did it happen, and we missed it somehow; we lost our grip on those great things and lost our grip on joy?

We want our fortunes restored. The recurring mega-lottery storylines have us all thinking, “Boy, if that was me ..”. We are still convinced that if we had only a little more, were a little better off, all would be well. But maybe that is a misunderstanding of the psalmist’s idea of fortune. Maybe the call is for something else entirely, not the material well-being provided by a good harvest, not the sheaves we would bring in when the weather conditions are ideal and the timing is perfect. Restore our fortunes, O Lord.

What was restored in the era of Restoration comedy? The year 1660 is considered the beginning of this renaissance in British theatre, and it was also, not coincidentally, the year the Puritan ban and subsequent closings of all the playhouses in the country ended. What was restored was the ability to laugh, to enjoy poking fun at the antics of human frailty and pretension. The joy of exposing human life at its most vulnerable—our creatureliness—was restored.

Sometimes we get so wrapped up in the seriousness of our situations, the struggle and brokenness, the slights real and imagined from those who seem to be our enemies, we are overwhelmed by the tears with which we sow that we can’t imagine reaping, let alone shouting for joy as we do it.

Perhaps what we are begging for, praying for, is the ability to laugh again, to hope again. Living as a person of hope and joy is claiming a fortune no lottery can award. Restore our fortunes, O Lord. Fill our mouths with laughter and our tongue with shouts (shouts, mind you, not chuckles under our breath, not grins behind our hands, but shouts) of joy.

Judas, on the other hand, didn’t know how to celebrate a moment (John 12:1-8). Judas was a man who knew the cost of everything, but the value of nothing. He was willing to shout at Mary and say, “You shouldn’t have,” but it wasn’t the false humility of a grateful receiver. No, John says it was the cold look of avarice that was aware of what he was not getting. He wouldn’t be so bold as to say it should have gone to him, so he condemned the whole act as wasteful.

But we must wonder if John put those words and that parenthetical explanation in the story to cover his own guilt since other versions tell this story a little differently. Maybe he had been the spokesperson earlier; maybe he was one of the “some who were there” and was now looking for someone to blame. Surely, I couldn’t have said that or thought that. That jealousy, that hunger to have could only have come from someone truly evil, right?

Jesus points out to all of them and to us as well that no gift is wasteful when it is given in love, no matter how extravagant. No act of service, no matter how humble, can be demeaning when it is given in love.

What about that last verse, though? (“You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.") Aren’t we in danger of misinterpretation here? Luke thought so. Luke has a consistent call toward solidarity with the poor in his Gospel. And while his story, particularly in the last days of Jesus' earthly ministry, mirrors Mark’s version in many ways, Luke leaves out this story completely. It is as if he was sure that we would seize these words as permission to let up in our ministry to and with the poor. He was afraid that we would claim this loophole in the clear command to share and give and help.

“You always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me.” What does that mean? Give to Jesus more extravagantly; give to the poor out of duty? Give to Jesus everything; give to the poor some things? Give to Jesus always; give to the poor when you can?

I don’t know. Honestly, I am puzzled and troubled by this verse. But I find it hard to believe that Jesus would ask us to back off of giving wholeheartedly. I wonder if Jesus is once again speaking to our experience, warning us about how our lives are lived out sometimes. I am sure that, at the time, he was trying to get across to his followers - even the slow ones - that his earthly life was coming to an end soon. But at the same time, I wonder if he was saying to us that sometimes when we give to the poor, we will see his face and sometimes we won’t. Sometimes we will know his will and feel his presence, and other times, we will wonder what he would have us do and wonder why he seems so far from us. But that no matter what, we should give and serve out of love, with extravagance.

Maybe it has to do with what fills us. When we are filled with fear, or scarcity, or self-importance, then our giving becomes suspect. But if we are filled with laughter, with the joy of giving and community and relationship, then everything changes, and the dream is realized.