Laughter
The best joke in the world was determined by LaughLab research, which was carried out by psychologist Dr. Richard Wiseman, from the University of Hertfordshire, and which attracted more than 40,000 jokes and almost two million ratings. Despite the researches claims that jokes were included from around the world, the winning joke revolves around, none other than residents of New Jersey, and be quiet if you’ve heard this one… “A couple of New Jersey hunters are out in the woods, when one of them falls to the ground. He doesn’t seem to be breathing, his eyes are rolled back in his head. The other guy whips out his cell phone and calls the emergency services. He gasps to the operator: “My friend is dead! What can I do?” The operator, in a calm soothing voice says: “Just take it easy. I can help. First, let’s make sure he’s dead.” There is a silence, then a shot is heard. The guy’s voice comes back on the line. He says: “OK, now what?” Ok, it’s not the typical kind of humor you might expect, especially in church, so be patient as I unpack the logic of the joke and how it relates to the Beatitudes. Brain Scientists claim that we find jokes funny for many reasons. Laughlab researchers, “[sometimes jokes] make us feel superior to others, or reduce the emotional impact of anxiety-provoking events, or surprise us because of some kind of incongruity. The hunters joke contains all three elements – we feel superior to the New Jersey hunter, [we] realize the incongruity of him misunderstanding the 911 operator, and the joke helps us to laugh about concerns of our own mortality.” Oddly, these same three elements are what punctuate the Beatitudes, even while the first element is reversed in its effect. First, Jesus upsets our normal tendency to feel superior to others. Jesus turns this blessing on its head. The disciples find out who is really blessed, Jesus says “blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven…” Our first survival reaction, when we see a person in a persecuted situation, is to think in fear… …thank God I’m not them; only in the next instants, with love, might we think of helping. The beatitudes don’t teach superiority or even gut instinct, only blessing. Jesus changes our feelings of superiority to others: and rather than survival of the best, Jesus insists on salvation of the blest. “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord”, Paul said. Here’s another joke that plays on misunderstanding, the second teaching point of the beatitudes… Two fish are in a tank.One turns to the other and says ‘Do you know how to drive this?’
The first line makes us think the fish are in a fish tank – then the second makes us realize that they actually are in an army tank!
There is a part of the brain, called the Prefrontal cortex, which plays a role in the type of flexible thinking needed to understand a joke. The prefrontal cortex is a funny thing, seriously, each of you have one, but how many of you can point to where it is in your body, or narrow it down, brain? The prefrontal cortex makes sense of the jokes just as it helps you make sense of the beatitudes. If you were to watch your brain on an imaging tv…The prefrontal cortex is the same part of our brains that make sense of the blessings that Jesus surprises us with, Paul is saying the same thing in 1 Corinthians, “The message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” OK, so those are the two points, somewhere in there, now for the joke… The joke which is actually a point in itself… Did you hear the one about the two pigs on Noah’s ark, that’s when one pig said to the other- “Wow, after forty days of rain there should be some really great mud.” The point of that joke. Even in tough situations, God promises to help us find blessings.
