Are fart jokes ever not funny? (May 7-13)
This week in snapshots:
Happy Saturday to you! How are things going for you? What is on your mind these days?
Halfway through the week I got assigned to hang a BUNCH of TVs - this building has 30+ of them scattered around - and rather than dividing and conquering, my colleague and I decided to ally and conquer or “pee-wee soccer” the TVs. Over the course of three days of hanging all the TVs, we’ve asked some really good questions, but I am compelled to ask you just one:
Do you think Jesus was human?
The kid’s room has four TVs in a row along the wall and so I set up the laser-level, marked eight holes, and worked my way across the top. The room was being used as the painter’s home base, but they had gone home hours ago and so we had to navigate around buckets of paint, rollers, ladders, and trays to even access the wall the TVs belonged on. After we had set up all the mounts, wired up the TVs, and were getting ready to clean up, my colleague asked about Jesus’ humanity. I had to sit down on a paint bucket to answer - not just because we had hung 14 TVs already that day and I was exhausted, but because most conversations center on Christ’s divinity, not his humanity.
And I haven’t solidified my answer to you any more than the woozy answer I gave my colleague, which is simply - he had to be human. Human just like me, with no divine advantage until he died. They don’t call it a mystery for no reason, but all of the imaginations surrounding the matter must contribute some helpful and some less-than-helpful understanding.
People sometimes call Bill Johnson a heretic for saying that Jesus was the prototype Christian, exemplifying what was possible for humans to do when they live in true communion with the Father. The argument is that believing Jesus was “just an ordinary human” denies his divine nature. But I find it harder to believe that Jesus would make claims like, “ask+seek+knock, and you will do greater things,” if he wasn’t acting as the role model for the kind of humanity God seeks to inhabit the Earth. And I don’t see how his model could be valid if he wasn’t human.
We imagined some of the ramifications of his humanity as we sat on those paint cans, and I invite you to do the same from the comfort of your reading seat. Whatever struggle you’re facing this week, where do you imagine Jesus having that human experience?
For example: farts. Everybody does it! Which means that a human Jesus would have farted too ;) Do you suppose that Jesus ever had a fart-noise competition with the disciples? Or can you imagine an impudent child running up to Jesus and farting on him? Or even better, Jesus grabbing the kid and farting back on him? Maybe that’s why the disciples were leery of letting the children come to him!
As hilarious or discomfiting as you find a farting-Jesus, I would love to know what human-experiences you imagine Jesus having :)
I find that I get REAL nervous when I think God has spoken to or is speaking to me. Do you suppose Jesus was ever nervous about his miracles?
Mary comes up to him urgently as he’s celebrating with his friends at the wedding at Cana, and tells him to fix the wine problem. Do you suppose, as he tells the servants what he saw his Father doing, he wonders, “I hope this works!”? And when it does, do you suppose he turned aside and gave a hefty fist-bump that he had accurately seen and shown his Father to the wedding party?
Or perhaps as the 500th blind man walks up to Jesus, he’s a little bored of the usual way to heal blindness. So he asks God the Father if he can spice up the healing a bit. The Father, of course, obliges, and shows Jesus making mud with his mouth to spread over the blind eyes. Did Jesus have a moment of regret? - “No Dad, it’s the sabbath, the Pharisees are gonna lose their mind over this!” Or perhaps he was more punk-rock - “Yes! The Pharisees are gonna lose their ever-loving minds over this one. Thanks, Dad!”
How we imagine Jesus’ humanity says a lot about what we really believe about our humanity, and his divinity. And the best part? There’s so much room for interpretation!
Because if I imagine nervous-Jesus freaking out, but obeying every time the Father shows him something, that empowers my nerves to obey anyways, nerves or no. And if I imagine punk-rock Jesus sticking it to the man everywhere he goes, but in love, that informs how, when, and why I might stick it to the man - or keep my rebellious tongue in check. And while our sophisticated, civilized society struggles to reconcile our lofty spiritual ideals with the fact that we, spiritual/divine beings or not, have bodies that occasionally have a buildup of gas that leaks (or explodes) out of our buttholes… Jesus, who was by all accounts one of the most sophisticated philosophers of all time, whose words have informed our lofty ideals for millennia, most certainly and definitely farted, or else he wouldn’t have been human.
Tell me what you think,
— Beth
