“Humor, Health, and Hope”

February 5, 2006

Scripture Reading:    Isaiah 40:21-31

Rev. Dr. Carol L. Kerr

In this sermon I am first going to talk about the importance of humor for our health.  Then I am going to talk about thinking big about God.  Then I am going to talk about what humor and thinking big about God have to do with one another.

First, the importance of humor for our health:

Norman Cousins was the editor of the Saturday Review, a world peace activist and lover of Albert Schweitzer.  He came down with a horrible disease called ankylosing spondylitis, a debilitating connective tissue disease, like arthritis but much worse.  Only one out of 500 people who get the disease ever live. 

Against such odds Cousins decided that one of his ways of healing would be through humor.  According to his research laughing caused the release in the blood certain chemicals that were natural pain killers.  Cousins relates, “Ten minutes of genuine belly laughter had an anesthetic effect and would give me at least two hours of pain-free sleep.”  “When the pain killing effect of the laughter wore off, we would switch on the motion picture projector again (of which he would watch Charlie Chaplin or Groucho Marx comedy movies) and not infrequently, it would lead to another pain-free sleep interval…”  His famous story is written in his book called, An Anatomy of an Illness. 

Against all odds, Cousins recovered from his disease.  After his recovery Cousins then went around the world promoting humor and optimism as essential in the road to recovery of many, perhaps all disease.  Once he was in a veteran’s hospital.  Concerned about the glum spirits of the men on the cancer ward at the hospital in Sepulveda, California, physicians asked Cousins to impress the men with how optimism and good cheer could actually help them feel better.

Cousins met with sixty of the veterans and he told them he hoped that they would work together to create an atmosphere conducive to the best medical treatment available.  When he returned to the hospital in a few weeks, he did notice that the men had accepted the challenge.  He could see concrete changed.  In their morning meeting each veteran was asked to tell about something good that had happened to him since the previous meeting.  Each one in turn told about something good, with intermittent cheers bursting forth from the others.  When each had taken a turn they all faced Cousins.  Obviously, they wanted him to tell as story too.  (Head First:  The Biology of Hope)  He told them this:

“What I want to report is better than good, it’s wonderful.  Actually, it’s better than wonderful.  It’s unbelievable.  And as long as I live, I don’t expect that anything as magnificent as this can possibly happen to me again.”

The veterans sat forward in their seats.

“What happened is that when I arrived at the Los Angeles airport last Wednesday my bag was the first off the carousel.”

An eruption of applause and acclaim greeted this announcement.

“I had never even met anyone whose bag was the first off the carousel.”

Again, loud expression of delight.

“Flushed with success, I went to the nearest telephone to report my arrival to my office.  That was when I lost my coin.  I pondered this melancholy event for a moment or two, then decided to report it to the operator.” 

‘Operator,’ I said, ‘I put a quarter in and didn’t get my number.  The machine collected my coin.’

‘Sir,’ she said, ‘if you give me your name and address, we’ll mail the coin to you.’

I was appalled.

‘Operator,’ I said, ‘I think I can understand the reason behind the difficulties of AT&T.  You’re going to take the time and trouble to write down my name on a card and then you are probably going to give it to the person in charge of such matters.  He will go the cash register, punch it open and take out a quarter, at the same time recording the reason for the cash withdrawal.  Then he will take a cardboard with a recessed slot to hold the coin so it won’t flop around in the envelope.  Then he, or someone else, will fit the cardboard with the coin into an envelope, first taking the time to write my address on the envelop.  Then the envelop will be sealed.  Someone will then affix a twenty-cent stamp on the envelop.  All that time and expense just to return a quarter.  Now, operator, why don’t you just return my coin and let’s be friends.’ 

‘Sir,’ she repeated in a flat tone. ‘if you give me your name and address, we will mail you the refund.’

Then almost by the way of afterthought she said, ‘Sir, did you remember to press the coin return plunger?’

Truth to tell, I had overlooked this nicety.  I pressed the plunger.  To my great surprise, it worked.  It was apparent that the machine had been badly constipated and I happened to have the plunger.  All at once, the vitals of the machine opened up and proceeded to spew out coins of almost every denomination.  The profusion was so great that I had to use my empty hand to contain the overflow.

While all this was happening, the noise was registering in the telephone and was not lost on the operator.

‘Sir,’ she said, ‘What is happening?’

I reported that the machine had just given up all its earnings for the past few months, at least.  At a rough estimate, I said there must be close to four dollars in quarters, dimes, and nickels that had just erupted from the box.

‘Sir’ she said, ‘will you please put the coins back in the box.’

‘Operator,’ I said, ‘if you give me your name and address I will be glad to mail you the coins.’

The veterans exploded with cheers.  David triumphs over Goliath.   That story alone probably reduced the veterans physical pain for at least 15 minutes.  It reduces mine while I was reading it.

According to Mind/Body Health we secrete a substance in our saliva called secretory immunoglobulin A (s-IgA).  It’s a sign that the immune system is functiong as it should.  They found that people who had not sense of humor put in stressful situations the amount of s-IgA in the saliva would drop sharply.  But those who rated high on the humor scaled showed little change to stress.  The veterans s-IgA, must of stayed high. 

I just talked about humor and health, now I am going to jump to the next subject and talk about God.  In the scripture passage that I read for today the prophet Isaiah has God chastising people for having too small an idea of who God is.  The people were thinking that God was like one of the idols  that were rampant in the surrounding countries and cultures.  Their minds were stuck on a God the size of a statue.  Albeit, a very nice statue, made out of gold and wood that wouldn’t rot, and carved by skilled craftsmen so the idol would just fall over in the middle of worshiping it. 

But, God says, in Isaiah, to forget about the puny statues.  Don’t you get it?  God asks.  Didn’t I speak loud enough?  Didn’t I say ‘read my lips’ from the very beginning of everything?  I am way more than a statue.  Look up at the stars.  I made those.    I named each and every one of those stars which you can’t even begin to count!  God continues to say, it is not me that is keeping you down and out.  It is your puny point of reference.  You Israelites have to start thinking out of the box.  Or, should I say, you have to start thinking out of the statue.  If I created all the stars in the universe, I certainly will never get tired of listening to you!  Your most complicated, difficult, and desperate problem is nothing more than 1+1=2 for me.  Nothing is too difficult for me.  People, Israelites, you have got to think bigger.  Change your small point of view about me, and when you do you will feel like you are flying. 

What does humor have to do with God?  Humor gets you to expand your mind.  When you think about God we must also expand our minds.  Humor gets us to see things from a different perspective.  When we think about God we have to see things no longer from our small limited perspective but from a vast and infinite one.  Humor gets us to think out of the box.   There is no box that we are stuck in that is big enough to keep God in too.  Humor makes us feel light.  God makes us feel like we are flying on the wings of eagles.

Next week we are having clown ministry here in our sanctuary.  On the one hand, it seems sort of shocking and sacrilegious to have people as silly as clowns in worship.  That is why I am spending two sermons before hand talking about it.  Last week, I talked about Saint Francis of Assisi.  He called himself a clown of God.  He felt he was so in love with God that it was ridiculous.  He would do foolish things for his beloved.  Saint Francis was a stand up comedy routine for those who didn’t understand.  He did things like kissing a leper on the mouth, talking to animlas, and building churches with his bare hands.  He was a joke for those who didn’t understand, but for those also in love with God the ridiculous became the sublime.

This week I am again talking about humor.  Besides a ridiculous love for God, there is another thing that humor and God have in common.  To understand what it is let me tell you another medical story:

At the national American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting two physicians were talking.  One was complaining bitterly.  (Signs are handed out to four people in the congregations with EPOH written on each one.)

“You know Bob, I just don’t understand it.  We used the same drugs, the same dosage, the same schedule and the same entry criteria.  Yet I got 22 percent response rate and you got a 74 percent.  That’s unheard of for metastatic lung cancer.  How do you do it.?”

The other responded, “We’re both using Etopsidel, Platinol, Oncovin, and hydroxyurea.  (have them hold up the signs)  You call yours EPOH.  I tell my patients they are getting hydoxyurea, oncovin, Platinol, Etopsidel.  (have them hold up the signs) HOPE.  Sure, I tell them thi sis experimental, ad we go over the long list of side effects together.  But I emphasize that we have a chance….

Hope.  That is what humor and God have in common.  What is hope?  Hope is not denial.  Denial is when a person refuses to see the difficult reality that is in front of them.  Hope does not refuse to see the difficulties in life.  But, the hopeful person copes with the threatening situation by focusing on the positive and figuring out the potential that the positive holds for the situation.  No matter how grim a situation may appear, hopeful people are able to notice and use what ever there is in that situation that has potential and work on that.  One person defined it when he said, “Hope looks at all things the way a mother looks at her child with a passion for the possible. 

For us Christians, God is as big as the stars in the sky.  God is bigger than any problem we can come up with.  Because of this we are never to loose hope. 

I gave a sermon in October where I coined the term, “hope activist.”  Christians are “hope activists.”  A hope activist is someone who works for and promotes hope in the world.  Often we are faced with a cascade of problems beginning with the difficult and ending with the horrific.  We often feel tto small and insignificant to effect any change at all.  How can we respond?  As Christians we can counter each horrible event with hopeful actions.  We are going to have a blessing of candles later in the service.  These candles can be the first step in hope activism as we carry the light of Christ out into the world.  We light the candle during our prayer times at home, or at meals, or whenever,  to remember what we are about, hope.

Clowns are also hope activists.  Let me tell you another medical clown story that I found on the web site, Gesundheit Institute, the institute that the doctor Patch Adams started.  There is a movie staring Robin Williams about Patch Adams.  He is the doctor that lifted the importance of humor in medicine. 

As she waited for the trolley to take her to the operating theater to have radical surgery that would change her life forever, the woman was thinking her life was over.  There was nothing for her to live for now.  But then she saw a bunch of balloons coming towards her, in fact, they were coming for her.  Attached to the trolley to take her to the operating theater was a big bunch of balloons, a smiling porter and a little bear dressed in operating theater uniform sitting on the trolley.  At that moment, the woman said she realized that there would e a life for her after surgery.  The porter went on to explain that the balloons were to celebrate her trip to the operating theater and her road to recovery. 

Humor is important because it brings hope.  God is bigger than any of our problems.  So, God is hope for Christians. 

The apostle Paul writes:  May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.  (Romans 15:13)

Let me end with some humorous practices we as Christians and as activists in hope can start: 

• Make a pledge to laugh out loud or to make someone else laugh at least ten times every day.

• Once a week, set aside time to call someone who always adds fun to your day.

• Rent a funny movie.

• Start a humor collections (jokes, clippings, cartoons, cards, mugs, books, or DVD’s)

• Recall all the fun you had as a child.