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Now for something completely different...

This CartoonChurch.com cartoon originally appeared in the Church Times and is taken from ‘The Dave Walker Guide to the Church’, published by Canterbury Press.

The Laity & After Service Coffee

This CartoonChurch.com cartoon originally appeared in the Church Times and is taken from ‘My Pew: Things I have seen from it’, published by Canterbury Press. (click on either cartoon to see a clearer version of it).

I love Dave Walker's insights. In this cartoon on the Laity, he identifies clergy as the ones on Saturday night who "have to stay in and work on a fifteen minute speach based loosely on the Bible" and who when dressed in street clothes are indistinguishable from everyone else. Yikes! I don't start on Saturday evening in working on a sermon and I my sermons are more than loosely based on the Bible. But even to write that sounds defensive. Thanks Dave!

Try another one. This one shows the all too often truth about after service coffee. Once again it makes me want to defend King of Peace, but do we really do better? Sometimes we do and sometimes we don't. This cartoon hangs by the coffee pot at King of Peace as a bit of a reminder:


This CartoonChurch.com cartoon originally appeared in the Church Times and is taken from ‘My Pew: Things I have seen from it’, published by Canterbury Press.

You can take it with you

Once there was an old rich man who was afraid of dying and leaving all his wealth behind on earth. So, he took up the matter with God. He pleaded day and night to be able to take all his earthly possessions with him.

Finally, God conceded. He said the man could take as much as he could fit in one suitcase. The old man immediately went out, bought a huge suitcase, sold all he owned and filled the suitcase with gold bars.

Shortly after that, the old man died. Awkwardly dragging the big, heavy suitcase, he approached St. Peter at the Pearly Gates. St. Peter stopped him, asked him to open his luggage, and then told him he couldn't bring his gold bars into Heaven. The man was irate. "You don't understand," he said. "I got permission directly from God himself for this. He told me whatever I could fit into one suitcase, I could bring with me."

St. Peter, shrugged his shoulders and simply said, "Fine with me. But we've already got plenty of pavement here."

Visitors?

Solid Faith

Clapping vs. Non Clapping

The low church way to usher.


The high church way todo the weather report

Note:
Our annual Burning of the Greens is tonight. We'll start the low country boil at 5 p.m. The party begins in earnest at 6 p.m. Bring ingredients for low country boil or a covered dish and something to drink. See y'all there!

Time for Something Amusing

At the risk of another irate phone call, I offer some less lofty fair to keep this site from getting too bogged down in theological minutia and the like.

While we are still in the last of the Twelve Days of Christmas (which end with Epiphany on January 6), here are a few amusing things to do on the web especially if you are fortunate enough to have today off like I do:

Make your own snowflake at this interactive website which lets you cut out paper with scissors and then view the results. Hint: the less paper you leave, the more interesting the design. See examples below.

I am not making this up, you may Pimp My Nutcracker online, creating much more fanciful versions than the one I created at left.

Finally, and closer to home, you may color the nativity scene online in King of Peace's own online coloring book.

peace,
Frank+
The Rev. Frank Logue, Pastor + King of Peace Episcopal church

Just a Minute

In worship today, we read the Second Letter from Peter in which the Apostle wrote,

Do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day.

This verse is why a boy asked God: What is a million years like to you?"

God responded in a manner to which Jimmy could relate. "A million years to me, Jimmy, is like a minute."

"Oh," said Jimmy. "Well, then, what's a million dollars like to you?"

"A million dollars to me, Jimmy, is like a penny."

"Wow!" remarked Jimmy, getting an idea.

"You're so generous... can I have one of your pennies?"

God replied, "Sure thing, Jimmy! Just a minute."

Seating Sections

None of these sections exists in a typical Episcopal Church.

The Bible in One Minute

A young preacher appeared before a committee hiring a new pastor for their church. The chair of the committee asked, "Young man, do you know your Bible?"

"Yes," the young man replied, "I know my Bible."

"What part do you know best?" the chair asked.

The young preacher replied, "Well, I know it all good—the Old Testament and the New Testament."

The chairperson said, "Well, why don't you tell us a story. How about the Good Samaritan?"

The young preacher replied that would be fine with him, so he began:

"There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus who went down to Jericho by night, and fell on stony ground, and the thorns choked him half to death. He said, 'What shall I do? I shall arise and go to my father's house.' And he arose and climbed into a sycamore tree."

"The next day, Solomon and his wife Gomorrah came by, and they carried him down to the ark for Moses to take care of. As he was going through the Eastern gate of the ark, he caught his hair on a limb, and he hung there for 40 days and 40 nights. And afterwards he was hungered and the ravens came and fed him."

"The next day the three wise men came and carried him down to Ninevah, and when he got there, he found Delilah sitting on the wall, and he said, "Chunk her down, boys," and they said, "How many times shall we chunk her down, 'till seven times?' And he said, "Nay, but until 70 times 7." And they chunked her down 490 times, and she burst asunder in their midst, and they picked up 12 baskets of the fragments that remained, and in the resurrection, whose wife will she be?

After he had finished, the chair of the committee turned to the other members and said, "I don't know about you, but I think we ought to call him. I know he is young, but he sure knows his Bible!"

Vigorous Theological Discussion

The risk is that someone will think this is the less than irenic side of King of Peace showing. Thankfully our Mission Vestry meetings are more productive than this.

Practicing vs. Preaching

Hospitality Upgraded

Kelly sent in the cartoon above with a high tech solution for welcoming newcomers in church. The text says, "We've got a newcomer in Sector C. Blue blazer, plaid shirt. Falcon, that's your greeting area. Where are you?"

Did you hear the one about the Vicar...

I was talking with Bill Bruce about lawyer jokes, telling him that they could be converted to Vicar jokes. Vicar is my official job title as the priest of a mission congregation. King of Peace is fully self-supporting and will be made a parish rather than a mission as soon as the church canons (rules) allow with a first reading in 2009 and approval likely in February 2010. But in the meantime, I serve vicariously on behlf of the bishop, who is King of Peace's Rector, or main priest. So Vicar jokes, but you can call them pastor jokes or preacher jokes.

I offered him:
What do you call a thousand Vicars on the bottom of the ocean?
A good start.

There's an interesting new novel about two ex-convicts.
One of them studies for the priesthood, the other decides to go straight.

Bill replied with:
What’s black and brown and looks good on a vicar?
A Doberman pinscher.

What did the vicar say when he stepped into a pile of cow manure?
“Oh my gosh, I’m melting!”

How do you save a drowning vicar?
You take your foot off his head.

How does a pregnant woman know when she’s carrying a future vicar?
She has a craving for bologna.

What’s the first thing you do after running over a vicar?
Back up.

How can you tell if a vicar is lying?
His lips are moving.

How many vicars does it take to stop a moving bus?
Never enough.

When vicars die, why are they buried in a hole 24 feet deep?
Because deep down, they are nice guys.

AND FINALLY – Where can you find a good vicar?
In the cemetery.

I find them funnier than lawyer jokes, because they are less expected. But that's just me. Do you have any Vicar jokes to add?

peace,
Frank+
The Rev. Frank Logue, Vicar of Kingsland

Risus Paschalis

"The very essence of sin is taking ourselves too seriously."
—Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971)
Risus Paschalis means "the Easter Laugh" and refers to God playing a trick on Satan by letting him kill Jesus, thereby letting him think he had won, only to raise Jesus back to life on the third day. Since 1988, The Fellowship of Merry Christians has been working to bring back the laughter following Easter with what it calls Holy Humor Sunday on one of the two Sundays following Easter. There are churches that call it Bright Sunday and encourage wearing Hawaiian shirts and the like.

Our Episcopal neighbors down at St. Peter's, Fernandina are celebrating this today. The idea is new on me, though I like it. I've tried to do some research and I find quoted widely this exact phrase from the Merry Christian website,

The custom was rooted in the musings of early church theologians (like Augustine, Gregory of Nyssa, and John Chrysostom) that God played a practical joke on the devil by raising Jesus from the dead.

I did also find a reference in the Catholic Encyclopedia which notes the much more solid background for the tradition:

This strange custom originated in Bavaria in the fifteenth century. The priest inserted in his sermon funny stories which would cause his hearers to laugh, e.g. a description of how the devil tries to keep the doors of hell locked against the descending Christ. Then the speaker would draw the moral from the story. This Easter laughter, giving rise to grave abuses of the word of God, was prohibited by Clement X (1670-1676) and in the eighteenth century by Maximilian III and the bishops of Bavaria.

I also found this reference in an 1898 book Curiosities of Popular Customs and of Rites, Ceremonies, Observances, and Miscellaneous Antiquities by William Shepard Walsh

It was a time of exuberant joy. Gregory of Nyssa draws a vivid picture of the joyous crowds who by their dress, a feature still preserved and their devout attendance at church, sought to do honor to the festival. All labor ceased all trades were suspended. It was a favorite time for baptism, the law courts were closed, alms were given to the poor slaves were freed. Easter Sunday became known as Dominica gaudii "Sunday of Joy." In the reaction from the austerities of Lent, people gave themselves up to enjoyment popular sports dances and farcical entertainments. In some places the clergy to increase the mirth recited from the pulpit humorous stories and legends for the purpose of exciting the Risus Paschalis or "Easter smile."

It seems unlikely that the tradition can really claim the early Church Fathers as Augustine praised weeping and condemned laughing, as did John Chrysostom, and within the monastic tradition is the idea that "weeping alone unites with God, while laughter leads a person away from God." I find this overly austere as Jesus was known to be the life of the party (Matthew 11:19). Yet, I couldn't find proof of the pratice among the early church fathers or among the Orthodox Churches (as is otherwise widely noted but not attributed). If anyone knows a source for that, I'd appreciate learning about it. The earliest reference I found was in the 15 hymns that Peter Abelard (1079-1142) wrote for Good Friday and Holy Saturday which each ended with the stanza,

Grant us, Lord, so to suffer with you
that we may become shareres in your glory,
to spend these three days in grief
that you may allow us the laugh of Easter grace.

which is quoted in Farce and farcical Elements, from a series on Medieval Theatre. That same book goes on to tell at length appaling stories of medieval preaching in this tradition which is deplored in the writings of Oecolampadius and Erasmus who relate stories of Easter sermons salted with rude gestures and Erasmus writes in 1535 of hearing fables told in Easter sermons "so full of obscenities that a decent man could not tell them at a dinner party without shame." Amazing.

In any case, the worst of this tradition aside, it is easy to see why Christians should be the most joyful people around, especially in this Easter season. Recapturing the Easter Laugh (without the Easter obscenity) is a good idea. So enough scholarship on the tradition...here is something like humor:

Some Not So Holy Humor

• After the birth of their child, an Episcopal priest, wearing his clerical collar, visited his wife in the hospital. He greeted her with a hug and a kiss. She commented on how the baby's nose looked just like his. They talked more and then he gave her another hug and kiss when he left. The wife's hospital roommate said, "Your priest sure is friendlier than mine!"
• During a long sermon, a child was overheard asking his mother, "Mommy, are you sure this is the only way we can get into heaven."
• You may have heard of the man who had been shipwrecked on a remote island in the Pacific, and was alone for 20 years. When a ship finally arrived, his rescuers were impressed with the three buildings he had built and asked him about them. "Well," the man replied, "this is my house, and that building over there is my church. It's a wonderful church and I hate to leave it." "And what's the third building yonder?" a rescuer asked. "Oh, that's the church I used to go to," the man replied.
• Sign seen on a sanitary hot air hand dryers in the rest rooms of a church, "For a sample of this week's sermon, push the button."

"Among all of God's creatures,
human beings are the only animals who both laugh and weep
—for we are the only animals who are struck with the difference
between the way things are and the way things ought to be."
—William Willimon (1946 - )

The Pulpit and Church Politics (humor)

Cartoons courtesy Dave Walker at The Cartoon Church

Today is the last of an annual eight days of prayer for Christian unity, which started with a group of Episcopal monks in 1908. My religion column for the Tribune & Georgia today is What follows prayers for Christian unity?

peace,
Frank+
The Rev. Frank Logue, Pastor

Just for Laughs

A Nutty Story
A pastor was visiting an elderly woman living in a senior home. She was confined to bed, so he sat next to her to listen and offer company. As he sat and listened to her litany of aches, pains and family disappointments, he noticed a bowl of peanuts on her bedside table. He began to help himself to a few as she talked on and on. Before he realized it, he had eaten the entire stash of peanuts. Embarrassed, he said, "I am so sorry, but I ate all of your peanuts. When I come back to visit next time, I'll bring you some more."

She answered, "That's OK. I don't like them peanuts anyway. I just suck the chocolate off of them."



What the clergy do all week

Dave Walker at The Cartoon Church offers this analysis:

Click to see the chart above to see the full-size version.
Finally, in the funny-but-true file is this article from The New York Times In a Land of Homemade Names, Tiffany Doesn’t Cut It which tells of a trend toward baby names that border on child abuse including the newspaper editor named Hatred Zenenga. The article says, "Have-a-Look Dube is a well-known Zimbabwean soccer player. There are Zimbabwean children named Wedding, Funeral, Everloving, Passion and Anywhere, among others."

Just for Laughs

Praise the Lord!
There was a little old lady who was very spiritual who would step out on her porch every day, raise her arms to the sky and yell "Praise the Lord." One day, an atheist bought the house next door to her, and he became very irritated with the spiritual lady. So after a month or so of her yelling, "Praise the Lord" from her porch, he went outside on his porch and yelled back, "There is no Lord." Yet, the little old lady continued.

One cold, wintry day, when the little old lady couldn't get to the store, she went out on her porch, raised her hands up to the sky and said, "Help me Lord, I have no more money, it's cold, and I have no more food."

The next morning, she went outside, and there were three bags of food on the porch, enough to last her a week. "Praise the Lord," she yelled. The Atheist stepped out from the bushes and said, "There is no Lord! Ha- ha- ha! I bought those groceries!" The little old lady raised her arms to the sky and said, "Praise the Lord, you sent me groceries and you made the Devil pay for them!"

Ship of Fools

I hadn't dropped in at the Ship of Fools site lately to visit it's unique blend of the helpful (such as their Mystery Worshipper) to the kitchy (Gadgets for God). I popped in to find the Soccer Jesus (at right) which is one of the latest Gadget additions was created and is offered online by wearefishermen.com. It's meant to be inspirational, but I think the action figure falls flat by combining a crown of thorns wearing Jesus with an impressive overhead scissor kick. The manufacturer also offers Jesus riding a motorcycle, or holding a sign saying "will work 4 food." To me, they end up making Jesus look corny or hokey instead of cool. Rather than inspirational, they are foolish, so a good fit for the Ship of Fools which pokes fun at the pious.

You may want to visit Ship of Fools Biblical Curse Generator and the Hello Pastor answering machine message.

And if Ship of Fools seems silly, try the Reuters story Priest fined for early morning bell-ringing.

peace,
Frank+
The Rev. Frank Logue, Pastor