TUC Talks
Every week the Rev Richard Harris and special guests delve deeper into the reading of the week.
TUC Talks
Does God have a sense of humour?
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On this weeks Big Questions series, Rev Richard Harris sits down with guest Nick Morrow to chat through the question - Does God have a sense of humour? .
Bible readings
Isaiah 55:6-9
Exodus 34:1-7
Okay. Hello everyone. It's TUC Talks for the Week. And um I'm getting used to the name. Um it is fantastic to have you listening and joining in with us. This week I have the great pleasure of having Nick Murrow, our youth worker, with us today. G'day, Nick.
SPEAKER_01Hey, how are we doing, Richard?
SPEAKER_00Going well. Nick, you're actually doing it in two weeks' time. You're you're leading the podcast with Lee, I think, in two weeks.
SPEAKER_01That's correct. Yeah, me and Lee are going to be doing it. We'll both be preaching on that day and then talking afterwards.
SPEAKER_00Anyway, for this week, we are looking at what we did on Sunday, the 5th of July. And there were two Bible readings. The first one was from Isaiah, and it has that fantastic line: My ways are higher than your ways. You know, like the yeah. Basically, I'm above you guys, but I'll I'll work with you. And then the Exodus one was the second time that Moses goes up the mountain for the Ten Commandments, where Moses meets God and God announces who God is. Um and the topic was actually one of our big questions, and the big question was: Does God have a sense of humor? Nick, have a sense of humor?
SPEAKER_01I think he does, but I think it's nothing like what you or I could possibly relate to when we talk about finding things funny or um having emotions about a certain thing. I think that God does feel things in God's way. And I think that when we feel things, we're sort of participating in the way that God, God's emotions work. But I think that there is a really important um I don't want to say disconnect, because we're always connected to God, but I think that there is something lost in translation um when it comes to how we might relate to God on the topic of things like humor and emotion.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's it. Look, for me, what that was basically the theme. In the end, I I took the theme of does God have a sense of humor, and I played with it in terms of does God have human emotions? Like, you know, are are God's emotions the same as ours? And there was two things that I wanted to get across. One is that we shouldn't we shouldn't try and recreate God like us. Yeah. Because I th although it's important that that's the only way we can understand God, it's wrong of us to actually take it too far and recreate God just like us. Because it's so easy for us to do, isn't it? We we we turn God into our emotions and our understandings when God is bigger than that. Yep. Yeah. So yeah, that was the way that I really that was the way that I wanted to play with it this week. Particularly because we like if God is if God is the creator of all, what what does that really mean? If if God is higher at the higher than us, God is so much higher than us.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, absolutely. And I think that like when we talk about things like emotion and and you know, things like humor, so much of that is lit by our own experience, right? We've been brought up a certain way, or we um uh we grew up in a certain culture that believes certain things about you know this and that. Um God has no upbringing, God has no culture, God has no like psychology, so to speak, of in the way that humans do. And so even if at a core level there is this emotional truth to God, and there is this emotional truth to human beings, we're interacting it with it through thousands of layers of material stuff that kind of gets in the way. Whereas God just has this infinite access to everything, like there is no um, there is no barrier, there's no slowness, God is imminent, God is here, um, God can connect to everything. And so you can imagine how how how like different it is when you think about how much something like humor relies on things like um surprise and not knowing things and how God knows everything.
SPEAKER_00Um it's pretty hard to surprise God, the omnipotent god, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. And so God watching the three stooges um and somebody you know tripping on a banana and falling down, is that funny to God? I'm not sure. Um, but does God have some sort of humor at the core of God's being that is reflected in us and um that because of our own sort of humanness comes out in finding the three stooges funny? Um I think there's maybe some more truth in that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. It really makes me ask you a question because I think sometimes we make God in our image, we even make God in our own cultural image. Right. You know, so we end up describing God like us in the culture that we understand, and therefore think that for some other culture to understand God, they need to become like our culture.
SPEAKER_01That's a really good point. And and you could like you can imagine how early Christians would have anthropomorphized God. Like we know that they did it, we know that they did exactly the same thing that we do, but totally different culture, right? Like um, they they they were trying to anthropomorphize God in a way that probably seems as alien to us as the idea of a transcendent God.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we we we end up just I suppose drawing God like us because that's our that's the way that we experience the world. Yeah. And therefore, if this is the way we experience the world, the way we need to experience and understand God is in a similar kind of way. Yeah, it gets tricky.
SPEAKER_01Richard, do you have any not necessarily like mental exercises or prayer exercises, but maybe words that you use or ideas that you play with in your head to get yourself thinking about a God that is so much more than culture and a god that is so much more than the world. Is there anything you do to try and stop that um instinct to anthropomorphize?
SPEAKER_00I think the answer is probably both ends. Like, yes, I do when I'm trying to think of an of expansive understandings of God, but I'm quite happy to have God in my understandings and in my culture when I'm working within that understanding and culture. Yep, yeah, you know what I mean? It's like so God helped me understand what I should do at this point in time, yep. Um, or what I should do with my finances, or what I should do with where I live and what I do, in a sense, that's working within the cultural context of the world around me. So I'm happy to work with God in that place, but when it comes to looking at global problems or you know, intercultural things, then I need to actually step out of saying God is just like me. Yep. And I've sometimes what I do is actually ask what would God be saying to this this people or this situation?
SPEAKER_01Yep.
SPEAKER_00So, you know, like trying to actually think myself into the other situation.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00I think that's cuz because you're a psych like you did a psych degree, didn't you?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Like, how much of a psych degree relies on culture as a part of the interpretation of stuff?
SPEAKER_01A lot. I mean, that's really big, right? Is you you you cannot be um uh in a in a uh psychology session with a client who comes from a totally different culture, doesn't even really know what psychology is, and start talking about you know Freud. It's just that's not gonna fly. It just doesn't make any sense. Um you you have to understand where um whoever you're talking to is coming from. And I think that for for Christians, that's so true as well, right? Like we've all had those conversations with people about God who come from totally different contexts. And like if you were talking to someone who's really suffering and really going through a hard time, and all they want is for God to be their friend and to really feel like you know uh a close personal human friend essentially in that moment. It's r it's really inappropriate to say like, oh well, God's a lot more, you know, transcendent than that, and God doesn't really have feelings in that way, right? Um I think that the key thing that we should really think about is that God gave us a human friend um who we really can relate to and who really does have human emotions and who um did come out of a cultural context, and that was Jesus, right? And I almost feel like like for me, instead of trying to like um deculture God, it's actually better for me to try and re-culture Jesus in my head.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and look, that's one of the things that in the end I was really playing with is that if we want to understand God, then the o not the only, but the best place for us to understand God is in Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And Jesus definitely shows emotions and and understanding in a situation.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, Jesus wept, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, Jesus, Jesus wept. Interestingly, Jesus wept before he brought someone back to life. So he stood there, and so that that that Jesus wept line comes from when he goes to see Lazarus who is who has died, and he actually already before he goes to Lazarus's place, he tells the disciples Lazarus is dead, but uh, you know, I'm going to do something. And then he goes there and Mary and Martha meet him. I think it's Mary that meets him, and she's in tears, and he cries with her. And and so in the whole story, we know that he's about to raise Lazarus from the dead. And one would assume from all that he has said up until that point in time, he knows he's gonna raise Lazarus, but still he cries with someone who is grieving. Yeah, so I and I think that actually says a lot about Jesus and God's empathy with us, you know, that God actually, although God is in a sense beyond us, God chooses to join us in empathy.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was thinking a little bit about this after your um your sermon on Sunday night, and thinking about this idea, um, and it was one of the questions I asked you, right? How how much can we affect God? If if God has empathy for us and if God sort of feels with us, but God is also omnipotent and God is also omniscient, all-knowing, um, does God sort of like how does that work? Does um God know that we're going to feel sad or afraid or happy before it happens, but then is with us in that time? And in my head, that seems like a a proper contradiction, but the more that I've thought about it, the more I've realized that like if you know someone really well, you can know how they're going to react in a certain situation before it happens, and you can still be really affected by the emotion that they feel, right? I mean, um, if you have to deliver the news to someone that someone that you both love has passed away, you're you're going to know how upset that's going to make them, and you're going to know how sad they're going to feel. But actually seeing it and actually seeing that grief and actually seeing them upset um is beyond what you knew, right?
SPEAKER_00Yes. It's a bit like any parent with a young child, and as they're going through that growing up, like kids don't hold back their emotions, they are unfiltered, and they go really big emotions. But it does affect you as a parent, it affects you. You you are happy when they're happy, and you are sad when they're sad. Yep, yep. It their emotions affect yours, and I do think that's sort of some of the play with God. Like God's emotions affect us. Sorry, not God's emotions, our emotions affect God. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. One of the things that was interesting, I was talking with someone after one of the services who said in the scriptures it actually describes God as emotion, like God is love. Yes, yep. And therefore, it's not just can God love? No more than that. God is love. Yeah. Yeah. So that sort of raises it far more in a way.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. And I mean, God is such a perfect love, and God is such a pure love in God's self that like all of the love that we will ever participate in is participation in God's self, right? And I think that that's such a such a wonderful thing to hold um in our own relationships, right? Like um, we we will all have people in our lives who um who aren't you know Christian, aren't in the church, and probably don't want to be evangelized to or or anything like that, but we can love them with a perfect Christian love. And um in doing that, we're asking them to participate in God with us, and I think that's amazing.
SPEAKER_00That's a beautiful gift, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, it's been it this whole topic of God and emotions really drew me into the bigger question of how do we understand God? Because we and and like I did the analogy of Diana Lash, my calf at the moment that's in the back paddock. Like we talk about her being happy, we talk about her gambling around with excitement. Yeah, I don't know if that's what a cow is feeling excitement or joy, or but and then we again I took it down again another level to a slug. Does a slug or a snail do they feel joy and excitement? And I suppose I actually think that God is that much higher above us that is God's expressions in the world the same as our expressions, or is that just the best way for us to understand God? Yeah, yeah, it's it yeah, it's a it's a big it's a big leap for us to try and interpret what God does.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and I mean the difference between a human and a cow is the difference between a mammal and another mammal. Um, and the difference between us and God is infinite and and kind of scandalous, right? Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Well, look, it yes, created in the image of God, like I know I've been through this podcast, we've been talking a lot about how we make God in our image, but created in the image of God, I I loved that list of things with DNA. Yeah. To say that 60% of human DNA is found in a banana, really, how much of a banana reflects us as a human being is is that the kind of how much we reflect God? You know, right, right. Yeah. Like I don't know, does a banana reflect us in any way, really? Yeah. That's a good question. So if if if we're made in the image of God, there's just a glimpse of God within us, not a whole kit.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So that was that's an important part of it for me.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And it it it is so interesting that like the the glimpses of what we can see of God in each other are those things like um like love or like um creativity and and you know, things like that, things that God shares with us, um, things that we have in common with God. And I think it's so interesting that um those are all things that we can strive to develop greater within us. It's not like we're sort of created and you know, we're 15% God, and that's sort of how we are. Um there's no percentage, there's no number, but there are um there are these facets of us, um, and it'll be different from person to person, but there are these facets of godliness within everybody, and we can all make a greater effort, and we can all pray more about um finding out what those are, lifting them up higher within ourselves. Um, and I think that's such a such a beautiful way to live, right? Like we are um there there's this um early church theologian called Athanasius, and he wrote the Athanasian Creed, which we still say in the church today, and he had this line which is often mistranslated, and it sounds really bad when it's mistranslated. The mistranslation is like um, God became human so that we might become God, and when you hear that, it you know, it doesn't sound good. It makes it sound like um uh we're trying to become more than God or we're just trying to become powerful or something like that. Yeah, um, but but what he is actually saying in his exposition is that in the person of Jesus Christ, we see perfect godliness reflected in humanity, and we have a model for how we can develop that within ourselves.
SPEAKER_00Yes, yes, to to polish that bits of godliness within us to become more godly, yeah. Because in a sense, the mir when we talk about us reflecting God's image, um if the me if the mirror is grubby, we don't near you don't reflect anywhere near as well as if the mirror mirror is well polished. Yeah, we can refine the godliness within us. Yep, we reflect God more and more. Yeah, yeah, I do like that image. Yeah, yeah. So that is my big question for that was was on this week. I I suppose ultimately the way I came to the answer of God absolutely has a sense of humor is I I picked the person of Jesus and said if Jesus was fully God, then God has emotions and God has feelings because Jesus had emotions and feelings.
SPEAKER_01On on that note, um this might be a funny sort of anecdote to end with. Um I once heard a um a rabbi, uh he was sort of a New York rabbi, and he was talking about the person of Jesus in conversation with um with a Christian priest, and they were just sort of having this dialogue. And the rabbi said this thing that I thought was so fascinating. He was saying, Jesus, Jesus was a Jew, and if you want to understand Jesus, read all of his his um speaking lines in the Bible, all of his dialogue with the voice of a New York Jew, and you will see a very, very funny man. That made so much sense, and and I I encourage everybody to try and do that, um, that talking about culture and all of these things, you you realize that like some cultures have very, very dry humor, and if you can um if you can read that in Jesus, you actually do see a really, really funny guy, and um he's just sort of this funny Jewish guy 2,000 years ago who can be a little bit like grumpy at times, he can be um uh all sorts of things, and we have to understand that our culture and what like the ways that we express emotion in Australia, the way that we express um humor in Australia, the way we express like you know crankiness in Australia, are just totally different to what a um you know Middle Eastern Jew 2,000 years ago would have done. And so I'm not gonna I'm not gonna do a voice or anything, but I'd encourage everybody to to do that for themselves in their in their private time.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, look, that is actually a really good thing for us to consider, isn't it? We we often read Jesus beyond the time and place that he was in. Yep. Yeah. Yeah, that is really that that is a lovely idea. It's it's a fascinating uh for me, it is a fascinating conversation. The study for this Sunday sermon was was challenging but enjoyable in that it opens up a really powerful question of how do we understand God and how do we look at God in our way. Yeah. So any more that you would like to add, Nick? I think that's it from me.
SPEAKER_01I got all of my points across in the kids' talk on Sunday.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. And thank you for using a 15-year-old photo of me. I uh I appreciate it deeply.
SPEAKER_01Yep, yep, yep. Yeah, yeah. That's even a photo of Richard, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um so now over the coming weeks, I've got a couple of Sundays off, but you're preaching the 19th, I believe. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And that's the evening. I'll be preaching on uh free will. That's another curly one. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Oh, well, this week's one is the problem of evil.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, okay, that's the curliest. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00So this week I'm not here as well. We've got Phil Rogers at 8 and 6 and Sue Scott at 10. Lovely. Looking at the problem of evil, and then the week after, yourself and Lee playing with free will. Um, uh yes. I I did not intentionally organise myself to be on holiday with the um big questions, yeah, but enjoying the fact that I am. Um other things to note, we've got coffee and cars coming up on the 25th or 26th of July, whatever that last Sunday of July is, and we're gonna have pizzas and a few cars. Um got the holiday kids club this Wednesday, which is probably about the same day that this podcast will come out. Um, I think those are the key bits that we need to keep in mind. That's it. Um, thank you so much for joining us, Nick. Thank you, Richard. Great conversation. And thanks everyone for listening in. We'll talk to you another one. Bye.
SPEAKER_01Have a great week, guys. Bye.