A Pratfall Before the Altar

Guess who.

One thing I love about both Buddhism and Judaism is the fine sense of humour both religions show, expecially when discussing what is most sacred. This is as it should be. Besides the immediate appeal of the thing, a sense of humour and of irony are a good antidote to Pharisaism and idolatry. Without it, you have only the Church of the Whited Sepulcre, the church inhabited only by saints of plastic and plaster. It is my experience that bad men never have a good sense of humour, and those who do are never bad men.

There is certainly humour in Catholicism; I only wish it were emphasized more. My OT prof pointed out that, in the Hebrew, the Genesis story of Adam and Eve is full of clever wordplay—of puns. Most of Jesus's parables are quite funny; maybe all, if we had better translations. Take last Sunday's gospel.

Please.

NAB translation:

1Now He was telling them a parable to show that at all times they ought to pray and not to lose heart,

2saying, "In a certain city there was a judge who did not fear God and did not respect man.

3"There was a widow in that city, and she kept coming to him, saying, 'Give me legal protection from my opponent.'

4"For a while he was unwilling; but afterward he said to himself, 'Even though I do not fear God nor respect man,

5yet because this widow bothers me, I will give her legal protection, otherwise by continually coming she will wear me out.'"

6And the Lord said, "Hear what the unrighteous judge said;

7now, will not God bring about justice for His elect who cry to Him day and night, and will He delay long over them?

8"I tell you that He will bring about justice for them quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?"

Now, really, what could be funnier than the image of that old woman nagging the cunning judge into granting her appeal? What could be more comic than the punchline, that the old woman, powerless, wins her point even against the will of the powerful judge? What could be funnier than the judge reaffirming to himself, as if a needed reminder, the point that he did not fear God nor respect men? If he had not done so, was he worried that he was going to forget and do something honourable by mistake? Isn't it then funny that he nevertheless does? Isn't it ridiculous to think of the judge worrying about being “worn out” by an old woman (some translations actually say he is worried about being “struck” by her)? Isn't it infinitely more ridiculous to imagine God being similarly “worn out” by our prayer? Isn't it obviously outrageous to compare God to an unjust judge?

And isn't it, finally, just as funny as hell that nobody seems to realize this is funny?

If the tears of laughter are not yet streaming down your face, gentle reader, as that good Catholic Oscar Wilde once said of the death of Little Nell, then your heart is made of stone.

I think this one needs a little meditation. The obvious inversion of values is telling us to invert our expectations elsewhere, if possible. In this parable, I submit, God is not the unjust judge. God is the old woman. Like the old widow, like Jesus of Nazareth, like the saints of the Beatitudes, God looks insignificant in this present, corrupt, fallen world. We, who pray, are not the old widow; we are the unjust judge. When we pray, no matter what we are saying, God is continually coming to us with his simple petition. Even so, and despite the natural justice of his requests—help the widow, feed the orphan, visit the prisoner--we are set in our ways, obstinate. Nevertheless, so long as we continue this communication, sooner or later, God will nag us into heaven despite ourselves. That is the real reason to persist in prayer. If we pray at first only to try to get things from Him, that's fine—he will turn this to our advantage nevertheless. The only way to get to hell is to turn away from God.