What Would Jesus Laugh At?

              We all have at least one of “those people” on our email lists don’t we? You know the ones.  Those folks we  worked on some project with, who have our email address saved, or who are co-members of some list serve set up for a specific activity that has morphed in to a mini social network.  These folks seem quite pleasant when you interact in that sphere of your life you share with them, even though you know (whether or not THEY know) that you have wildly differing views on issues such as politics, religion or what constitutes a joke worth forwarding to your entire address book.

                What to do when these erstwhile friends repeatedly and unthinkingly (we hope) mass forward “jokes” received from their fellow travellers, and which you find offensive or at least Not Appropriate? 

                I belong to a list serve along with a number of people with divergent points of view on all things other than our common hobby. A couple years ago, we actually had to break our list serve into two different chat groups: one for  hobby  “business”, and one for “chat”.  The people on the chat list are mostly adult women but  we have some men and some kids chatting with us as well.

One of the members of the chat list claims to be a  “Christian conservative.” She evidently finds or is sent “jokes” on a regular basis that she forwards to our list. Her most recent joke relied on negative stereotypes of Muslims and undocumented immigrants for its “punch line.” This is not the first time she has forwarded this type of thing, although several of us have asked her not to post these “jokes.” It seems as if she will not understand how harmful these “jokes” can be, especially to the minds of the kids on line with us. She's not the only person in the world to forward inappropriate stuff across the web universe, nor is she the worst offender; these joke attacks seem to be everywhere these days.

In order to counter this trend, I propose that we start a new movement on the Internet: the What Would Jesus Laugh At (WWJLA) Movement.  The premise is pretty simple.  If God created everything, that includes humor. Jesus taught that all people are created in the image and likeness of God. Jesus told us to love everyone, even our “enemies.”   

                So What Would Jesus Laugh At?

                In Matthew’s Chapter 25, Jesus talks about separating the sheep from the goats at the time of judgment. The sheep in this story are the ones who get to hang out with God forever and the goats get to wail and gnash their teeth someplace else.  I think that Jesus would laugh at the sheep’s jokes and weep at the goats' jokes. What would that look like?

                I think Jesus would laugh about silly things he and others do in the course of the day, but would laugh with his friends, not at them. Jesus would laugh at the innocent antics of kids and animals that are just plain cute.  Jesus would laugh at the foibles of the proud and self-important, at the absurdity of those who think they can outsmart God, and at the very notion that any of God’s children would think themselves better than any other of God’s children on the basis of race or creed or sex.

                But I think that Jesus would weep at meanness.  He would weep at the constant temper tantrum of “mine, not yours” that reverberates through corporate boardrooms, at Tea Party rallies and in the halls where laws are supposed to be made.  Jesus would weep at scapegoating the poor, the disabled, the mentally ill.  Jesus would weep at jokes that rely on violence for their punch line. Jesus would weep when racial, ethnic, religious and gender stereotypes are used to get a laugh. Jesus would weep at jokes that assume that any one group of humans is inherently superior to humans who do not look or think like they do.

                The What Would Jesus Laugh At (WWJLA) movement would call us to critically consider whether or not to mass forward everything that shows up in our inbox.  When we get a joke in our email, WWJLA asks us to consider whether Jesus would think that it is funny. If not, then the least we can do is  ignore it and not send it bouncing back out across the web. Better yet,  we can delete it  after we respond to the sender asking them not to send that type of message to us anymore.  After all, we don’t want to make Jesus cry.

                I realize that my little rant won’t change anything on its own. But maybe at least it can coax a “good” laugh out of those who read it. Maybe this one little thing can be a motivating spark that leads us to think about the divisive way we talk at one another, and about one another, on line and face to face.