How to write humor. (An actual class for an actual writers conference)

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In an effort to learn something beneficial to share with my class in 10 days at the Southern Christian Writers Conference in Tuscaloosa, I’ve been working and reading and thinking and worrying.

Mostly worrying.

Here is what I have figured out so far.

I do not know how to write humor.

But I’m not telling that to Dr. David and Mrs. Joanne Sloan who invited me. I plan to stand up straight and act like I know what I’m doing, and hopefully fool them.  Hey, it has happened before. I pastored six churches for 42 years. I know a lot about sucking it up and acting like I’m capable.

By now you’re wondering why I was invited to teach this class when so many “real” writers with impressive resumes are available.  You’re not alone.  I’m wondering the same thing.

The short answer is that I come cheap. The longer answer is that I come really, really cheap. Like, I’d do it for nothing, you know?

Erma Bombeck and Art Buchwald couldn’t come, tied up as they are teaching similar classes on a much higher level. In heaven, actually.

I assume.

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Ten reasons to rejoice. But mostly, just one really big reason.

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The coach walks up and down the sideline in front of his players.

“Get your heads up! All of you!  Take those stupid towels off your head!  Let’s show some courage around here!  The game is not over yet.  You’re not defeated until you quit fighting.  Lift up your heads!  Look like champions!”

The disciples had returned from a trial run in which they had practiced preaching the gospel of Jesus.  Since the time would come when Jesus would be absent and they would be doing this “for real,” the Lord wanted them to get a taste of what to expect.

They returned sky high.  “Lord! It was wonderful!  We saw miracles.  Lives changed.  People healed. It was great!”

Jesus agreed.  “You’re right.  In fact, I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.”

“However,” He said, “I do not want you rejoicing because of such.”

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Things scripture does not allow

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“God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds, who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become so much better than the angels, as He has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they” (Hebrews 1:1-4).

Whew.  What a sentence.

The Lord Jesus Christ was God’s last word to Planet Earth.  Everything He had to say.  Man’s last and greatest hope.

Man’s only hope.

Jesus spoke of a landowner who leased out a property to some renters who refused to be accountable.  When his servants arrived to collect his rents, the unscrupulous tenants “beat one, killed one, and stoned another.”  Showing more patience than perhaps he ought, the owner “sent other servants, more than the first.”  These were given the same treatment as the first.  Then our Lord said, “Last of all, he sent his son.”  (Matthew 21:33ff.).

Last of all, God sent His Son.

Jesus Christ was the fulfilment of the promises and types and stories of the Old Testament.  He was the culmination of the Abraham story, the Moses saga, the David chronicle.

It’s all about Jesus.

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Why I would never debate an unbeliever

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The main reason I shy away from debating anyone about the Christian faith is that if I did a poor job–and knowing my limitations, I can almost guarantee that would be the case–I’d hate for spectators to believe Jesus was no more than my poor representation of Him.

The Truth is far greater than my understanding of it or my ability to articulate it.

It’s possible to lose a debate and still be right.

As a young pastor, I was sandbagged into a debate.  A young man in his late teens told me how he had been dallying with the Jehovah Witnesses and that his parents were concerned.  He wondered if he and his father could meet me in my office one evening to talk.  I agreed.

They showed up that night,  accompanied by two Jehovah Witnesses, men loaded for bear.  They were itching for a fight and mistakenly thought I was ready to take them on.

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The high cost of disobedience

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“Then Jesus said to His disciples, ‘If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.  For whoever wants to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for me will find it.  For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul?  Or, what will a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Matthew 16:24-26)

What do you have to give up to serve the Lord?  Well, for starters, you give up your sin and guilt, your anguish and your lostness.  You give up your waywardness and fears, your selfishness and your pride.  You give up being lord of your own life and master of all your own choices.

Paul called this “presenting your bodies as a living sacrifice” (Romans 12:1).

It’s a daily exercise, by the way.  While we wish we could do a one-time-works-forever thing, it’s not to be.  “I die daily,” said the apostle (I Corinthians 15:31).  And so do we, if we get this right.

Before long, as we grow in Christ, we begin to realize that not only did we give up a lot of bad things to come to Him and to serve HIm, now, He is asking us to give up some good things which happen to be outside His will for us.

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What priests do that you and I do also

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(Fourth in a series of article based on the little incident in Mark 2:1-12)

“Then they came to Him bringing a paralytic, carried by four men.  Since they were not able to bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, they removed the roof above where He was. And when they had broken through, they lowered the stretcher on which the paralytic was lying….”

A priest stands between God and the people. He is an intercessor before God on behalf of the people.  He is a witness (whether teaching, preaching, or simply speaking) before the people on behalf of God.

The priest has two strong attachments: to the Lord Himself and to the people in his care.

The four men of this story demonstrate both:  Their confidence in Jesus is what inspired them to go to all this trouble of getting their friend to Him;  Their commitment to the friend drove them to do whatever it took to see that he had the full opportunity to be healed.

With one hand on the Lord and the other on the friend, both hands locked into steel grips, the “priest” refuses to turn loose of either.

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Forgive you your sins as you forgive others theirs

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 indeed (third article on the incident of Mark 2:1-12)

“Son, your sins are forgiven you.”

Look how eager the Lord Jesus was to forgive sins. The man hadn’t even asked for such.  No one had asked for forgiveness, for themselves or for the paralytic.

The Lord Jesus brought the subject up and unilaterally announced the man’s sins were gone. And the man lay there and took it.

It’s amazing, is what it is.

Forgiveness is in God’s DNA.

It’s the nature of God to forgive sins, much to the consternation of the enemy who keeps trying to brand God as a sin-inspector/catcher/treasurer.  Moses had asked the Lord to “show me your glory.”  God said, “I’ll show you my goodness.” (Exodus 33:18-19)  We take this to mean that God’s goodness is one element of His glory, although far less than the full measure.  In truth, Moses could no more stand to be shown the fullness of God’s glory than a housefly could hope to stand a half-mile from the sun and take it all its radiance without being fried to a crisp in the process.

“The Lord came down in a cloud, stood with (Moses) there, and proclaimed His name:  ‘The Lord, the Lord God.  Compassionate and gracious.  Slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness and truth.  Maintaining faithful love to a thousand generations.  Forgiving iniquity, transgressions, and sins…’ ” (Exodus 34:6-7)

I enjoy pointing out that there is nothing else like this self-revelation from God except for all the places where it is quoted, throughout the Old Testament.  The prophetic writers correctly judged this to be one of the most important insights in all history.

We do well to keep in mind that the very nature of God means that He is compassionate and gracious and delights in forgiving iniquity, transgressions, and sins.

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Just doing my job…while I still can.

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“Use it or lose it.”  –If that’s not a Scripture, it should be.  (Which means it’s probably in there, but stated otherwise.  Anyone?)

(Several suggested the text should be the Parable of the Talents from Matthew 25.  It begins: “Again, it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his property to them. To one he gave five talents of money, to another two talents, and another one talent, each according to his ability.”)

When a pastor with whom I’d just connected on Facebook thanked me “for your unique ministry,” I replied:

I’m only doing the same thing you are–using what God has given me to do what He has told me in the place where He has sent me.

That’s what basic Christian ministry is all about, and it’s available to every child of God, whether we serve in the pulpit or from the pew.

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Show us your faith!

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(second article on the incident of Mark 2:1-12)

“When He entered Capernaum again after some days, it was reported that He was at home.  So many people gathered together that there was no more room, not even in the doorway, and He was speaking the word to them.  Then, they came to Him bringing a paralytic, carried by four men.  Since they were not able to bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, they removed the roof above where He was.  And when they had broken through, they lowered the stretcher on which the paralytic was lying.  Seeing their faith, Jesus told the paralytic….” (Mark 2:1ff.)

The Lord can see our faith.

Faith at its simplest and most basic is confidence in Jesus.  “You believe in God,” He said. “Believe also in me” (John 14:1).

Confidence in Jesus Christ affects everything we do. Take the story in Mark 2, for instance….

In a house crowded by listeners, curiosity-seekers, and heresy-hunters, people with actual faith in Jesus stood out prominently.

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