jokes and the body of Christ

I got to debating, the other night, whether or not a joke was funny if no one laughed at it. And no, I don't mean if someone snickers at it, or snorts a little. I'm wondering about the nature of humor and how it is or isn't quantifiably measureable. In essence, can some be inherently funny, without anyone to laugh at him or her?

It might seem like the proverbial, "If a tree falls in the woods, and no one hears it..." but I think there's a difference. We're talking about inherent, intrinsic characteristics. If a tree falls in the woods, and no one hears it, it still creates the air compressions which can be interpreted as sound. Inherently, it still makes a noise, even if there is no way to measure that sound.

But a joke carries no inherent humor apart from the response of the hearer. If a joke is said without anyone to hear it, then it isn't funny.

I found this interesting, because I started with the question, "What's more important to humor - the joke teller or the joke hearer?" My initial response was, of course, the joke teller. Without the teller, there's no laughter. But, as I thought about it, I came to realize that without the laughter, there's no humor. The joke is only valuable, in terms of humor, insofar as there is someone to laugh at it.

Now of course, someone can laugh at his or her own joke. So in a sense, there can be singular inherent humor value in a joke for an individual. But assuming the joke teller and the joke 'laugher' are two different people - and joke telling is almost always a communal endeavor - then the joke teller cannot say to the laugh-er, "I don't need you." And neither can the laugh-er say to the joke teller, "I don't need you." It's not that without one or the other element the purpose of the joke would be weakened or lessened; rather, without one or the other element, the whole purpose is entirely defeated.

In the same vein, I think of the Body of Christ and Paul's comments in I Corinthians 12. The nature of the Body of Christ isn't that without the excercise of gifts, the whole community is weakened or lessened. Rather, without all elements working together properly, the entire nature of the Body of Christ is voided.

The Body of Christ isn't based on axioms or loosely held principles. It's based on a singular truth that through the redeeming nature of Christ's atonement, before the throne of God, our identities are reshaped into unity through the Holy Spirit. If we refuse this unity in the Body of Christ by a refusal to participate in the ministry of the Body through the working of Spiritual Gifts, you don't merely compromise the nature of the Body, you null it. In essence, you refuse the unity and work of the Holy Spirit, which I might call blasphemy in line with Mark 3:29.

I think we need, as a church community, to continue thinking on the nature of Spiritual Gifts and unity through the Holy Spirit. The church in America might have lost some of these notions...