One of the under sung gifts of shared ministry is laughter.

In ministry, we work with people.  People (and God knows that includes those called ordained ministers) are a wonderful collection of stories and quirks.

Sometimes, when life is good and healthy and precious, we get to laugh.  We laugh at ourselves, at the foibles of others, and at the ridiculously sublime thing it is to seek to live in the way of Jesus.  I sometimes want to call us “Stumblers Anonymous”, except that we aren’t all that anonymous about our stumbling.

Today I met with two of the gifts of our church.  We were talking about this and that and in the midst of it the tickle of funny took us over and we howled with laughter.

Oh, what gift!  Now, each time we see each other, we will remember the words and hearts shared during our time together.

And we will know this too:  we laughed.  We laughed at ourselves and at the goofy good world we share and this laughter will live in the web of our relationship always.

Sometimes we get so darn serious and intent on this thing called Christian Discipleship that we forget that Jesus didn’t bring people to him and his movement through deadly serious harangue. He invited people to join a movement made up of bumbly people blessed by God who believe that together they can be healers.

I figure they laughed a lot together.

That works for me.