Reflecting on the influence of his elders in his early years, the late Paul O’Grady once said, ‘Comedy, your funny bone, is formed in childhood’. Was the nod of Jesus formed at home, as he soaked in the gallows humour of his working family struggling to afford food? Was the wink of Jesus formed in the temple, where in his youth he sat among the teachers and learned that God had little time for those who wielded worldly power at the expense of the poor? Is that where he came to see that the way of love involved challenging those powers-that-be, not by force, but with a smile?
A talk for Palm Sunday, 2 April 2023.
Find the text to this and all my talks at bit.ly/johndavies-talks