TRICKSTERS, TRANSFORMERS, SHAPE-SHIFTERS AND BIBLE STORIES

Tricksters, transformers, shape shifters and BIBLE stories? Or my! What are we getting into here?

I have thought about some of these things as I have wondered about Bible stories and also been learning more native stories. There may be more similarities than you would think. Indeed, if we accept that there was one Creator God who made this earth and everything in it, we are starting off with something of a common denominator for all peoples. Is it not quite possible that he also appeared to and communicated with peoples other than those whose visitations are recorded in the Old and New Testament? I think we would have to be rather presumptuous to say no way.

Now I am talking here about first Nations mythology and the Bible. But there is one other component that also crossed my mind in thinking about these things. I have never read The Book of Mormon and do not claim to know much about that religion. However, it seems to me I have read that they do refer to First Nations peoples, possibly not only in North America but around the world, as having a special role in receiving supernatural visitations. Again, although we as Christians might be dismissive of many elements of the Mormon tradition, there are good parts to it too. Again, if you believe there is only one God, and therefore only one ultimate truth, parts of it may have filtered down in many ways to many peoples.

The Old Testament stories I am thinking about are particularly the ones involving Abraham and also his grandson Jacob. In a couple of the stories where Abraham is the human, we read of visitors that come to him to talk with him about future things and, and promise things such as the birth of a son. On another occasion they came to talk to him about the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.  These visitors are not specifically referred to as angels. In fact, they are more described as actually being God visiting Abraham. Indeed, who these visitors were has been the subject of speculation down through the ages. Some have thought that these were even visitations by Jesus prior to his becoming a human being. Some of the stories where Moses encounters the supernatural could also be considered here.

There is another key element in all of this that we need to address to give more weight to it all. That is the element of humour. All cultures include in their stories fantastical sides that really have humorous elements to them. Indeed, in many religious traditions, these are also still present. When it comes to Christianity, they are probably more evident in the Roman Catholic tradition than the Protestant. Just think about some of the goings on in relation to the many festivals that some of us are familiar with in the former tradition and  the stories and figures that go with them, e.g. Mardi Gras.

Somehow, in Protestantism and Anabaptism we seem to have lost that.  I think we can gain some understanding of how this came to be if we know what our spiritual forefathers were protesting against. The stories about figures in the Roman Catholic church tradition had become much too creative and magical.  There was more emphasis put on passing these traditions and associated rites on than seeing that Christianity was about a way of living, or discipleship, as our ancestors saw it. Anything to do with faith and living in the Christian path of discipleship became serious business. I am not sure we have a similar expression for this in the Mennonite tradition but you may have heard about “dour Scottish Presbyterians.”  Indeed, a colleague of mine remembers the gates of the local playground being locked on Sundays in his childhood Scotland. Talk about taking the Sabbath Day seriously.

For some reason, talking about God, Jesus and Christianity included no space for humour and laughter. But how could that happen? If we believe that God created everything, and as we often perhaps too glibly say, we are made in his image, where does our sense of humour come from? I don’t think we would be ready to say that it all comes from the devil. Even then, some could say Satan must have been created by God, but that’s another discussion.

I believe that our sense of humour does come from our Creator. It is just that in our seriousness about our faith we have tended to have a blind spot about where humour might fit in. Indigenous traditions are not troubled by that. I am most familiar with our First Nations traditions, even though my knowledge of them is quite limited. However, their legends, as alluded to above, are full of stories about all levels of beings playing tricks and exhibiting various aspects of humour. Clever creatures like the raven and sneaky animals like the coyotes are part of this.  Even the Walt Disney cartoons carried this on with their stories of humour enshrined in animals such as Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner, to name just a couple.

So, if we did get through some of our heavy layers of seriousness to look at new at biblical stories in a fresh open way, will we see the humour?  I am sure there are some who might read this who will say this is bordering on the sacrilegious. Really? Your faith is that easy to knock over? You still don’t believe God created the sense of humour?

Were God or Jesus or the angels not “shape-shifting,” i.e. appearing in other forms, when they came to visit Abraham and Jacob? We just have not described it in those terms. What about the transformation of Lot’s wife into the proverbial pillar of salt?  What about the transformation of a bush in the desert into a fire in front of Moses? And what about Abraham and Sarah and even Zechariah and Elizabeth in the New Testament being promised children in their old age? There is no humour or trickery in that? Sarah laughed because she thought it was an impossible joke.

We could even look at some of the New Testament stories in this light. What about Jesus turning water into wine? Wasn't that a fine trick to play late in the wedding feast? What about Jesus scaring his disciples by walking across the water in the middle of the night? You can’t see any humour in that?  You mean you have never tried to scare someone in the dark?

I would postulate that similar events and the resulting stories occurred among many peoples. However, for reasons only God knows, it appears that he chose the Judeo-Christian tradition, especially in the incarnation of Jesus, to reveal himself most completely and fully. The history and context of that tradition, as we already mentioned with respect to the Reformation above, shaped and transformed many of those stories so that we no longer see them in the same humorous light in which other traditions still pass on their stories.

Of course, there is a lot more to it than that, but perhaps we have just become too heavy about it all. Maybe there are some ways we could just lighten up, even a little, and find more fun and enjoyment in our faith stories.  Which stories can you think of?