Religion in Daily Life

By the Rev. Edward Chinn, D.Min.

http://www.allsaintstorresdale.org

Bill Mauldin was a “Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist whose characters – two downtrodden GIs, Willie and Joe – spoke to a generation of soldiers who fought in World War II” (The Philadelphia Inquirer, January 23, 2003). Mauldin died in a California nursing home on January 22. His cartoons appeared in the armed forces newspaper Stars & Stripes. Mauldin’s cartoon characters Willie and Joe slogged through mud and snow, slept in foxholes, and dodged the dangers of enemy bullets and incompetent officers. Over the centuries there have been talented persons who have drawn cartoons in words just as effectively as cartoons drawn with lines.

The author of the Book of Jonah drew a cartoon in words about a narrow-minded man who was angry that “the love of God is broader than the measure of man’s mind.” Bible scholar William Neil saw the author of this book “drawing his cartoon of Jonah” (Harper’s Bible Commentary, p. 294). Rather than writing history, the author pictured “a man who is the embodiment of intolerance, bigotry and lack of human sympathy.” Rather than preach in the capital of Assyria (the hated enemy), Jonah takes a boat to Spain. After an adventure with a large fish, Jonah gets a second chance to be a prophet. He succeeds in Assyria and gets mad at God’s kindness to foreigners.

Jesus of Nazareth drew cartoons about some people in his day. Jesus pictured an over-scrupulous religionist of his day who carefully strains a fly out of the cup he was about the drink, then swallows a camel! (Matthew 23:24). This man had no sense of proportion about life. Again, Jesus drew a cartoon about a busybody, a faultfinder who was intent on getting a speck of sawdust out of a fellow-human’s eye, but was oblivious to the plank of wood sticking out from his own eye (Mathew 7:5). We are liable to miss the playfulness and humor of Jesus’ mind because we fail to see him as a cartoonist with words.

Jesus drew cartoons about his work by appealing to the images of fishermen and shepherds. To fishermen, Jesus said, “Come with me. I’ll make a new kind of fisherman out of you. I’ll show you how to catch men and women instead of perch and bass” (Mark 1:17, TM). To Peter, Jesus pictured his work, saying “Shepherd my sheep” (John 21:16, TM). Since a fisherman puts a hook at the end of his line and since a shepherd carries a stick with a curved part called a crook, you can say that Jesus of Nazareth is out to rescue human beings by hook or by crook.