Punching Down

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1. What joy it is to welcome you all on this glorious Sunday morning in Spring.
2. I want to talk about toxic masculinity.
3. Indeed, some of you have shared their distress regarding the Epstein files.
4. 'Toxic masculinity' may appear to be a modern pandemic.
5. The other day I heard a TV critic accuse a standup comedian - I think his name was Jimmy Carr - of ‘punching down’. #Well, sorry to disappoint you but toxic masculinity, along with pedophilia, human trafficking, grooming, sodomy and genocide have loomed large in the scriptures for thousands of years.
6. Just take a peek at Joshua chapter 6: verses 20-21 and you'll see where I'm coming from.
7. Well I don't know this Jimmy Carr character, but there's nothing funny about the ethics of laughter.
8. It would be jolly bad form if I were to make fun of, say, someone with a disability.
9. It would be most unkind to make fun of poor Pete Hegseth, or Robert Jenrick.
10. And I would never laugh at Michael Macintyre just because his material isn't funny.
11. As Jesus said - and here I paraphrase - "kindness is cooler than satire".
12. Apparently, Jimmy Carr has no boundaries and 'punches down' all the time.
13. How appalling it would be, if Jimmy Carr were to visit our church and to start 'punching down' on the lovely ladies who arrange the flowers.
    • They are the kindest people you’ll ever meet.
14. Take Daphnia for example. She is a dear soul but suffers terribly with deafness.
15. She also has an unfortunate digestive problem that can trigger unexpected wind.
16. We keep reminding her to wear her hearing aid but she’s dreadfully forgetful, too.
17. As I adore the silence of a church, maybe deafness is a blessing.
18. The solitude that silence brings can liberate the mind from the torrents of filth and trivia that have replaced art and culture in the UK.
19. Silence lifts us up. Silence is merciful. Silence is golden.
20. Silence carries us aloft through the ether.
21. Calm your soul and you will experience the vastness of the universe and the infinite kindness of the Almighty.
22. Well I’m not sure what Daphnia had eaten that day, but she let one go in the vestry.
23. OMG it was a ‘sharer’!!!
24. Poor thing has diverticulitis and really ought to wear charcoal underwear when she leaves the house.
25. When I say 'sharer' I mean that that it was fully inclusive.
    • We all got some.
26. Indeed, it hung in the air like the Ghost of Christmas past.
27. The aftermath of a full turkey dinner with peas, giblets and sprouts.
28. Mercifully, the mothers and babies group had already departed, otherwise it could have been quite unpleasant for them.
29. Then - blow me down - she dropped an even bigger one at the end of Evensong.
30. Ok my sermon might not have hit the charts but I can’t recall a congregation leaving the church so quickly.
31. So - Jimmy Carr - whoever you are…bring it on, chum!
32. I doubt you’d be in a fit state to ‘punch down’ on anyone after one of Daphnia's bunker-busting bombshells.

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