Why Serious Preachers Use Humor (Part 1)

Discernment for light moments with a weighty purpose.
An article by John Henry Beukema
This is part one in a four-part series.

I once introduced a sermon story by saying, "I don't like this story." Here is approximately what followed:

Fred Craddock tells of a young pastor visiting an elderly woman in the hospital. The pastor finds the woman to be quite ill, gasping for breath, and obviously nearing the end of her life. In the midst of tubes, bags, and beeping medical machines, the pastor reads Scripture and offers spiritual comfort.

He asks, "Would you like to have prayer before I go?" and the lady whispers a yes.

The pastor says, "What would you like me to pray for today?"

The patient responds, "That I would be healed."

The pastor gulps. He thinks, The poor lady can't accept the inevitable. This is like asking God to vaporize the calories from a dozen Krispy Kremes. She isn't facing reality.The young minister keeps this to himself and begins to intercede, sort of.

"Lord, we pray for your sustaining presence with this sick sister, and if it be your will, we pray she will be restored to health and service. But if it's not your will, we certainly hope she will adjust to her circumstances."

Have you prayed prayers like that? They're safe prayers. They give God a way out, an excuse, just in case the request is not in his will, and he doesn't come through.

Immediately after the pastor puts an amen on this safe prayer, the woman opens her eyes and sits up in bed. Then she throws her feet over the side and stands up.

"I think I'm healed!" she cries.

Before the pastor can react, the woman walks over to the door, pulls it open, and strides down the hospital corridor. The last thing the pastor hears before she disappears are the words "Look at me, look at me. I'm healed."

The pastor pushes his mouth closed, gets up, and slowly walks down the stairs and out to the parking lot. There is no sign of the former patient. He opens his car door and stops. Looking up to the heavens, the pastor says, "Please don't ever do that to me again."

I don't like that story. I don't like itbecause I can identify with him.
This anecdote is not hilarious. However the story is humorously effective. It has the key characteristics of what makes something funny.

Three characteristics of humor

Christian author, speaker, and comedian Ken Davis, president of Dynamic Communications, identifies three elements that make something funny: truth, exaggeration, and surprise.

Truth The story above contains an element of reality that hearers recognize as true. It is an admission of human frailty. People identify with, in this case, praying for things they don't really expect God to supply.

Exaggeration The whole story is exaggerated, from the overabundance of life-support technology, to the ambiguity of the pastor's prayer, to the immediacy of the woman's recovery. In real life the woman would still be downstairs paying her bill.

Surprise This is the strong point of the story. As it unfolds, you can't help but wonder what's going to happen. The pastor's reaction is completely unexpected. The final twist is my explanation of why I don't like the story.

Nothing is funny that doesn't have at least one of these characteristics. How painful it is to be under the impression that we are saying something comical when it is not. If your stories fall flat, begin by evaluating them in light of these three categories.

Of course, these are not the only considerations in using humor well, but before exploring further, it is necessary to ask if humor has any place at all in the pulpit.

Is there a place for humor in preaching?

Haddon Robinson, preaching professor at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, says, "Since preaching deals with life, it has to have some element of humor. We have to look at life as it's lived and see at times how absurd it is."

Consider some of the metaphors and statements of Jesus, and it soon becomes obvious that Jesus was not above introducing a comic element to make a point. Ken Davis gives the example of Jesus' words recorded by Matthew, Mark, and Luke that "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." Davis pokes fun at attempts to explain the "eye of a needle" as a city gate, where a camel would have to take off all encumbrances and kneel down to enter; or the explanation that the word for camel actually meant "big rope." Such interpretations militate against the point Jesus makes. Jesus presented a picture so outrageous it was funny, and yet the subject of salvation could not have been more serious.

Jesus employed exaggeration. Elton Trueblood was inspired to write the book The Humour of Christ, when he read Jesus' words about specks and logs in people's eyes, and the description made his four-year-old laugh. Jesus told stories that provoked surprise. When a Samaritan stopped to help the half-dead man, after two religious types passed the victim by, it was a shocker. A little research into Samaritan-Jewish relations at the time shows how laughably implausible this must have seemed to the hearers. Jesus spoke truth couched in a smile. Jesus' description of those who "strain out a gnat but swallow a camel," ( Matthew 23:24) is as amusing as it is pointed.

John Stott writes, "It seems to be generally agreed that humour was one of the weapons in the armoury of the Master Teacher." (Between Two Worlds, 287) If that is accepted, then the question of whether we should use humor is settled. Perhaps a better question to ask is, What types of humor do not belong in preaching?

Unfit Humor

Charles Haddon Spurgeon was renowned both for the power of his sermons and for his wit. Once Spurgeon answered a knock at the door of his home and was confronted by a man holding a big stick.

The man sprang into the hall and announced that he had come to kill Spurgeon.

"You must mean my brother," the preacher said, trying to calm the fellow. "His name is Spurgeon."

But the man would not be dissuaded. "It is the man that makes the jokes I mean to kill." (Warren Wiersbe, Walking with the Giants, p. 195)

Spurgeon the preacher was no joke teller, but he "had a gift of humor, and at times it came into play as he preached." (Arnold Dalimore, C. H. Spurgeon, p. 76) The criticism Spurgeon received prompted him to defend the use of humor in preaching and to clarify which aspects did not belong in the pulpit.

Levity is unsuitable Spurgeon emphasizes that humor and levity are not synonymous. "Cheerfulness is one thing, and frivolity is another; he is a wise man who by a serious happiness of conversation steers between the dark rocks of moroseness, and the quicksands of levity." (Lectures to My Students, p. 151) "We must conquer our tendency to levity. A great distinction exists between holy cheerfulness, which is a virtue, and general levity, which is a vice. There is a levity which has not enough heart to laugh, but trifles with everything; it is flippant, hollow, unreal. A hearty laugh is no more levity than a hearty cry." (Lectures to My Students, p. 212)

Spurgeon's differentiations are helpful. Levity is lighthearted to the point of being inappropriate. Flippancy communicates casual indifference or disrespect. Frivolous comments are not suitable in sermons and detract from the grand purpose of preaching. Haddon Robinson feels that "humor is more often misused in preaching than it is well-usedbecause the joke is told for its own sake."

John Piper, author and pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, says, "Earnestness is the demeanor that corresponds to the weight of the subject matter of preaching. The opposite of earnest is not joyful, but trivial, flippant, frivolous, chipper. It is possible to be earnest and have elements of humor, though not levity." ("Thoughts on Earnestness in Preaching," an unpublished lecture at The Bethlehem Institute, Minneapolis, 1999)

Of course the line is not always easily drawn, and one person's witty insight might be considered glib or juvenile by another. But levity is the enemy of what Spurgeon and Piper refer to as earnestness. Earnestness gives preaching energy, fervency, sincerity, and excellence. Levity tarnishes these qualities, while humor polishes them.

Excessive humor is counterproductive In an often repeated but unverified story, Spurgeon responds to a woman expressing her displeasure over his frequent use of humor by saying, "If you knew how much I held back, you would give me credit." While self-discipline is necessary in all aspects of the sermon, it is most required with humor. John Piper warns, "There is a place for humor in our lives, but there is something deeply wrong that we feel compelled to use so much of it in teaching and preaching and even worshiping." (from the sermon "Revival and Fasting," preached at Bethlehem Baptist Church on June 6, 1986)

John Ortberg, author and teaching pastor at Menlo Park Presbyterian Church in Menlo Park, California, went through a period when he felt humor had become too important to him. Telling a funny story became a predictable part of every message. He used it to relax when speaking and to determine that people were with him. Even though the humor was appropriate and purposeful, Ortberg sensed he was becoming dependent upon it. To combat that, he disciplined himself to preach several times in a row using little humor.

Haddon Robinson suggests if we realize we are using humor that doesn't serve the truth, we need to forgo it for a time. "If I'm addicted to it, that means I'm going to tell it for its own sake, or my sake, or the audience's sake, but not for the sake of the truth." "Humour is legitimate," says John Stott. "Nevertheless, we have to be sparing in our use of it and judicious in the topics we select for laughter." (Between Two Worlds, p. 288)

Inappropriate humor has no place Certain subjects must never be approached in a joking manner. Stories that make fun of a person's weight, ethnicity, age, political views, or physical limitations are off limits. Sexual innuendos, foolishness, what Ephesians 5:4 calls "coarse jesting," are unacceptable.

Sacred things cannot be mentioned in any humorous context without great care. The rite of baptism and the celebration of the Lord's Table should almost always be avoided as topics of humor. Haddon Robinson notes "the most humorous things happen when we are trying to be the most serious." Before mentioning any of those things from the pulpit, you must be sure you aren't "making light of something God takes seriously."

I heard a preacher tell about visiting a woman in her mobile home in an attempt to share the good news. In a single story, he managed to demean baptism, poverty, evangelism, and obesity.

It is unlikely that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit should ever be invoked in a comedic context. We should not use humor that confirms stereotypes about God, treats him casually, or otherwise portrays him inaccurately.

Some humor that references God can be acceptable. For example, Ken Davis tells about a burglar who breaks into a home only to hear a voice in the darkness saying, "I see you, and Jesus sees you too." After discovering the voice belongs to a parrot, the robber goes to silence the bird, then spots a huge, snarling Doberman next to the cage. At that point the parrot says, "Sic him, Jesus." Davis walks a fine line here, but uses the story effectively by pointing out that this is how many people view God, as ferocious and ready to attack at the first wrong step.

Beware of putting the "ick" in comical. Author and speaker Fred Smith uses as a guideline the old saying "While the audience laughed, the angels cried." Smith says one test of appropriate humor is "Do the angels laugh too?"

Guided by these cautions, the preacher can be confident that humor can have an important place in the sermon. Phillips Brooks in his Lectures on Preaching called humor "one of the most helpful qualities that the preacher can possess"; and John Stott said, "We should press it [humor] gladly into service in the cause of the gospel." (Between Two Worlds, 292) What the preacher must strive for is humor that is appropriate in topic, timing, and purpose.

Part 2 of this series will explore nine benefits of humor in preaching.

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