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Why Serious Preachers Use Humor (Part 2)

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

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) Let's look at nine benefits that lead serious preachers like these to use humor.

Humor overcomes defenses

John Ortberg says he uses humor for the same reason a surgeon uses anesthesia: not to put people to sleep, but to prepare and enable them to receive painful truth they need. Hearers try to defend themselves against hard truth, and humor can smuggle that truth past their resistance and automatic defenses. "No other means can so quickly break the ice, relax inhibitions, and create an attitude of expectancy." (James Cox, Preaching, 186)

Ortberg says a fast turn from humor to seriousness "catches people off guard, and all of a sudden you're in much deeper than what they were expecting." He gives this example:

Many years ago, early on in our marriage, my wife and I sold our Volkswagen Beetle to buy our first really nice piece of furniture. It was a sofa. It was a pink sofa, but for that kind of money, it was called a mauve sofa. The man at the sofa store told us all about how to take care of it, and we took it home.

We had very small children in those days, and does anybody want to guess what was the Number One Rule in our house from that day on? "Don't sit on the mauve sofa! Don't play near the mauve sofa! Don't eat around the mauve sofa! Don't touch the mauve sofa! Don't breathe on the mauve sofa! Don't think about the mauve sofa! On every other chair in the house, you may freely sit, but on this sofa—the mauve sofa—you may not sit, for on the day you sit thereon, you will surely die!"

And then one day came the "Fall." There appeared on the mauve sofa a stain...a red stain...a red jelly stain. My wife called the man at the sofa factory, and he told her how bad that was. So she assembled our three children to look at the stain on the sofa. Laura, who then was about 4, and Mallory, who was about 2½, and Johnny, who was maybe 6 months. She said, "Children, do you see that? That's a stain. That's a red stain. That's a red jelly stain. And the man at the sofa store says it's not coming out, not for all eternity. Do you know how long eternity is, children? Eternity is how long we're all going to sit here until one of you tells me which one of you put the red jelly stain on the mauve sofa."

For a long time they all just sat there until finally Mallory cracked. I knew she would. She said, "Laura did it." Laura said, "No I didn't." Then it was dead silence for the longest time. And I knew that none of them would confess putting the stain on the sofa, because they had never seen their mom that mad in their lives. I knew none of them was going to confess putting the stain on the sofa, because they knew if they did, they would spend all of eternity in the "Time Out Chair." I knew that none of them would confess putting the stain on the sofa, because in fact, I was the one who put the stain on the sofa, and I wasn't sayin' nuthin'! Not a word!
Ortberg turns from that to say, "Here's the truth about us. We've all stained the sofa." The humor opened people's hearts, enabling Ortberg to talk about the serious subjects of sin, guilt, and a holy God.

Fred Smith calls this aspect of humor "lubricating the needle."

Humor relieves tension

John Ortberg talks about the art of tension management. Communicators gifted at motivation or conviction are able to discern how much tension the audience can tolerate. Too much tension, and hearers start to pull away emotionally. So humor can be a pressure release that keeps people engaged. But we must fight the urge to use humor to relieve the tension prematurely. Ortberg says, "We often underestimate how much tension people are able to tolerate, and we underestimate the use of tension in producing change."

Humor heightens interest

Gaining the attention of a congregation and then holding their interest is probably the most common reason speakers use humor. John Ortberg feels that the engagement of the audience can be discerned by the sounds in the room—foot shuffling, coughing, and rustling. When the noise level gets too high, spontaneous humor can often regain the attention of those whose minds have wandered. Ortberg also intentionally injects humor when a section of a sermon has a high information quotient.

Humor shows our humanity

Ken Davis likes the definition of humor as "a gentle way to acknowledge human frailty." Preachers must communicate as real people and not "wholly other" creatures. Humor conveys that perhaps better than anything else. Phillips Brooks declared, "There is no extravagance which deforms the pulpit which would not be modified and repressed, often entirely obliterated, if the minister had a true sense of humor." (Lectures on Preaching, p. 57)

If preaching is "a man uttering truth through his own personality," as Brooks described it, then for many the absence of humor would be a denial of who they are. It would be as unnatural to remove all humor from their speech as it would be to eliminate voice inflection. Says author Warren Wiersbe, "The whole man must be in the pulpit, and if this includes a sense of humor, then so be it." (Walking with the Giants, p. 197, emphasis original)

Humor expresses the joy of the Lord

John Ortberg sees joy as a large component of Scripture, the church, and the experience of being present for the preaching of God's Word. One way we express that joy is in laughter. The willingness of a preacher and congregation to laugh together is a healthy sign of spiritual vitality. Thomas Long implies that laughter indicates good theology. "Because God in Christ has broken the power of sin and death, Christian congregations and their preachers are free to laugh at themselves." (The Witness of Preaching, p. 16)

Humor establishes a connection between the speaker and the audience

A friend of John Ortberg's visits different churches in his capacity as a church consultant. After listening to many different sermons, the consultant observed that a sense of connection between a preacher and the congregation most often came at the first moment of laughter in a message. Ortberg himself feels humor is a part of who he is, so using it makes him comfortable and helps establish a relationship with listeners.

Humor encourages a sense of community

John Ortberg believes that outward expressions of joy and humor have "the capacity to create a sense of community." Beyond the relationship that humor establishes between speaker and listener, it also sparks something among the people themselves. There is a shared experience that engenders warm feelings. Humor is one way to help break people out of the isolation that comes from sitting in a congregation of strangers, enabling them to feel part of something bigger than themselves.

Humor draws attention to the truth

Spurgeon advised his preaching students to "be so thoroughly solemn that all your faculties are aroused and consecrated, and then a dash of humour will only add intenser gravity to the discourse, even as a flash of lightning makes midnight darkness all the more impressive." (Lectures to My Students, p. 189) It is in the flash of humor that truth can sometimes be most clearly seen.

That was my purpose in using this Paul Harvey story.

The Butterball company set up a Thanksgiving hotline to answer questions about cooking turkeys. One woman asked if she could use a turkey that had been in the bottom of her freezer for23 years. You heard me, 23 years. The Butterball expert—how's that for a job title—told her it would probably be safe if the freezer had been below zero the entire time. The expert then warned her that even if the turkey was safe to eat, the flavor would likely have deteriorated and wouldn't be worth eating. The woman said, "That's what I thought. We'll give the turkey to our church."

After the laughter subsided, I said, "Sin first shows itself in what you give God."

Ken Davis says, "Laughter helps people see the darkness of their hearts."

Humor is one language of our culture

Our society craves humor. People love to laugh, and they spend incalculable amounts of money seeking to be entertained. As missionaries to this culture, humor aids in presenting the message in a way people understand. A church or sermon devoid of laughter may not be seen as real.

John Ortberg feels that laughter communicates to those outside the church that this is a place where "they speak my language," a place that has a connection point with today's world.

Part 3 of this series will explore six characteristics of effective humor.

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