22. Imagination, Humor, and Preaching
Imagination, Humor, and Preaching
Paraphrasing William Wordsworth’s famous definition of poetry,[1] James Thurber defined humor as “emotional chaos remembered in tranquility.”[2] The contrast between “chaos” and “tranquility” suggests that humor and paradox go together, and we’ve already learned that paradox usually involves metaphor and imagination. A humorist has been described as “a person who can see more than one thing at a time,” and this also can be said of those who do the laughing. Eva Feder Kittay claims that “metaphor results in the placing of an object in two perspectives simultaneously.”[3] Conclusion: humor depends largely on imagination.
For example, if during a rainstorm you saw a truck splash mud on a poor aged woman waiting for a bus, you’d be sympathetic and would probably hurry over to help her. But if the same thing happened to a pompous aristocrat, cane in hand and nose in the air, waiting for his limousine, you’d probably laugh first and afterward offer to help him. The contrast between his elegant clothing and a mud bath, and his pompous attitude and the humbling accident, would create in your imagination that simultaneous “placing of an object in two perspectives” that Kittay wrote about; and this would make the situation comical.[4]
From clowns and stand-up comedians to the most erudite wits, humorists depend on unexpected contrast to make us laugh.[5] I’ve seen Victor Borge, both on video and in person, pull a seat belt out of his piano bench; and each time I’ve seen it, I’ve laughed. Even now, just thinking about it makes me smile. But humorous contrasts can be verbal as well as visual, and most funny stories depend on listeners (or readers) “viewing” the story in their imagination. When somebody says, “I don’t see what’s so funny about that,” the statement may say more about the listener’s lack of imagination than about the speaker’s lack of ability to tell a funny story. Appreciating humor depends on our ability to “see” contrasts and paradoxes in the imagination.[6]
I especially enjoy traditional rabbinical humor. A rabbi was awakened one night by a sound in the house and asked, “Who’s there?” A voice from the shadows replied, “A burglar.” “What are you looking for?” asked the rabbi, and the voice replied, “Money.” The rabbi said, “Wait, I’ll get up and help you!”
That isn’t the reply we expected, but that’s what makes the story funny. “My wife spent four hours at the beauty parlor today,” says the comedian, “and that was just for the estimate.” We laugh. Why? Because you don’t go to a beauty parlor for an estimate, and the woman who does so must be in need of a major makeover. You take a wrecked car to a garage to get an estimate on the repairs, and an ugly wife and a wrecked car are two different things. But that’s what humor is all about: the ability to see more than one thing at a time. “Humor confronts us with the incongruous in our lives,” writes Philip S. Keane,[7] and the ability to see the incongruous and even laugh at it is a mark of emotional maturity.
But enough of this. “Humor can be dissected, as a frog can,” wrote E.B. White, “but the thing dies in the process and the innards are discouraging to any but the pure scientific mind.”[8] If you have a sense of humor, you know what I’m talking about; and if you don’t have a sense of humor, what I say isn’t likely to change you.[9]
What does all of this have to do with preaching? It appears to me that a good sense of humor is often the mark of a creative person whose imagination is functioning in a healthy way. People with a sense of humor take God’s work seriously, but they don’t take themselves seriously; and they’ve learned to laugh at their achievements as well as their mistakes. The Bible is not a joke book, but there’s humor in the Bible, and the interpreter had better be able to identify it and discover why it’s there.[10]
Often biblical humor takes the form of irony or satire, such as Isaiah’s descriptions of the manufacturing of idols (Isa. 40:18-20; 41:5-7; and especially 44:9-20) or our Lord’s exposé of the Pharisees (Matt. 23). Paul used a similar approach when writing about the “super-apostles” (2 Cor. 11) and the legalists (Phil. 3:1-2), and the Lord God took this approach when speaking to Job (Job 38).[11]
If the Holy Spirit saw fit to write humor into the Scriptures, does this give us the freedom to use it in our preaching? If humor is natural to the preacher, then it should be used in preaching; but one must never “import” jokes just to make the congregation laugh. “Humor involves the perception of the true proportions of life,” said Phillips Brooks. “It is one of the most helpful qualities that the preacher can possess.”[12] The preacher is not a comedian, but if the use of true humor will help him get his message across, then he’s wise to make use of his talent.
“When Spurgeon was cheerful and humorous in the pulpit,” wrote Helmut Thielicke, “he was putting himself into his preaching; he was entering into the sermon with his whole nature. He who wants the interest of his hearers and wants them to be ‘in it’ must first be in it himself. . . . A church is in a bad way when it banishes laughter from the sanctuary and leaves it to the cabaret, the night club, and the toastmasters.”[13]
The whole person must be in the pulpit, sanctified and empowered by the Spirit of God. If the preacher has a sense of humor, then it must be given to God as well. “The humor of one preacher may be as reverent as the solemnity of another,” said William Jewett Tucker.[14] But we must be careful to exercise discernment, especially when “something funny” enters our mind. More than one preacher has been embarrassed by the frigid silence of a congregation that was supposed to be laughing.
If in your devotional reading you’ve used My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers, you may be surprised to learn that Chambers had a marvelous sense of humor and used it in his preaching. One man called Chambers “the most irreverent Reverend” he had ever met. But Oswald Chambers wasn’t a clown. He used humor to prepare the way for the reception of the Word. One listener said to him, “Ah, I see! Your jokes and lightheartedness plough the land, then you put in the seed.”[15] To change the image, the Word of God is the arrowhead; but humor can be the feathers on the shaft that help the arrow reach its target.
Humor, then, can help us better understand the message of the Bible; and the right kind of humor in our preaching can make it easier for our listeners to receive that message. A sense of humor enables us to face life with courage because we see things in perspective, and this can give balance to our messages. Instead of always radiating inflexible, sunny optimism which is far from biblical faith, or exhibiting constant pessimism and gloom, our messages will reflect the healthy balance of the believer who is a realist, who sees God on the throne even when truth seems to be dangling from the gallows.
If you still doubt that serious theology and a sense of humor can be allies in the battle for truth, take time to read C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters. “Humor involves a sense of proportion and a power of seeing yourself from the outside,” Lewis wrote in his preface to that classic book. We need to take those words seriously.
“The task of the artist is to sense more keenly than others the harmony of the world, the beauty and the outrage of what man has done to it, and poignantly, to let people know.”
“Imagination is more important than knowledge.”