Funny clergy

By John Dart

One night last month Jay Leno, acting as both performer and writer while the writers guild strike dragged on, recruited a priest, a rabbi and a minister, each to tell a favorite joke on stage. The clerics told their tales smoothly and got laughs.

It made me long for more exposure to clergy who routinely touch funny bones with great one-liners and funny-yet-wise stories. Comedy is a difficult art in any venue, no less in church settings. But it can work in certain situations, such as with a pastor known for wry humor and congregants who expect and react to the humor.

Some evangelical churches have had success with special evening performances by Christian comics, one troupe calling itself “Clean Comedians” to reassure congregations of its family-friendly values. Robert G. Lee, performing at Bel Air Presbyterian Church, imagined meeting Moses in heaven and hearing him grumbling about the flock wandering with him through the desert for 40 years. “Every day people would come up to me and say, ‘Are we there yet?’”

Cal Samra, editor of Joyful Newsletter, promotes laughter in church settings with his idea of Holy Humor Sunday—a week after Easter—as a modern adaptation of festive Easter Mondays. Then there are the Funniest Rabbi contests. When I was covering one in Los Angeles as a news feature, the top prize went to Joseph Hurwitz, a rabbi from Palm Springs who was emceeing the show and had the audience guffawing repeatedly at his stories.

Hurwitz told a priest-minister-rabbi joke: The plane was in a bad storm. The pilot asked passengers if a priest was aboard who could say a prayer. No priest. “Is a minister aboard?” Silence. “Is a rabbi aboard?” No. “Is anyone with a religious affiliation on board?” A synagogue president spoke up. “Please do something religious,” the pilot implored. The president took up a collection.

Comedy allows some emotional release when the story brushes with sensitivities—sharing unstated observations we all make about church foibles or faith questions, such as wondering what drives some eager money collectors in congregations or trying to deal psychologically with biblical literalism (Are we there yet?)

Should there be more chances for talented pastors to share their funny stories and witticisms in print or before audiences? Maybe in on-stage performances that would benefit a building fund or a charity? Where else can one go for religious humor these days?

Comments

[rick brand]

One of the places I tend to use jokes is as introduction to the call for the offering. This year one of the elders in the annual evaluation of my ministry suggested that I needed better jokes.
So I look forward to knowing where the good jokes are.

[Andy]

Humor is best when it illustrates life. The best laughs aren't jokes, but are observations of our plight, our sinfulness, of the way we are. This kind of humor works easily in sermons.

[Jason Byassee]

I agree with Andy--the gospel is really the best joke ever, as Fred Buechner taught. What interests me is the way good humor is often very close to inappropriate (midwestern friends tell me this is a characteristic peculiar to southerners, but I'm not so sure). I remember Will Willimon in a sermon at Duke Chapel talking about Y2K as a secular, dessicated form of apocalypticism. Then, off-hand, he says "I wish Bill Gates would take Y2K and shove it up his modem." Absolutely freaking hysterical. And completely inappropriate (not only because the Gates Foundation gives piles of $ to Duke!).

[Matt]

I think it is difficult to envision "talented pastors" telling their jokes to audiences because in my experience the best humor in sermons is very specific to that congregation. It's "inside jokes," not "a priest, a minister and a rabbi walk into a bar" jokes that have the best impact. And those do not translate well to other contexts.

[Andy]

I'm often surprised at what people laugh at in sermons. Yesterday, I preached that we allow ourselves to be "blown by the winds of the world instead of the Spirit of God when we work hard to get the right grades to go to the right school to get the right job to live in the right neighborhood to send our kids to the right school so they can get the right grades . . ." and people just broke up laughing! So, yea, humor is congregation specific!

[Matthew Phillips]

The basic problem, though, is that humor is not one of the things we reward in pastors and preachers. Real humor is complex and requires a creative person to use productively to further the message (rather than as an attention getter before the "real meat" of the sermon). Doing good humor is not unlike the act of doing good theological inquiry in that it only works when the artist has broad education and cultural exposure in order to draw on enough resources to make a good (and funny) point. That kind of broad education and experience doesn't get rewarded appropriately, and so many pastors lack the perspective to be funny. So humor just ends up being a little sad. Asking "where are the good jokes?" is like asking "where are the good sermons?" They are inside the people who understand the struggles and successes of life in this world. There is no shortcut.

[austinokie]

I teach homilketics and urge students to be very cautious in telling jokes...they HAVE to be truly funny to tell...but I do encourage using humor....because humor is a point of view...its a way to preach prophetically at times...its a way to interpret Scripture often...its invaluable...

[LJ Aladeen]

Even though I am miles away from him politically,throughout the Presidential campaign, I've consistently thought that Mike Huckabee would be a pretty good pastor. He's witty, personable, obviously has good people skills, and seems genuinely grounded in his faith. If I were still a Southern Baptist (instead of having "wised up" many years ago and moved into the Presby tradition) I'd proabably join "Bro. Mike's" church. In fact, come to think of it, we'd mostly likely all be better off if he'd stayed in the pulpit!