Someone asked what my next book might be and I flippantly answered, “Jesus the Standup Comic. It’s the words of Jesus redone for a modern comedy club setting.”
Everyone laughed and the conversation moved on. But I still wonder if such a book makes sense.
We often tend to see humor as mere entertainment or even a distraction, a break in the midst of the “real” world. We treat humor as having no real depth.
That’s too narrow a view of humor.
As a child I was nurtured on humor. My father was a master at puns, and my 96-year old mom still has a beautiful laugh. Jokes were part of our dinner conversation, and laughing at each other (and most importantly ourselves) was part of our family culture. And don’t even get me started on the crazy junkyard pranks.
So humor is part of who I am. Granted, my humor can be a series of bad Dad Jokes. Or sometimes my teasing becomes too harsh, which I often feel bad about later. But in general my humor tends toward simple fun. I love to laugh, and it is fun to make others laugh. It brings much needed joy to the world.
As a leader I find humor to be invaluable. In my book Salvaged I wrote, “I hope you find yourself laughing at times. I think best about myself, and others, when I’m laughing. There is a clarity that comes in those moments when we relax, let our guard down, and simply laugh out loud at the silliness of it all — and God laughs with us in those moments. (And quite likely at us, as a father laughs at his child doing funny things.)”
Few people analyze our culture with more wisdom and insight than Andy Crouch. He has said, “If you want one last picture of authority and vulnerability together, laughter will do the trick. To laugh, to really laugh out loud, is to be vulnerable, taken beyond ourselves, overcome by surprise and gratitude.”
My cowriter, David Jacobsen, quoted a few lines from a eulogy (of all things) that equates humor with wisdom. Jonah Goldberg said of his father, “But I think it would be a mistake to think my Dad’s wisdom and his humor were different facets of his personality. For him, “humor” and “wisdom” were different words for the same thing. After all, a sense of humor is merely the ability to see connections between things we haven’t noticed before (while laughter is what we do when we realize that those connections should have been obvious all along). Is wisdom really such a different thing?”
Humor and wisdom are indeed much alike. It’s why my Junkyard Wisdom page on Facebook uses funny memes so often to get a point across.
Humor reduces the social distance between us. It makes us personable, enjoyable, and approachable. Humor leads to laughter of course, and many studies have shown laughter is good for us physically and emotionally.
So if I sometimes devolve into silliness, or share bad #DadJokes, or inject humor into what is otherwise a serious situation, please understand that it is not always a flippant act. It is often meant to get us thinking beyond ourselves, to connect with each other in a deeper way, and to sense the wonder of God’s joy.
Of course sometimes I’m just being inappropriately flippant. I’m good with that.
I’m not sure Jesus the Standup Comic will ever be written, but if it is then I hope it makes you laugh as you find joy in this crazy world. Which, when you think about it, is a great way to journey together through life.