PreachingToday.com: What is the practical theology behind using humor in preaching?

Haddon Robinson: Humor is part of life. You pity people who don't have a sense of humor, who take all of life too seriously. Preaching deals with life; therefore it has to have some element of humor. Humor has a place in preaching because it touches the human experience.

We also use it because people love it. Folks love to laugh, and they respond to it with great delight. In fact, therein lies its strength, and therein lies its danger. It's easy to use humor for itself. You tell a joke or make some humorous remark, not because it really serves the truth you're preaching, but simply because you know people love it.

Another danger is, if you use humor with great effect, after people are through laughing and you go back to trying to be serious, they'd rather laugh some more. You say, "Now let's turn to the Book of Hebrews," and they're thinking, I'd rather hear a joke. So it can hurt the mood.

The cardinal rule is humor has to serve the truth. When you use humor in the service of the truth, it has great advantages. You can often make a sharp point without it hurting the audience. That is, you can use humor so that the audience laughs about itself and then realizes what it's doing. That's what you're driving at in your sermon. That's where humor has its strength.

How do you draw that line between humor that serves a purpose and humor that distracts or detracts?

You must use discipline, especially when you're preparing. You ought not put humor into a sermon because it's really a funny story, but because that funny story really does get this point across.

Generally, when you are in the church where you preach regularly, you ought not start off sermons with jokes. But in a new place, that's one time where you have to think about using humor, because you're not only introducing your sermon, you're introducing yourself. When you're new, humor helps you build rapport, helps you relate to an audience. We like people who laugh. We like people who don't take themselves too seriously. They take the truth seriously, but not themselves. We tend to respond to those kinds of people.

Sometimes as you're preaching, humorous things come to your mind. Often it's a turn of phrase or an observation in passing. As long as you're concentrating on getting across the message, then that often adds a flavor to what you're saying.

Is it ever possible for a preacher to joke about someone other than himself or joke about a group beyond his own—safely?

The important word is safely. Sometimes you can. For example, if in a sermon you are debating someone who isn't actually present. You represent them as taking a position that folks have used, say, against the Bible or against the Christian faith and observe things about the assumptions made that are humorous. On the other hand, I don't want to be mocking an opponent. You've got to use humor in a way that if that person was sitting in the front row, they wouldn't feel it was a cheap shot.

What are some other mistakes in attempting to use humor?

Telling a joke can be a mistake. There's a world of difference between having a sense of humor and a sense of joke. If you use a joke, it's not good if you have to explain it. If you have to spend time telling people why it fits your point, chances are you're using it for its own sake.

In addition, if you don't have the ability to tell a joke in conversation, you're wise to avoid it in public. There are folks who just flat out can't tell a joke. My daughter is a public speaker, and she has a great sense of humor, but she doesn't use any jokes when she's speaking because she doesn't tell jokes well. She makes observations about herself, about life, and that sense of humor enriches her talk. It takes skill to tell a joke well in a sermon.

Another thing is, you can't depend on it. There's nothing worse than telling a joke or making a humorous remark that falls flat. There have been times when I have told a story that's humorous, and somehow it worked with that audience, and then I told it again with another audience, and I didn't get two teeth. I mean, no response. The danger of that is it throws you. Sometimes that can set you off your whole approach to the sermon. So you can't depend on it. You can't say, "With this joke, even if the Holy Spirit leaves me, they'll laugh." They don't laugh.

Humor is more often misused in preaching than it's well used in preaching. Sometimes when you hear preachers use humor, you find yourself laughing for the speaker's sake, not because it has really caused you to laugh. Other people, like Tony Campolo for example, use humor very well to get across their points. But not everybody is a Tony Campolo. Most of us would be better served if we were more like a Garrison Keillor, who makes observations about things but seldom tells a joke. It's the way he looks at life. It takes some skill, but more of us can do that well than can tell formal jokes.

What should someone do to keep from becoming too dependent on humor?

We are servants of the Word. It's easy for public speakers to turn from that role to being entertainers, and especially if they're good at it. It's dangerous because people love it. But you discover that when people say, "I really enjoyed that sermon," they don't mean, I appreciated that truth; it got through to me; it gave me a new insight. What they mean is, That was funny. It's like an overly emotional sermon illustration that doesn't really illustrate. People remember that. The seduction of it is, I will use it even though it doesn't serve the truth. If that is happening, you need to say, Okay, I'll have to swear off humor for a while because I'm addicted to it. I'm telling this for its own sake, or for my sake, or for the audience's sake, but not for the sake of the truth.

PreachingToday.com: What does it look like when humor fits the truth?

Haddon Robinson: If the story makes people think of the truth that lies behind it, then it serves you well. Sometimes humor can do that. A certain kind of insight into the human condition can be humorous, but at the same time it's an incision made without tearing the audience up. Humor helps the truth to penetrate. I have heard people use an observation about life, and it causes me to laugh, but at the same time it gives me insight as a good illustration would.

You've mentioned laughter turning on a serious point. Do you have an example?

You want to be sure you're not making light of something God takes seriously.

I preached from 2 Kings 18, on Hezekiah destroying the serpent. The serpent that he smashed was the serpent Moses put on the stick, when the people were bitten by the poisonous snakes in the wilderness. I talked about how Israel had packed the snake in Styrofoam and carried it around for 500 or 600 years. They kept that snake through the judges, through Saul's reign, and through David's reign. Finally, when they put up the temple, the curator found that snake and put it up. At first, the people looked at it as an object lesson of what God had done in the past. Then they began to worship it, and Hezekiah had to destroy it.

I was drawing the truth that we've had to fight these good snakes that have turned bad for centuries. Jesus found them in the Pharisees. The early church found it in Sabbath keeping. We find it in music and styles of worship. The good snake has turned bad.

Towards the end of the sermon, I talked about the pastor who told stories to children before the main sermon. With the kids gathered up front, he said, "Now, boys and girls, I want to tell you about a little creature that you have in your backyard. It jumps around. Do you have any idea what I have in mind?" No takers. So he said, "I'm thinking of a little creature that eats nuts, has a big, bushy tail. Now do you have any idea who it is?" None of the kids respond. "Well, I'm thinking of a creature with a big, bushy tail, who climbs trees and jumps from tree to tree. Now do you have any idea?" One kid put up his hand and said, "Well, I know the answer should be Jesus, but it sounds like a squirrel to me."

I went on to say there are a lot of people in our culture who are asking the hard questions. They don't think the church has the answers. When they look at the church they may be saying, I think the answer could be Jesus, but what I see at the church is old, dead snakes.

People laughed, if they hadn't heard the joke. People laughed at it, but I thought the sermon had a kind of seriousness to it that it needed something at the end. Then as they left, before I let them finish their laugh, I tried to drive home the point.

In, when the apostle Paul talks about foolish talk and coarse joking, what do you understand that to include?

Given the context, he's talking about sexual innuendo, laughing at what God takes seriously. It's the most offensive thing I see on television. That can be in a whole lot of realms. It can be in the realm of religion. It can be in the realm of sex. It can be in the realm of prejudice. But in that text I think he's talking about the sexual humor that debases human life and mocks God's good gift of sex.

Is joking about baptism, or about communion, dangerous ground?

Yes. When preachers talk humorously, they often talk about those things because they are so serious, and they go wrong. You find that with funerals. You find it with weddings. You find it with baptisms. We might tell that to one another because life is humorous, and the most humorous things happen when we're trying to be the most serious. But when you take it into the pulpit, you really have to weigh it, because you want to be sure you're not laughing at baptism or at the Lord's Supper or making light of something that God takes seriously.

Do you think that humor in preaching is important enough that someone who's not naturally humorous should work at it?

No, I don't think so. There aren't many people who don't have a sense of joke who ought to try to cultivate it. It's tough enough to do when it's good and it's skillful, but there are other skills you need to cultivate first. You ought to cultivate the ability to tell a story, the ability to look at life and see insights into the way we handle life; this low-risk humor, you ought to cultivate.

Do you have any practical examples of how to cultivate that skill?

Listen to people who do it well. In conversations with people who are humorous, a good communicator is always asking, "What made that work?" Stand-up comedians often have humor that simply looks at life differently. They look at the bottom of the chair instead of the top of the chair. They see things we all have seen, but they see it from another angle, and that's what causes us to smile. A perceptive person can do that. That low-risk humor can be cultivated. When people can use humor well, it adds a spice to the sermon. You can't live on spice, but it does make basic food appetizing.

Haddon Robinson was a preacher and teacher of preachers all over the world. His last teaching position was as the Harold John Ockenga Distinguished Professor of Preaching at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.