Humour is a funny thing

I wrote this for a local Church magazine and ironically posted it to the editor just hours before hearing about the death of Robin Williams... 

Funny is often associated with happy and yet many of the funniest people in the world have been quite sad people. Humour can be a difficult thing to spot when for one reason or another you cannot see the joke. Sometimes a joke may be used as a test of your knowledge of a group or culture; are you one of us? It can also be used as a handy shortcut to knowing how well a child's intelligence is developing. There is a close link between humour and intelligence. .Jokes can cause pain, they can be caused by pain, and at its best humour can be a healer of pain.

Stand up comedians and preachers actually share a lot in common. Both need to hold the attention of a group of people with their words; both rely on the ability to move people emotionally. Good preachers and good comedians rely very much on timing and the rhythm of their speech, the cadences and pace of their delivery, both have punch lines to deliver. The best of both are in the business of sharing grace. Perhaps though, one of the biggest differences is that historically congregations have been more polite about dull sermons than audiences have been about unfunny comedians. I am simultaneously grateful for and sorry about that.

But one of the funniest (funny peculiar) things about humour, is what it tells us about when we are tired. There are different kinds of tired. For example there is the, 'I've had a busy day doing exciting things' kind of tired, and there are those kinds of tired where we think, 'I've had enough today' or 'I can't do this anymore.' Those kinds of tired seriously reduce our capacity to get the joke, to engage in the humour of a situation. It is that kind of tiredness that leaves people grumpy and snappy and lacking in grace. Our capacity for intelligent thought is seriously reduced by fatigue and that in part is why it is tired people rather than sad people who often find it hardest to be funny.

And there is a theology to our humour. We can ask ourselves if our humour is full of grace and whether it is a healing kind rather than a hurting kind. We can also ask if our humour is gracious towards those with that deep sense of fatigue and sadness. Sometimes one of the most grace filled things we can do is to get the joke on someone else's behalf, not to expect them to laugh, but to know when to diffuse the situation with humour; to tell the joke they would have told if they had the emotional energy.

I hope you have all had moments of joyous laughter this summer, but for those who are not able to laugh right now, know that there are people out there looking after your sense of humour until you are ready to reclaim it.