Grady Nutt, the late great "Prime Minister of Humor," was sometimes accosted by persons who failed to appreciate his humor-spiced messages. "Do you really think you should be doing that?" they would ask. "I mean, do you really think God has a sense of humor?" Grady was always tempted to say, "Have you looked in the mirror lately?!" Instead, Grady would take the higher road by turning the answer on himself: "Well, He made me, didn't He?"

And God made us too! Humor is an inherent part of who we are. Sunday after Sunday, we strive to communicate "Truth through personality in the midst of personalities" (to borrow George Sweazy's extension of the Phillips Brooks quote). Our personalities are humor-saturated; daily we say and do and experience funny things. And yet the light of the Gospel can shine through these cracks in our clay pots. We best use some of this humor to our advantage in the pulpit.

But how are we to use it? Below are some guideposts that can lead us to wisely employ humor in preaching.

Stick to the Point

Senator Sam Ervin told about the elderly lady who went to church and heard a young minister preach. When she got out, someone asked her what she thought of his preaching. She said, "He spoke in true apostolic style. He took a text and went everywhere preaching the gospel!"1

Some humor goes everywhere except the point of the sermon. The best pulpit humor is that which is relevant to the content of the sermon. As Catholic homiletician Walter Burghardt asserts, "Homiletic humor should be part and parcel of the homily, woven into its warp and woof."2 If a preacher is going to relate something amusing, he should not include it as a "side-joke" but as a sermon illustration that happens to be funny. An after dinner speaker can drop in humor that has only a pretended connection with the subject of his talk -- a preacher cannot. Thus, concludes George Sweazy "Humor in sermons has to stay within the main channel of the thought. If it makes no real contribution to clarifying or applying what the sermon is trying to convey, it has to be left out."3

Halford Luccock provides a helpful image in stressing the importance of relevant humor. Luccock likens pulpit humor to sparks struck off a train while moving toward a destination: there is no stopping the train for the purpose of showing off some sparks. The sparks do not impede the movement of the train or substitute a little show of fireworks for motion forward. They are an accompaniment of the motion, a product of the friction of the wheels on the track. Humor in the pulpit which is the incidental and occasional product of the friction between the mind and ideas may be of great and genuine service, a veritable means of grace. But humor which delays the train of thought or forces the train to stop on a siding till the humorous display is over is an obstacle to legitimate business.4

The importance of relevant humor is echoed by specialists in speech communication. If a speaker uses a funny story, he should have one that is so apt, so related to the point of his speech, that it does not matter whether the audience laughs. Indeed, the relevance of the story is even more important than how much humor it generates.5 Bob Russell told me about Richard Allison, a professional actor who performs dramatic interpretations of Biblical stories. Bob invited him to perform at Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, Richard performed the same interpretation during two different morning services. During the first hour, Richard interpreted a statement of Jesus in a funny way that really broke up the congregation. The second worship hour, Richard did the very same line in the very same way -- and no laughter. Later at lunch, Bob asked Richard if that bothered him -- that one congregation laughed heartily and that the other did not.