Humor Us! Preaching and the Power of the Comic Spirit

Reviewed by Christopher Vogado 

Humor Us! Preaching and the Power of the Comic Spirit
Alyce McKenzie and Owen Lynch
Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2023

A homiletics professor and a communications scholar sit down to write a book about preaching. This is either the beginning of a terrible joke to start a sermon on a Sunday morning or a fantastic collaboration between two vocations that both thrive on humor to convey a point quickly, meaningfully, and effectively. Alyce McKenzie and Owen Lynch have written an extremely helpful book called Humor Us! Preaching and the Power of the Comic Spirit about how preachers can use one of God’s greatest gifts to the church, which is often neglected in our proclamation—humor. 

For most preachers, many homiletical giants have warned us in Preaching 101 about the pitfalls of using a joke in a sermon for the sake of simply telling a joke. The writer Frederick Buechner famously said that there are two dangers of using jokes in sermons. First, if it is a good joke, it will likely be the only thing the congregation remembers on Monday morning about the sermon. Second, and more detrimental, when preachers tell jokes, Buechner writes, “it is often an unconscious way of telling both their congregations and themselves that the Gospel is all very well but in the last analysis is not to be taken too seriously.”¹ Yes, for preachers who have wrestled a joke simply for a sermon laugh, the joke can quickly turn, and the preacher becomes the punchline.

While agreeing about the frail limits of a joke, McKenzie and Lynch offer a timely reminder about the stark difference between a joke and humor. They define humor in the early chapters of the book as one of God’s gifts to humans, who have been created in God’s own image. This is entirely freeing for our preaching. Humor is part of our being and personhood, helping us to evaluate the world around us. McKenzie and Lynch outline four stages of cognitive humor development as we grow from infants to adults. Humor is something we can learn to practice and utilize, even if a sense of humor does not come naturally to us as preachers.

Along with that fascinating insight from the book, McKenzie and Lynch help readers assess what they call their “humor orientation,” which not only describes a person’s sense of humor but also, more importantly, the degree to which a person creates humor. The book includes various methods to assess your own humor orientation and the ways in which we use a comedic lens for noticing humor in everyday situations, in Scripture, and in our larger ministries.

As the book progresses through the early chapters, it shifts from a very helpful discussion of how we assess our own humor orientation to a discussion of fourteen practical applications and strategies for using humor in sermons. These include a preacher’s use of humor as an aid to draw attention, keep attention, lower the defenses of a congregation, particularly around difficult topics, and the function of humor to help challenge injustice and hypocrisy by pointing toward the incongruities of life. 

I found this to be an extremely applicable chapter, especially considering the task of preaching during an election season and the challenging discussions many preachers will be considering from the pulpit this coming year. Just as many great comedians use humor to talk about heavy topics, McKenzie and Lynch remind us that humor can help us wade into heavy or divisive conversations with a lighter spirit while still preaching with an impact. The last third of the book addresses some ways preachers can develop our own strong comedic spirit, which comes largely as a reminder to cultivate our own preaching voice and celebrate the authenticity of how we each engage the world with observational humor.

One of this book’s strengths is found in the layout of each chapter. The writers provide multiple occasions in each chapter for reflection in what they call “To Ponder” sections, which summarize concisely the main themes of each chapter. This is an ever-so-helpful tool if you want to use the book with a preaching cohort or a group in your congregation that would like to study preaching on a deeper level. 

If there are any heckles to throw from the peanut gallery, they are few and far between. This book can be dense in places, but if you are voluntarily reading a book on preaching and the power of the comic spirit, you are probably seeking an in-depth study. Upon concluding the book, I also found that, like a strong sermon with a comedic story to illustrate the point, it is the light-hearted and humorous parts of the book, mainly stories, that have stuck with me more than the theoretical portions. Perhaps this fact in itself illustrates the power of the comic spirit. 

On the whole, this book is no joke. It is a welcome addition to the bookshelf of any preacher who is interested in using humor more intentionally and effectively in their preaching and in considering the limitless possibilities humor gives our proclamation of Scripture.

Note

1. Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Seeker’s ABC (San Francisco: Harper One, 1993), 57.