Can comedy be holy?

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens… a time to weep and a time to laugh. Ecclesiastes 3:1,4

“Jesus is the funniest guy I know.”

That was the title of a column in a recent issue of the Times newspaper. It was about Tom Elliott, described as “a Christian comedian and magician”. Elliott exercises an evangelistic ministry through his gift for comedy, and good for him, say I. I think I would like him if I knew him.

The article interested me because it touched on a question that I have long puzzled over, albeit only rather vaguely: given that humour is such an important aspect of a healthy life, why does the Bible have so little to say about it?

I have on my shelves a wonderful reference book. It’s a Dictionary of Bible Themes, in effect a thesaurus (a word-book) of the Bible. You can look up any topic you like and it will lead you to every relevant reference, in some cases literally hundreds of them – under “r”, for example, “rebirth”, “rejoicing”, “rashness”, “Ruth” and “revenge”. Marvellous.

But look up “humour”… and there’s next to nothing there. The verses from Ecclesiastes I quoted at the start recognise that laughter is indeed a big part of life. But the one or two other references offered are a serious let-down. We are told, for example, that Abraham and Sarah laughed (Genesis 17 and 18), but I’m afraid that their laughter was really the sarcastic inner laugh of incredulity – “you cannot be serious!”, “pigs might fly!” – so I don’t think that really counts.

Tom Elliott quotes some of the “funny” sayings of Jesus: “The camel and the eye of the needle… that won’t work in a comedy club today, but back then it went down a storm”. Did it, indeed? Er, forgive me, Tom, but how do you know that? The Gospels tell us Jesus said it; but (sorry) they don’t tell us what the response was, beyond “amazement”. (And anyway Jesus was probably quoting a well-known Jewish proverb; a similar one, apparently, talks about an elephant going through the eye of a needle.)

Don’t get me wrong. I have no doubt at all that Jesus was thoroughly good-natured and enjoyed a joke. In many situations I picture him smiling broadly and with sparkling eyes. But if Tom Elliott really does regard him as “the funniest guy I know”, well, to be honest, I feel rather sorry for him.

The fact is that the portrayal of Jesus in the Gospels is in line with the Bible as a whole: humour is extremely hard to find.

Which takes us back to the question: Why?

I have no answer to that, beyond the obvious fact that the Bible is basically concerned with deeply serious matters – sin and salvation, heaven and hell, life and death. It’s true too that what the Jewish people of Jesus’ day would have found funny probably wouldn’t strike us as such, nor vice versa. (Different nations and cultures, so I’m told, have very different ideas of humour – as we all know, “a German joke is no laughing matter”.)

Perhaps the Bible feels no need to talk explicitly about humour because, having recognised how important it is, it then simply expects us to pick up from passages such as Ephesians 4:29-32 that all our humour should be clean and wholesome (as I’m sure Tom Elliott’s is).

The sad truth is that, at least in our western world, humour seems to be appreciated only if it is either crude or cruel.

Crude: there is a writer in the same newspaper we started with who seems pretty much incapable of writing a column without resorting to either sexual or lavatorial references: the old-fashioned word “smutty” would fit, I think. I don’t think you need to be some kind of stone-faced killjoy to find those columns distasteful. And in terms of general language – funny or not – well, everyone from footballers to politicians to media celebrities seem to take delight in completely uninhibited language. Coarseness rules, ok.

And cruel: much of our humour takes the form of laughing not with people but at them. Certainly, those who make the decision to go into public life, especially political life, must expect to be held up to ridicule by those who find them unconvincing (I personally have a weakness for political cartoons). But “satire” is often nothing more than plain mockery, and however thick-skinned those on the receiving end claim to be, it’s bound to hurt.

Ultimately, it’s very hard to imagine Jesus ever being either crude or cruel, and that perhaps is all that needs to be said.

So where does this leave us? My suggestion would be just this: let’s thank God for Tom Elliott and other Christian humourists. Let’s pray that their particular brand of evangelism will be blessed by God and used by him.

Healthy, wholesome humour is a massive gift; may it, like all other gifts, bring glory to God. Amen!

Heavenly Father, thank you for the gift of humour, laughter and fun. Thank you for the way it lightens our lives and strengthens our relationships. Help us to enjoy it in a wholesome way to bring glory to your name. Amen.