“Rolf Jacobson is Professor of Old Testament and Alvin N. Rogness Chair in Scripture, Theology, and Ministry at Luther Seminary. With Craig Koester, he developed the Narrative Lectionary. His books include Psalms (New International Commentary on the Old Testament; co-authored withe Beth Tanner and Nancy Declaisse-Walford; Eerdmans, 2014); Invitation to the Psalms: A Reader’s Guide for Discovery and Engagement (co-authored with Karl Jacobson; Baker Academic, 2013); and Crazy Talk: A Not-So-Stuffy Dictionary of Theological Terms (Augsburg Fortress 2008). His articles have appeared in Theology Today, Word & World¸ Interpretation, and other places. He is a frequent speaker and preacher, known for his humor and snarkiness. He can be heard weekly on Working Preacher’s Sermon Brainwave and “I Love to Tell the Story,” Working Preacher’s Narrative Lectionary podcast.” —From workingpreacher.org
You can pre-order Divine Laughter now!
An Audacious, Freakish Calling
Have you ever stopped to ponder what an audacious thing it is to preach the Word of God?
Seriously. What an awesome calling to climb into a pulpit (or roll out onto the stage) and seek to tell the truth about the deepest mysteries of the human condition—Martin Luther called “the world, the devil, and my sinful self”; others have called them “sin, death, and darkness.”
But what a massive challenge to stand up in front of God’s people and, using nothing other than words, challenge them to grapple with the tragedy of our human nature—with no protection other than a stole (if that).
And then to speak the truth about God as revealed in the story of Jesus. To announce to that God doesn’t work in any way that we could figure out based on human logic—God meets sin with forgiveness, rebellion with fidelity, scarcity with abundance, and death with new life.
What a freakish calling!
Aside from other preachers and theologians, from whom can we learn how to do this awesome task?
A Hilarious, Freakish Calling
In a word, comedians.
Preachers can learn from comedians—especially from stand-up comics. Because like us, they stand up in front of a gathering of people with nothing other than a microphone for protection.
Stand-up comedian Chris Rock has said, “The ability to talk to a lot of people is freakish. It’s more freakish than being able to run fast, or dunk a basketball, or any of those other things. It’s freakish. Do you think Superman could talk to a thousand people? [To] get their attention . . . he has to bend something first. But to just get up in front of a thousand people and start talking . . .”
Freakish.
Comedy Tells the Truth about Sin—It Condemns
One of the things that comedy does—much like Christian preaching—is it tells the truth about our sinful condition. That is, it condemns.
And when comedy tells the truth about those in power, those in power punch back. They try to silence comedians, de-platform comedians, or “cancel” them.
As comedian John Crist stated, “Cancel culture . . . came first and hardest and only for comedians because comedians will tell you the truth in a way that exposes you.” Other comedians such as Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, and Dave Chapelle have reflected on the difficulty of being comedy based truth-tellers in a time of cancel culture.
Every preacher who has metaphorically stepped in it with those in power knows this reality.
Just ask the prophet Amos, who ran afoul of the king and high priest in power during his life. They told him, “O seer, go, flee away to the land of Judah, earn your bread there, and prophesy there; but never again prophesy at Bethel, for it is the king’s sanctuary, and it is a temple of the kingdom” (Amos 7:12-13).
(Amos’s reply can be paraphrased, “Oh king, the joke’s on you!”—but that is a punchline for another time.)
But What Brings Life?
But a preacher has to tell the truth twice.
First, she has to tell the truth about sin, death, and the world. But then she also has to tell the truth about a God who turns mourning into dancing, sackcloth into joy, and the Good Friday laughter of Sarah’s empty womb into the Easter laughter of Isaac’s first cry.
Looking forward in time to the moment when God’s new creation will be complete, St Paul broke out in a taunt song over death—a sort of dark comedy laughing at the enemy’s defeat: “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” (1 Cor 15:55).
The comedian can be helpful here, too. Peter Berger writes, “The comic experience provides a distinctive diagnosis of the world. It sees through the facades of ideational and social order, and discloses other realties lurking behind the superficial ones.”
The preacher also must see “through the facades of ideational” control and the false fields of perception of the dominant “social order” in order to see the Holy Spirit “lurking behind the superficial” structures of reality. In other words, the preacher must learn to see God at work and God’s new life sprouting all around.
As Jesus might have said, “Let those with ears to hear, laugh.”
Want to hear more from Rolf Jacobson and his brother, Karl, about preaching & comedy?
Rolf and Karl Jacobson will be speaking to The Collective+ on Tuesday, July 26th.
Their talk is entitled “What Preachers Can Learn from the Serious Business of Humor.”
You can pre-order Divine Laughter now!
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