My father was a humorist. That is different from being a joker. Mark Twain was a humorist. A humorist can, and often does, tell jokes but that is not their stock and trade. A humorist is one who uses humor not for immediate laughs but is an artist with words, character development, timing, pauses, and the nuances of telling a story. A joke is hit and run. The whole point of a joke is to get a laugh and then move on to the next joke. That is the job of a comedian – but not a humorist. The joke is to humor what the microwave is to gourmet. It is hook ‘em and yank ‘em instead of the art of fly fishing. Stories are fly fishing for truth.

Phil Austin, one of the original players in the Firesign Theatre expressed it this way for writers:‍

The humorist is a happy soul; he comments from the sidelines of life, safe behind the keyboard or pen; not forced to mold his thinking to the direct response of an audience, he has indirection on his side. He has time to think. The comedian, on the other hand, takes his chances directly facing…the audience; a buffoon, a patsy, a performer, he is out in the open and his audience, unlike a humorist’s, becomes necessarily half-friend and half-enemy.‍

Sadly, I did not inherit my father’s gift for humorous storytelling. I cannot even tell jokes properly as I am always rushing to the point and leaving out the important details. I am more suited for teaching doctrine where there is no lead up to the punch line. “I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth…” is more my style. Take it or leave it. I don’t have the confidence it requires to hold the attention of an audience in telling a story. Lectures do not require timing or what Coleridge called “the willing suspension of disbelief” on the part of those listening.

Perhaps this is why I love the stories in the Old Testament – especially those marked by irony, a twist at the end and the villains getting what is coming to them. I know Paul in his letter to the Corinthians says we are not to rejoice when bad things happen to other people but part of the reason I love the Old Testament stories is exactly that. They get what they deserve. For example, take the story of Esther and Haman. He is determined to eradicate the Jews but ends up being hanged on his own gallows. Read the story of Daniel and the jealous administrators in Babylon. It was the satraps who manipulated the King into making a law that Daniel unwittingly disobeyed and for which he was thrown into the den of lions. But then there is the twist that makes the story. He is unharmed but the satraps and their families are mauled to death. Time and again in the Old Testament there are stories where the Jewish hero outwits the villain or is saved by divine intervention. These are the truly humorous stories that gave the exiled people hope – then and now.  I know I could be accused of schadenfreude, rejoicing in the misfortune of others, but why else would these stories be in the Scripture?

Mel Brooks says, “Feeling different, feeling alienated, feeling persecuted, feeling that the only way to deal with the world is to laugh – because if you don’t laugh you’re going to cry and never stop crying – that’s probably what’s responsible for the Jews having developed such a great sense of humor. The people who had the greatest reason to weep, learned more than anyone else how to laugh. Comedy is protest. Comedy is a very powerful component of life. It has the most to say about the human condition because if you laugh you can get by. You can struggle when things are bad if you have a sense of humor. Laughter is a protest scream against death, against the long goodbye. It’s a defense against unhappiness and depression.”‍

It’s not anger. It is the power of humor to tell a truth and at the same time give the hope that anger would obscure or miss entirely. There are times today when it is only natural to be angry at the actions of our own villains and miscreant fools but perhaps humor is the better way. You know the verse, “Why do the heathen rage?” Maybe it is because they have no humor. All they have is rage. Why do the heathen rage and the righteous tell stories? Because the righteous know something that is hidden from the heathen. The righteous know that justice may be slow in coming but it is always the last word.