Divine Laughter: Preaching and the Serious Business of Humor

Comedians tend to view the world somewhat askew or askance, and that view--a kind of hermeneutical lens for discerning the comedic in daily life--serves to frame, reframe, and even de-frame reality. Preachers do the same, viewing the world askance through a theological lens of discerning God in daily life. That theological view allows one to preach hope in the face of despair, seeing the world in terms of God's justice and declaring the promise of life out of death. Divine Laughter: Preaching and the Serious Business of Humor looks closely at both the cultural phenomenon of stand-up comedy and theories of humor, asking what preachers can learn from both.

Karl N. Jacobson and Rolf A. Jacobson offer preachers a means of growth in their art and an approach to reading Scripture both for its humor and through the lens of humor. The book models approaches to the biblical text that allow the Bible to be funny and that bring humor to the text. Divine Laughter brings the task of preaching into conversation with both the comedic parts of the Bible and the theological parts of the comedic, in order to bring a new kind of life to preaching. As a serious look at humor and laughter in the Bible, the book explores the theological implications of what it means if we think of God, Jesus, and even the Holy Spirit as filled with laughter. Preachers are invited to wonder at and chuckle their way through examples of God's laughter in the Bible, thinking about what that means for God's people, for the life of faith, and for preaching to God's people.

Karl N. Jacobson is senior pastor at Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd in Minneapolis, MN, and a colloquy advisor in Luther Seminary's DMin program. Karl has written widely on the Psalms, podcasts on faith practices and Scripture at "Imbibleing," and blogs about the Bible and popular culture at bibpopcult.wordpress.com. He is the author of Memories of Asaph: Mnemohistory and the Psalms of Asaph and co-author of Crazy Book: A Not-So-Stuffy Dictionary of Biblical Terms, Revised and Expanded Edition.

Rolf A. Jacobson is Professor of Old Testament and the Alvin N. Rogness Chair of Scripture, Theology, and Ministry at Luther Seminary. He is the author or co-author of The Book of Psalms, Invitation to the Psalms, Crazy Book: A Not-So-Stuffy Dictionary of Biblical Terms and The Homebrewed Christianity Guide to the Old Testament: Israel's In-Your-Face, Holy God. He is on two weekly preaching podcasts, "Sermon Brainwave" and "Narrative Lectionary," both are available at workingpreacher.org

Will Willimon is a bishop in the United Methodist Church and served as the dean of Duke Chapel and professor of Christian ministry at Duke University for twenty years. He served as bishop of the North Alabama conference of the UMC from 2004 to 2012. He is the author of seventy books.