There is a piece out from Christianity Today on three comedians — Whitney Moss, Marcus D. Wiley, and Mike Goodwin — who are making people laugh for a living and who say, without flinching, that this is how they share their faith. They want their work to bless the people who follow them. That is the word used. Not entertain. Bless.
I find that quietly wonderful, and I notice I also find it slightly surprising, which tells me something about my own instincts. Somewhere along the way many of us absorbed the idea that serious faith wears a serious face. That the holy thing is always the solemn thing. That laughter is the break you take from the spiritual work, like stepping outside for air.
When laughter was the evidence
Scripture does not divide things up that way. Listen to how Psalm 126 opens:
“When the LORD restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dreamed. Our mouths were filled with laughter, our tongues with songs of joy. Then it was said among the nations, ‘The LORD has done great things for them.’ The LORD has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy.” (Psalm 126:1-3)
Read that again and notice the order. God acted. And the first evidence listed — before the theology, before the testimony meeting, before anybody wrote a word down — was a sound. Mouths full of laughter. People who could not stop grinning and could not entirely explain why.
Then look at who interpreted it: the nations. Outsiders. People who did not share the faith heard that laughter and drew the right conclusion from it. “The LORD has done great things for them.” The gladness of God's people preached before anyone opened their mouth to argue.
That is worth sitting with in a world that is tired and loud and pretty cynical. Joy is not a lightweight thing. It is a witness. Paul lists it second among the fruit the Spirit grows in a person, right alongside love and peace (Galatians 5:22), and I have come to believe it is one of the harder ones to fake. Anybody can nod along with correct doctrine. Nobody can manufacture genuine gladness in a room for very long.
The craft you already have
What strikes me about those three comedians is not mainly that they are funny. It is that they looked at the particular thing they are good at and asked what it was for. Not many of us are going to be asked to preach. Every one of us has a craft.
You fix engines. You keep books. You teach second grade. You run a crew, raise children, bake something people fight over at the potluck, play bass, drive a truck across Michigan in the dark. The temptation is to assume the gospel moves only through official channels — a pulpit, a mission field, a microphone. It does not. It moves through people, carrying whatever they happen to be carrying. God has never been shy about using ordinary tools. He used a shepherd's sling and a boy's lunch and a borrowed donkey.
That is the question in front of us as a church on Mission Sunday, November 1. Mission is not only about the places on the map and the people we send. It is also about the fact that you will be somewhere on Monday morning, with a skill in your hands and a reputation among people who know you, and the Holy Spirit is entirely willing to work there. I watch it happen. Somebody in this church does their job well and kindly for a long stretch of years, and one day a coworker asks a question nobody expected them to ask.
And if you cannot laugh today
Psalm 126 does not end in the sunshine. It keeps going, into harder ground: “Those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy. Those who go out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with them” (Psalm 126:5-6).
The same psalm holds both. The laughter and the weeping, the dreaming and the sowing in tears. If this finds you in the second half of that psalm — if the joy feels like something other people have and you are just getting through the week — you are not outside of this. You are in the part of it where seed goes into the ground. Nothing about your tears disqualifies you. The psalm promises the harvest comes, and it does not say how long the walk is.
Jesus was called a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. The same Jesus told his friends, on the worst night of their lives, that he was telling them these things “so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete” (John 15:11). He is not embarrassed by either one. Bring him whichever you have today.
Join us this Sunday at 10:30am — Outpouring Worship Center, Ravenna.