At the beginning of Andrew Root’s book, The Pastor in the Secular Age, he writes, “Today’s pastor can feel like an odd person, living an embarrassingly outdated vocation.” Recording his reflection on a conversation he had with one pastor, he writes, “What caused the pastor I was talking with to have a stomachache and overall feeling of malaise was the unexpressed realization that the very God he preached had become unnecessary. And in turn this led him to feel somewhere deep enough beyond words that in this shrouded void he was not needed at all.”

This pastoral anxiety, tiredness, boredom, depression has caused an astronomical rise in pastoral burnout, scandal and resignations over the past few decades. The truth is, all these experiences are paralleled in the secular culture in which we live. We are an Anxious Generation who are, ironically, bored in our anxiety. In the absence of belief in God, we seem to have become dystopian (one of the most popular genres currently) in living a plot devoid of direction and meaning. We’ve embraced life as a tragedy. Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die (Eccl. 8:15). But even that becomes quickly hollow because, in the true sense of that philosophy, the writer still believed there was a God. So, the story we have embraced is a Tragedy. And I know how often I, like the pastors Root has been studying, sink into this story. 

My proposal with this website is to reintroduce those of us in ministry to the other story, Comedy. By embracing that comedic story of the gospel, we rediscover our ministry calling in the role of the jester. Not the stereotyped jester of a guy juggling balls and telling cheesy jokes. In fact, pastors need to stop juggling so many balls and telling pointless jokes. What I mean by a jester is that jester who , in the great tradition, was the fool who spoke truth to power structures, and to those in power.

Through the use of wit, satire and self-deprecation, it was the jester who often challenged the authority structures and cultural lies of their times. Like the child, the jester points out that the emperor has no clothes, and though everyone laughed at the jester, it was the jester (and child) who was right. 

The role of the jester also finds a great tradition in the pages of the Bible, with the likes of Elijah, Isaiah, Nathaniel, Micaiah and John the Baptist (to name only a few) who lived in times of social upheaval, but being as wise as serpents (Matt. 10:16), were able to speak truth to those who were political, religious, idolatrous and even satanic – sometimes even dressing up in their role. And though they were often looked upon as fools, as the writer of Hebrews notes, “the world was not worthy of them.” (Heb. 11:38).  

This role of the jester has often been played throughout church history. Tertullian, Erasmas, Jonathan Swift, Charles Spurgeon, G.K. Chesterton, Dorothy Sayers, C.S. Lewis and Flannery O. Conner (again, just to name a few).   

It is my conviction that, particularly in an age embracing Tragedy, today’s pastor needs to put on the jester hat and retell the good news comic story. Because the ultimate true story is a Comedy. A Divine Comedy, as another jester for the King of Kings called it. 

God’s story is the greatest joke ever told, and he not only told it, but, to the surprise of everyone, he became the punchline. Like many of Jesus’ parables (also filled with a lot of humor), who would have expected the twist at the end of God’s story, as all good jokes have. After everything seemed to be going one way… On the third day he rose!!! That line in our Creed is ultimate comedy! Good News! And that has been God’s way all along. When all seems like tragedy, God brings about Isaac, whose very name means laughter. God doesn’t just do things, he is the great Comedian. He gives the promised child to a 90 year old woman. That’s funny. The Christ child comes through a virgin and his first bed is a feeding trough (funny again), and after everything the Romans and Jews did to try and stop Jesus…, on the third day he rose! Again and again, God laughs at our dangerous ideas of power and strength. 

That is why, as pastors, when we tell and live this story, we are jesters. And the more immersed in the comedy we become, the more we can save both ourselves and our hearers (1 Tim. 4:16).      

For this is not simply good news for others, but it is the good news we need to continually ground ourselves in for long term faithfulness in ministry. I know how easy it is for me to sink into the Tragedy of our culture’s stories, that either have no place for God, or long for false gods who appear to give them power and meaning, but are devoid of the power of Comedy. Thus, devoid of good news.       

Embracing the good news Comedy story also helps me not take myself so seriously by realizing that I’m in on the joke, and that in humor we even find the power to thwart our enemies. As one of the jesters of the King of Kings, Martin Luther, wrote (and he was also a pastor who battled the tragedy story of depression throughout his life): 

“Almost every night when I wake up the devil is there and wants to argue with me. I have come to this conclusion: When the argument that the Christian is without the law and above the law doesn’t help, I instantly chase him away with a fart.” (LW 54:78).

(In my next blog, I will show you how Luther is not just being funny here, but showing great theological astuteness).

So, in an age where we’re trying to figure out, “What is the role of the pastor?” When we are asking, “What use do I have in a world that doesn’t think it needs God?” We can also turn to Paul to remind us to take on the role of a ministry jester. As Paul wrote of God’s comedic strategy:

God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. (1 Corinthians 1:27, NIV).

In other words, God chose the ministry jesters of this world to shame the celebrities, idols, politicians and business gurus; God chose his holy fools to shame the idolatrous status symbols that our culture sees as successful and strong, but only lead to tragedy.  

Because, on the third day he rose!