Allowing Humor to Build Empathy
Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting
Pastor Bob Henry
October 9, 2022
Good morning, Friends, and welcome to Light Reflections. This week I am wrapping up my sermon series on Empathy. I hope you have a had a chance over these last several weeks to ponder your own empathy, the empathy of your friends and neighbors, and even explore the empathy within our Meeting. We have looked at the subject from several different angles, but this morning for our final look we will be studying the relationship between humor and empathy. An aspect that I feel we are quick to forget or ignore.
Our scriptures for today are Luke 9:53-54 and Mark 3:17 from the New Revised Standard Version.
…but they did not receive him because his face was set toward Jerusalem. When his disciples James and John saw this, they said, “Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?”
…James, son of Zebedee and John the brother of James (to whom he gave the name Boanerges, that is, Sons of Thunder)…
I love our scriptures for today, because they give us a glimpse into the authentic humor of both Jesus and the disciples. Given the disciples’ wild suggestion to bring down fire or lightning, and thunder, from heaven, Jesus gave them a nickname.
No matter how gently we think this was delivered, it was bound to be the subject of much humor in numerous retellings of the story. I could see Jesus and the disciples sitting around the campfire at night and Jesus starting, “Remember that time…how about you Sons of Thunder?” I think too often we take the Bible too serious and miss the little interactions that make it relatable.
Jesus often used humor in relating to his people, but because we did not live in his culture and time, we often miss his point, turning it into a much more serious interaction. Often Jesus uses humor to build some empathy among his disciples, other followers, and even his enemies.
Remember that time Jesus addresses the rich young man. He says,
“If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth.
Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again, I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” (Matthew 19:21-24)
Jesus takes a rather serious conversation and uses humor to make his point. I am sure the disciples who were trying to take it all in, simply broke out in laughter at the absurdity of Jesus’s illustration – yet they understood what he was saying about the difficulty he was trying to portray.
Several years ago, a movie about Jesus came out, where Jesus was portrayed by a dark haired and dark skinned middle eastern man (I know, surprising, right.) He was also short, hairy, and smiled a lot.
Obviously, many people did not like this actor’s portrayal of Jesus. It didn’t match their White European, emaciated, and effeminate Jesus looking downcast and with a halo hanging on their walls or in their churches (another great reason we do not have images of Jesus in our Meetinghouse).
I was given an opportunity to watch a clip of the movie in one of my college master’s classes. We were asked to watch the scene where Jesus is sharing with the crowd the Beatitudes – commonly referred to as the Sermon on the Mount.
Unlike most paintings that have Jesus teaching from the top of the mountain. This movie has him starting at the bottom of the hillside with his disciples surrounding him, and then the camera pans up the hillside and shows the multitude of followers waiting for his teaching.
As Jesus begins, he walks through his disciples and directs the dialogue first to them. He approaches Matthew (the notorious Tax Collector) first and gently puts his hands on his shoulders. With a big smile on his face, Jesus locks eyes with Matthew and then delivers the first beatitude. He says, “Oh Matthew, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” And then he winks and moves on through the disciples. Meanwhile the camera catches Matthew’s laughter changing to contemplation, and you see him following behind Jesus hanging on every word out of his mouth.
I believe Jesus used humor often because humor is able to build empathy.
Scott Aukerman, co-founder of "Between Two Ferns," (Has anyone ever watch “Between Two Ferns” with Zach Galifianakus?) well, he defaulted to comedy to disarm bullies early in life. He thinks humor is key to fostering empathy and genuine interactions. He points out 3 ways humor is a skill that builds empathy:
First, he says, humor disarms people.
The kind of humor which disarms can interrupt the power struggles, easing tensions and allowing you to reconnect and regain perspective.
It helps you be more spontaneous. Shared laughter helps you break free from rigid ways of thinking and behaving, allowing you to see the problem in a new way and find a creative solution.
And humor can disarm by helping you be less defensive. Through humor, we hear things differently and can tolerate learning things about ourselves that we otherwise might find unpleasant or even painful.
I know when things are rather tense or stressful, I need people who understand the importance of humor and its power to disarm me. It only takes a text to Phil Gully or a lunch with him, to have me breaking out in laughter and seeing things from a new perspective. This past week was rather stressful for me for a variety of reasons, and each day Phil would check in with me and within moments have me disarmed from my stress and struggle and able to talk more openly about what all was going on.
Second, Aukerman says when you let go of the outcome being in your favor, it releases tension.
In other words, when you’re not holding tightly to your expectations or whether you’re going to come out on top, it changes what might have been a typical interaction.
Humor opens us up, freeing us to express what we truly feel and allowing our deep, genuine emotions to rise to the surface.
This is true when I have a meal with our own Mark Kishego, he knows how to utilize humor to disarm you and allow you to feel safe in sharing your heart and emotions. Or most of us remember Dan Rains – for him it was a simple pun and after a pause we were drawn in by the laughter and the conversation.
And three, Aukerman says by bringing laughter to meetings/social interactions/everywhere, you acknowledge a mutual desire not to be bored.
When situations or people get too serious and lose the ability to find humor in what they do, it is easy to become bored or simply not interested. Sometimes, when we are trying to be good Quakers or fighting the cause, we don’t take the time to laugh together and be joyful.
One of the things I love about our men’s Threshing Together is that when we get together, we spend a lot of time laughing and that opens us up to building deeper relationships. I heard the same about the women’s retreat that just took place – laughter is so important to our engaging one another in a deeper way.
When I was in campus ministries, I had a team of about 23 college students. Each year we would begin with a retreat off campus, and I would always lead them in an exercise called, “First Impressions.”
I would hand out a piece of paper with all our names on it with a space behind each name. Then I would ask them to spend the next 30 minutes writing down one word for each person that describes their first impression of that person.
Since I participated as well, and had interacted with each of the students in the hiring process, I would utilize a theme. One year I gave each of them a Pixar Animated Character that I felt represented my first impression of them.
Part of the experience was to share the one word, and then explain why without the other person responding or asking questions. Over the next hour we shared our words and explanations. We did a lot of sharing and even more receiving.
The room always erupted in laughter because some people were way off, and at other times they were right on. By the end of our time there was a sense of true empathy for each other. We both learned something about ourselves, and learned also a lot about our perceptions of other people.
That specific year we bonded in a special way. That group would meet at our home once a month to watch a Pixar movie and discuss our similarities to the characters. Some students were hilariously exactly like their character, others seemed to grow into their characters in interesting ways throughout the year.
Still today this group of students keeps in contact with me. They still reference their Pixar characters and the many laughs we had over this one activity and how it brought us to see each other in new ways. This is still one of the best examples of utilizing humor to build empathy I have ever experienced.
On a side note, many of the students gave me the word “teddy bear.” So my Pixar character became Lotso – which brought many laughs as well for a multitude of reasons.
Folks, when we utilize humor in a proper manner, it can lift others up, make it safe to admit our faults, honor our differences, laugh at our human frailties, lift us above our embarrassments, and allow us to relate to those who hold different views.
Thus, humor allows us to build empathy in a special way.
This past week, I finished reading one of the best Philosophy books I have ever read. It is titled, “Nasty, Brutish, and Short: Adventures in Philosophy with My Kids” by Scott Hershovitz (professor of law and philosophy at the University of Michiagn. He starts each chapter with an often-humorous story about his two boys, Hank and Rex. I found that these funny stories led to disarming me and helping me to prepare for the deeper work in the rest of the chapter. I found myself empathizing with Scott and his wife in their parenting, as well as navigating the difficult questions of life.
In the last chapter on God he begins with this story.
“Zack has God boots.”
“What?” I said, turning my attention to Rex. I was in the kitchen making dinner. Rex (then four) was at the table, eating the last of his pre-dinner snacks. The snacks serve a dual purpose in our house: they make it possible for us to cook dinner and make sure that our kids won’t eat what we cook.
“Zack has God boots,” Rex repeated, as if it were a revelation.
“ZACH HAS GOD BOOTS?!” I said, as if it really was a revelation.
(Over-the-top enthusiasm is one of my go-to parenting moves. Good things happen when you get a kid excited about a conversation.)
“Yes! God has God boots,” Zach said with increasing excitement.
“Which Zack? Big Zach? Little Zach? Grown-up Zach? There were an absurd number of Zach’s in the Giraffe Room.
“Little Zach!” said Rex, triumphantly.
“No Way, Little Zach has God boots?!”
“Yeah!”
“Cool…but what are God boots?”
“You know,” Zach said, as if it was obvious.
“No, I don’t, buddy. What are God boots?”
“They are boots with God on them.”
“God is on Zach’s boots!” I shouted, treating this as the shocking news it was. “Is God heavy? Can Zach walk in his boots? Is he stuck at school? SHOULD WE GO HELP HIM?
“Not God, Daddy! A Picture of God.”
“Oh wow.” I softened my voice. “What does God look life?”
“You know,” said Rex, in a conspiratorial tone.
“No, I don’t,” I whispered. “What does God look like?”
“The man in the cowboy hat.”
“Which man in the cowboy hat?”
“The one in the movie.”
Now we were getting somewhere. Rex had only seen three movies. The first was Curious George. “Do you mean the man with the yellow hat?”
“No,” he said with a giggle.
The second was Cars. “Do you mean Mater?”
“No! Mater doesn’t wear a cowboy hat,” he said, in a way that suggested he was the one talking to a small child.
That left Toy Story. “Woody?”
“Yes! GOD!”
Scott says, “I have no idea how Rex arrived at this view, but if you want to creep yourself out, imagine that Woody is God. Wherever you go, whatever you do, Woody’s painted eyes are watching you.
On that note, let’s take a moment to enter waiting worship this morning. As we do, I ask that you ponder the following queries:
· How do I let humor disarm me?
· Who in my life brings needed humor and allows me the freedom to be my authentic self?
· How might I utilize humor with others to build empathy in my world?