{"id":15224,"date":"2026-03-10T11:18:05","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T11:18:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gpbookstore.org\/articles\/uncategorized\/father-james-martin-on-the-sacredness-of-laughter\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T05:59:03","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T05:59:03","slug":"father-james-martin-on-the-sacredness-of-laughter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gpbookstore.org\/articles\/angels-and-miracles\/miracles\/gods-grace\/father-james-martin-on-the-sacredness-of-laughter\/","title":{"rendered":"Father James Martin on the Sacredness of Laughter"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We spoke to Father James Martin, Jesuit priest and best-selling author of <em>Between Heaven <\/em>and <em>Mirth: Why Joy, Humor, and Laughter Are at the Heart of the Spiritual Life<\/em>, about the sacred link between humor and spirituality\u2026<\/p>\n<p><strong>What first got you interested in the spiritual side of humor?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>As I went around the country talking about my book <em>My Life with the Saints<\/em>, I found that people were often shocked by stories I shared of the humor of the saints. It reminded me that we don\u2019t understand the place of joy that humor and laughter in the spiritual life.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Why do you think that is? <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I think we have a fundamental misunderstanding of who Jesus was. He was fully human. So he had a fully human sense of humor. The image Jesus chooses for heaven is a banquet or a party. It\u2019s very significant that his first miracle is to make more wine at a party. That symbolism would not have been lost on the people of his time. Jesus\u2019 miracles would have been occasions of joy for people.<\/p>\n<p><strong>How do you think humor is significant when it comes to a relationship with God? <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>God became human so we would be able to approach and encounter God. If we always see God as serious and judging and angry, then our ability as people of joy to relate to God is going to be limited. It\u2019s going to really prevent our entering into a relationship with God on a deep level because we\u2019re going to be afraid of God. You might even think, for example, that God frowns on laughter, which couldn\u2019t be further from the truth.<\/p>\n<p><strong>You mention humor, joy and laughter as virtues. Can you explain what you mean by that? <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Jesus continually says, \u201cI have come so that your joy may be complete.\u201d Humor is a virtue because it helps us not to take ourselves so seriously. Laughter is an enjoyment of God\u2019s world. <a href=\"https:\/\/gpbookstore.org\/articles\/post\/divine-humor-how-laughter-benefits-us-spiritually\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">It\u2019s a wonderful gift from God<\/a>. Each of these things is holy in their own right.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Are there any Biblical examples of Jesus\u2019 humor? <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Sure! Many scripture scholars say we don\u2019t understand the humor of first-century Palestine. Many of the parables probably would have been laugh-out-loud funny. Stories about a man who built his house on sand or gave his son a scorpion instead of a fish would have been seen as humorous. Jesus told clever stories and funny parables.<\/p>\n<p>One of my favorite examples of biblical humor is that at one point Jesus said to the Pharisees, \u201cYou strain out a gnat and you swallow a camel.\u201d The Aramaic word for camel is <em>gaml\u00e2&#8217;<\/em> and for gnat is <em>qalm\u00e2&#8217;<\/em>. It\u2019s a little wordplay. He\u2019s doing a little pun. You can imagine his hearers thinking that\u2019s pretty clever. But when we translate it into English, it doesn\u2019t retain that sense of playfulness.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Are there any Old Testament examples of humor that we gloss over? <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The first one would be Abraham and Sarah. When Abraham and Sarah, who are very old, find out they\u2019re going to have a child, Sarah laughs at God. God says, \u201cWhy did you laugh?\u201d and she says, \u201cI didn\u2019t laugh.\u201d God says, \u201cOh, yes, you did.\u201d And when Abraham and Sarah\u2019s son is born, they name him Isaac, which means \u201che laughs.\u201d The beginning of the three great monotheistic religions is a laugh!<\/p>\n<p><strong>I\u2019ve never thought about it that way! All of my associations with that story are negative\u2014Sarah disobeying God by laughing&#8230; <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Right! But if I walked up to a 90-year-old woman and asked when she\u2019s going to have a baby it would be funny!<\/p>\n<p><strong>So what do you think the spiritual significance of laughter is? <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I think [laughter] is a spiritual release. Many times we laugh at something that is ridiculous so there\u2019s a sense of perspective that the world is not perfect. If we can laugh at ourselves, it\u2019s even better. It\u2019s a sense that we\u2019re not God. Even if we just laugh at a joke, we can enjoy life. There\u2019s a release of spiritual energy. It\u2019s like saying \u201cI love this life\u201d or \u201cI enjoy this world\u201d or \u201cI\u2019m not so perfect after all.\u201d How can we say that each of those insights is not spiritual?<\/p>\n<p><strong>How can we cultivate a more joyful perspective of the world? <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Well that\u2019s a good question. I think the first thing would be to interact with people who have a joyful perspective and try to see the world through their eyes. The second thing is creating a joy inventory where you list all the things that make you joyful or make you laugh. And the third thing is taking every opportunity to laugh at yourself. That\u2019s invaluable. There\u2019s good laughter and there\u2019s bad laughter. Good laughter builds up, bad laughter tears down. Good humor is self deprecating. Bad humor tries to make fun of someone else. It\u2019s important to keep those things in perspective.<\/p>\n<p>Read more: <a href=\"https:\/\/gpbookstore.org\/articles\/post\/divine-humor-how-laughter-benefits-us-spiritually\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>Divine Humor: How Laughter Benefits Us Spiritually<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We spoke to Father James Martin, Jesuit priest and best-selling author of Between Heaven and Mirth: Why Joy, Humor, and Laughter Are at the Heart of the Spiritual Life, about the sacred link between humor and spirituality\u2026 What first got you interested in the spiritual side of humor? As I went around the country talking [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26311,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[150],"tags":[159,151],"ppma_author":[467],"class_list":["post-15224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gods-grace","tag-bible","tag-mysterious-ways"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.6 (Yoast SEO v27.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Father James Martin on the Sacredness of Laughter - Guideposts Articles<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Father James Martin on the Sacredness of Laughter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"We spoke to Father James Martin, Jesuit priest and best-selling author of Between Heaven and Mirth: Why Joy, Humor, and Laughter Are at the Heart of the Spiritual Life, about the sacred link between humor and spirituality\u2026 What first got you interested in the spiritual side of humor? 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