“Joy and Laughter Comes from the Divine” 2/18/18 Scripture: Gen 18:1-4, 9-15; Proverbs selected passages on love, joy, laughter/by Rev. Laurie Williams
Last week I preached my first sermon of a two-part series about the Theology of Humor. Its title is “Humor that Is Divine.” I talked about Ali Kay Wood’s experience of her mother driving them to a wedding with the two-tiered wedding cake on her lap that ended up smashing into the dashboard with icing flying everywhere, when her mother made a turn that was too sharp. After the initial horror and shock at the situation, they both began to laugh uncontrollably. Ms. Wood found that laughter cathartic as it freed them from the anxiety over the situation. She explained that the laughter came from God, deep within her soul. I mentioned a 2011 University of Oxford study that discovered laughter releases mood-boosting endorphins, increase pain tolerance by as much as 10%, increases blood flow by 22% and protects you against the ill effects of stress. We heard “a laugh or two a day keeps the doctor away!” […]