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From Dave Tomlinson, writer and Vicar of St Luke’s Holloway in London:

Last Saturday I married the lovely Lucia and Daniel. A highlight was being handed the rings by their four-year-old son, the youngest and cutest best man ever! Afterwards a woman told me the service was possibly the best show in town. ‘I’d have paid to come’, she said. ‘I didn’t know church could be such fun!’ A brilliant feature was the flamboyant Jamaican poet who had us falling about as we joined in the chorus of his calypso poem.

I think God dislikes religion devoid of laughter. There is a wonderful Jewish proverb which says that we will give account on judgement-day of every good thing we refused to enjoy when we might have done so. It’s a fabulous thought – God ticking people off for not having enough fun...killjoys shipped off to ‘pleasure purgatory’ to learn how to have a good time before entering the pearly gates!

We know that when we laugh the body produces certain feel good hormones and enzymes, and we can look at problems differently, more positively. It seems a travesty therefore that religion is so often associated with party-pooping, that God is pictured as somehow disapproving of levity, fun and naughty jokes.

After the joy of Saturday’s wedding, Sunday presented a more challenging task – talking with Matthew and his children about his beautiful wife’s funeral next week. Yet even there amid the grief and sorrow we also laughed when warm and funny stories of Jackie were retold.

Someone once asked me if my faith helped me with the hard bits in life. ‘I’m sure it does, I replied, ‘but actually, humour is often my real redemption in dark times.’ Jokes are really ways in which we cope with problems we can’t solve. Many of our best prayers are jokes – uttered inadvertently.

For me, humour, tears and religion are inextricably intertwined. If I can’t find God in a good belly laugh or in silent tears with a friend when words of comfort have all run out, then I will never find anything worthwhile in a church, a Bible or a prayer meeting?

As both weddings and funerals often demonstrate, a thin line exists between laughter and tears, and the magnificent art of being human lies somewhere in the marriage of the two.

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