it is not this easy to get a laugh

This is the most fascinating thing. John Piper is the official unjokiest pastor in history — never opens with a joke or amusing yarn, never punctuates a long sermon with a breather of humor to let you shift and laugh and cough and re-settle in your chair, nothing. He's even a little bit sour and judgy about pastors who do use those elements. 

But he *is* a very effective speaker. He goes straight to the heart, straight to the topic, and is admirably vulnerable. (Among other things, he's a rather draw-up-the-drawbridges evangelical far-right spokesman who admits that he's judgy and narrow and needs grace.) And he's got great timing.

It all leads to this bizarre moment when he's speaking to a group of thousands of Christian counselors and psychologists, and comes out of the gate as he usually does, except they all misread him as a self-deprecating humorist. And they start laughing. And they can't stop. 

It gets weirder and weirder. Of course, we're pack animals, and we breathe the social air around us. When thousands of others are laughing, we laugh. So they all laugh, expecting the same cadences that a jokier pastor would deliver, and they get exactly what they expect. It's crazy. But squint the right way and you can hear what they're hearing, I think.

At one point, he expresses frustration at getting 'laughed at.' But they're not laughing at him at all. They're laughing *with* him, as if he were an experienced and naturally funny speaker, who skillfully heads into serious spiritual depth mingled with relatable humor that's just a little over the top, and is starting with a bit of loose humor to open up, as speakers do.  They're laughing with him but, crucially, they're not laughing with him *with* *him*.

I think he was genuinely flummoxed. Meanwhile, a professional comedian who sees this is probably flummoxed too, because Piper is getting laugh after laugh that anyone would kill for, including some that avalanche into applause. 

You have to see this.