Whimsy in Sacred Communication

Another way to Enlist Enchantment

One of my favorite and most unexpected qualities to hear in a preacher is whimsy. Preachers, after all, are supposed to be serious, moral, and erudite—or so some of my Presbyterian and Reformed friends in graduate school seemed to believe. Think tweed jackets, greying beards, the faint scent of pipe tobacco and dark ale—and, of course, long conversations about Divine Sovereignty. To such a one, the mention of whimsy in religious communication might seem a shade less than holy.

But nothing could be further from the truth. For me, nothing quite pierces the critical distance between myself and the sacred—a distance often created by the cynicism of disenchantment—like whimsy’s playful, imaginative, and yes, even magical way of relating to the world. Whimsy is powerful precisely because it is unexpected. What could be more surprising than Elijah mocking the prophets of Baal (1 Kings 18:27), a geriatric pregnancy provoking laughter (Gen. 18:12–15), or Jesus’ outrageous image of splinters and logs floating around in people’s eyeballs (Matt. 7:3–5)? The unexpected has always been part of divine communication. Whimsy breaks through the armor of moralism and doctrinaire thinking; it loosens the tight grip of seriousness that often suffocates sacred imagination.

Perhaps this is one reason folksy storytelling feels so delightful in sermons. Stories are elemental to human experience—we think, dream, and remember in narrative form. A story well told not only captures attention but also carries truth in a way that propositional statements rarely can. Facts may inform, but stories transform. They give flesh and blood to abstractions so that truth can breathe in the world.

When a story is told—unique, particular, perhaps even uncanny—there is always something universal beneath it. This fusion of the particular and the universal is what enchants. The universal allows us to recognize ourselves; the particular invites us into the wonder of another’s experience. It is this interplay that awakens our curiosity, that deeply human instinct to peer into another life and find ourselves there.

This is why I think of the stand-up comedy of Nate Bargatze. His style is self-deprecating—he casts himself as the most average man in America, though his comedic brilliance is far from ordinary. He tells stories from his life: simple tales about being a middle-aged man from Tennessee, with a peculiar background (his father was a professional magician, after all). Yet audiences from New York to Los Angeles find themselves in his stories. That’s his magic—his whimsy.

Bargatze’s humor is light and unassuming, seemingly devoid of grand seriousness. But like Seinfeld or Jean Shepherd, he finds the absurd in the ordinary, the profound in the mundane. He can sell dimwittedness through profound astuteness. He can poke fun at his culture, draw laughter from banality, and in doing so, quietly brush against deeply existential truths. His whimsy disarms—and in that disarmament, something sacred becomes possible.

Through delightful, novel, and hilarious anecdotes, Bargatze reflects upon common human feelings and experiences. There is relatability even if you have never gone through the exact same thing Bargatze has. Here is a Bargatze bit about married life. It is personal, yet relatable. It is charmingly approachable, yet it touches on deeper things:

Toothpaste. I will use it to what I think the average person uses it to. I don’t think I should feel muscles trying to get it out. I’m not going to have an iron on top of it. But she’ll do it more. So I know when I’m done with it, I give it to the hobo I married. She cuts it, gets it all out. I married an old man from the Depression, is who I married. She would have thrived during the Depression. I don’t think she would’ve known there was a Depression. A pizza party is my nightmare. I’ll have friends over for pizza. So I’ll be like, “All right, we gotta order pizza.” And she goes, “How much?” I go, “Order the most.” “I don’t want to run out of pizza in front of my friends.” She goes, “Just call and ask them.” I go, “I can’t call these 40-year-old dudes and just be like, ‘How much pizza do you think you’re gonna eat tonight?’” They have a real… They have a family. They work in a building, right now. You want me to call and be like, “You have a big lunch today?” “No, we’re trying to save money, so I need to know exactly how much pizza you’re going to eat in eight hours.

Partner dynamics—like how you squeeze the toothpaste or order pizza for friends—are simple, mundane experiences. A non-comedic mind might never notice the humor in them. Yet Bargatze, with his Middle Tennessee drawl and laid-back delivery, turns these ordinary anecdotes into universal observations: every person has a unique way of navigating life, and when those differences meet, the result is sometimes charming and sometimes frustrating. Meanwhile, the crowd laughs. They nod along. Husbands and wives point playfully at one another, each recognizing a familiar pattern of their own domestic bliss.

Using whimsy—and seeking its enchantment through storytelling—invites narrative styles far beyond mere anecdotes. Personally, I am drawn to folk tales, cultural parables, local legends, and traditional music. I am intrigued by the smaller, distinctive communities with strong traditions and mysteries: hobo culture, traveling carnivals, professional wrestling, Indigenous storytelling, improv troupes, and fishing lore. These worlds often make their way into my sermons as unexpected vehicles for grace. When stories from these unique corners of life are woven into sacred reflection, the listener stays alert—because the sacred message arrives from an unexpected direction. What is really happening here, I think, is that when the particular and the universal meet within such stories, we discover that grace permeates every ordinary sphere of existence.

It is delightfully whimsical when a speaker weaves together daily human experience, sacred teaching, and a “Jack Tale” from Appalachia—or a Hasidic parable, a moment from hip-hop history, a European fairy tale, or an Indigenous creation story. Each of these narrative forms conveys a basic human truth, and so they are relatable. Yet their strangeness and specificity charm the listener’s imagination. By drawing from diverse storytelling traditions, we reawaken wonder. Novelty tickles attention, yes—but more deeply, these stories reveal that something of the transcendent touches every corner of the world. The sacred is not confined to altars or pulpits; it hums within the particularities of all creation.

Sacred speech, however, often falls into repetitive and imitative patterns. Many sermons and testimonies lean heavily on moralistic formulas: someone strays down “the boulevard of broken dreams,” hits bottom, and then experiences redemption. These stories have their place—they are familiar, even serviceable—but they can become so predictable and extreme that they cease to touch the ordinary sins, small failures, and subtle graces that shape most of our lives.

This has been my experience with what I call “testimony culture.” In churches where personal testimonies are regularly shared, it is not uncommon to hear stories of shocking behavior followed by dramatic conversion. For those who have not battled addiction, rage, or despair, such accounts can alienate rather than inspire. They can even become performative—designed more for shock and spectacle than for genuine reflection. I once heard someone remark, “I don’t have a good testimony like that,” as though God’s grace were graded on a scale of scandal. When stories exist only to astonish, they risk becoming commodities rather than conduits of transformation.

Whimsical stories from unexpected places, however, have a way of bypassing that moralistic distance. A folk tale, a fable, or a story from an eccentric subculture can sneak up on you. Instead of allowing listeners to say, “That’s not me,” these stories quietly show that grace has something to say about every corner of the world—even your own corner. They charm, surprise, and disarm. In their whimsy lies a holy cunning: they awaken the imagination, shake us out of our moral complacency, and help us glimpse the world as it truly is—alive with sacred possibility.