a sense of mystery, a sense of humor...

...that was a line i read out of a book on preaching this morning, it was referring to the worship service and the message that comes within it.

I like that idea, that our worship should be accompanied by awe and reverence because we are in God's presence. But also should be accompanied by a mood of absurdity, that we should be allowed even to be in the same room as God. It should be conducted in a sense of hilarity that though we are trying to be reverent and respectful, we are in fact deeply flawed, irreverent, fountains of disrespect. Worship (and the preaching) should carry a slap-stick joy that though the guy up front has been called to this task and is even wearing a white robe, he's really quite a wreck as a person, hardly qualified to be taken seriously... and the people he's talking with, though playing the part of the willing listeners are secretly doing their best to escape the weekly "time of transcendence" as un-changed as possible. This incongruity should make us laugh at ourselves openly and freely, which i think somehow is necessary for reverence (or awe or mystery)

A sense of mystery AND a sense of humor, no worship service should ever happen without both. What do you think?