The way I discovered this little secret is due to a friend named Daws Butler. Not once in over 50 years have I reread a parable without recalling this wondrously gentle man. Daws was tiny — he may have cleared 5’4” — but he was a gigantic talent. You may not know his name, but I promise you’ve heard him.

Daws was a gifted voice actor who created cartoon characters such as Huckleberry Hound, Yogi Bear, Quick Draw McGraw, Snagglepuss, Cap’n Crunch and Elroy Jetson. His talent made them truly memorable. He also voiced many characters in “The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show” for segments like “Fractured Fairy Tales” and “Aesop and Son.”

Long admiring his work, I met Daws at a play, where one of the children he coached was acting. Learning that we both enjoyed the Sherlock Holmes tales, he honored me with an invitation to attend his workshops; he taught aspects of vocal dynamics, directing, writing and acting.

Gathered round the long table in the studio in back of his home each week, young actors and writers — along with sometimes older, well-established actors who were Daws’ friends — would take turns acting out four-page, four-character scenes. In effect, they were parables that Daws wrote weekly to accentuate the humanity so necessary to effective writing or vocal acting.

Patiently passionate, Daws prized subtlety, wit and thoughtful interpretations. By the time his loving, attentive wife Myrtis joined us with a plate of cookies or brownies to end the evening, this masterful teacher had given us so much of himself. We found many new perspectives to consider in our theatre, film or literary work.

Daws was one of the reasons I returned to the Church after a youthful fling of two or three years away. When I began to read the Bible again, because of Daws, I saw Jesus less as a “Somber Savior” and more as a “Merry Messiah.” I came to see that Jesus often presented parables masterfully punctuated with subtle humor and witty punchlines.

For instance, there is the story about a corrupt judge who keeps putting off hearing a case brought to him by a pesky widow. She is relentless, following him everywhere. The unethical magistrate finally grants the woman her rights — just so she’ll get off his back. Jesus tells us, “to pray always without becoming weary … Pay attention to what the dishonest judge says. Will not God then secure the rights of his chosen ones who call out to him day and night? Will he be slow to answer them?” (Lk 18:1, 6-7). He loved to point out foibles with humor. Even the Lord’s advice to remove the beam from one’s own eye before attempting to remove a splinter from a brother’s has a topsy-turvy, though logical, aspect to it (Mt 7:3-5).

Daws’ weekly written exercises led me to see how Jesus used amusing touches to throw light on serious truths. Due to Daws’ influence, I did the same when teaching the parables to my son when he was a toddler. I’d have the boy bursting with laughter as I read various verses, using funny voices for certain characters to be sure he’d remember the lessons they taught.

Another aspect of our Lord’s humorous side was in making up nicknames, such as when James and John, indignant at a village that closed its gates to them, offered — all on their own, mind you — to call down fire from heaven for the slight. 

Jesus dryly pointed out that he had come to save sinners, not destroy them. He then merrily dubbed the brothers “boanerges,” meaning “sons of thunder” (Mk 3:17).

With self-deprecating banter Jesus noted that John the Baptist fasted and refused to drink wine, all for the love of God. The Pharisees, focusing on John’s steadfast humility and threatened by his acts of self-renunciation, dubbed him “a demon.” Jesus responded, “For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they said, ‘He is possessed by a demon.’ The Son of Man came eating and drinking and they said, ‘Look, he is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners’” (Mt 11:19). In this, Jesus farcically demonstrates that there is no satisfying hypocrites.

John’s Gospel shows Jesus using paradoxes, as when he miraculously opens the eyes of a man born blind (Chapter 9). He uncovers the blind envy and hatred of the Pharisees. They have perfect eyesight, but then deliberately refuse to recognize God’s goodness when they see it. Most importantly, Jesus founded his Church on the paradox of Simon bar Jonah, whom he dubbed Peter, the Rock, to lead his Church.

G.K. Chesterton noted in Heretics: “He chose for its cornerstone neither the brilliant Paul nor the mystical John, but a shuffler, a snob, a coward … All empires and kingdoms have failed because of this inherent and continual weakness, that they were founded by strong men on strong men … the historic Christian Church was founded on a weak man, and for that reason it is indestructible. For no chain is stronger than its weakest link.”

Daws Butler, my friend and mentor, died in 1988. Inspired by his example, I became a lector at Mass. I once suggested to Daws that he, a lector at Good Shepherd Church in Beverly Hills, should proclaim Scripture using the voice of Yogi Bear. Daws rolled his always sparkling leprechaun eyes and chuckled, “Monsignor would kill me if I did that.”

I suspect that Daws, with his hearty sense of humor, is getting along well with Jesus.