There is plenty of room and opportunity for humor for those in pursuit of a spiritual life. Rev. Susan Sparks, a minister from New York city, spoke at Union Chapel in Oak Bluffs on Sunday morning. Her sermon Laughing Your Way to Grace drew applause after she repeatedly got the congregation to laugh. Reverend Sparks, with a Southern accent, said she had a simple message: Religion isn’t just about being serious.

“You don’t have to remember anything else,” she said, if the audience remembers the following: “If you can laugh at yourself, you can forgive yourself. If you can forgive yourself, you can forgive others,” she said.

She then went on to say that people are often prisoners of their inability to move on, and forgiving can be a great liberator. Humor is a spiritual gift that helps people move through difficult times.

In another message she spoke about those who obsess about trouble. She said: “We are all so worried about what we’ve lost.” She then told an audience about an uplifting article she read in a daily newspaper about a community fundraiser being held for a 107-year-old man. She said the money was needed to help the man move on, that in the span of his life, he had lost all of his money three times.

Reverend Sparks was introduced by the the Union Chapel president Alphonse Carter. He described her as a woman with many hats; in addition to being a minister she was also a trial lawyer. “She is kind of unusual. She is the only female comedian on the pulpit,” he said. She is the senior pastor at the Madison Avenue Baptist Church and she originally comes from Atlanta.

Mr. Carter said anyone who attends a service at Union Chapel is immediately a member of Union Chapel and therefore welcome any time. He said the church has a very short season, running from the last Sunday of June to the last Sunday in August. The summer church service season is a brief informal gathering of both religious leaders and the congregation. Reverend Sparks was the third featured guest speaker.

Next Sunday, July 19, The Very Rev. James Kowalski of Catherdral Church of St. John the Divine, New York city will speak.

The organist and choral director is Garrett Brown.