Success is counted sweetest By those who ne’er succeed. Emily Dickinson
This is for the one who tried, really tried. This is for the one who gave it his best shot and still came up short, for the one who applied himself with all his mind and heart and strength but in the end reaped no glad harvest. This is for the one who chose the good way but stumbled upon the stones of its rigorous demands. This is for the one who, more than anything, longed for righteousness, bright and clean, but who was not able attain to it. This is for the one who sought the noble, the excellent, the praiseworthy, but instead found defeat, disappointment, and despair. This is for the soul for whom the oil of gladness failed, for whom the early and latter rains did not come, the one for whom the promised land of milk and honey is but a grief and taunt.
This is not what you were told it is supposed to be. You cried out for deliverance that did not come. You beseeched the heavens for an intelligible gesture, but the skies remained detached and blank. You searched but did not find. You knocked but the door was not opened. You asked but it was not given. You are stranded, bereft as dust, in the valley of dry bones.
Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down!
You prayed to be changed, prayed so hard, but you remain in the cell of the same self. Those wonderful words which had led you to your knees are now flavorless husks, brittle sticks that prick and scratch but do not bud. In spite of the sacred admonitions, you are bone weary of fighting the good fight and, seeing no other option, have made disconsolate peace with the enemies of your soul. It seems that you must cohabitate with them, and so you sketch out their sovereign regions, each to each, the boundaries illusory and porous. The temple of cards yet stands in the center, but only by your sheer will. It is the sole remaining testament to an elusive sanctuary.
Why, O Lord, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?
Come, let us sit together, you and I, here in this lonely place, the wails of the doomed rising from the abyss on the one side, the joyous shouts of the blessed cascading from the holy mountain on the other. It is enough. I will not be like Job’s friends who offered true but empty consolations. I will stay silent, my tongue abashed and still, except, perhaps, to say, and only once to say,
All I know is just what I read in the papers, and that’s an alibi for my ignorance. Will Rogers
Ignorance is never is short supply. In fact, it appears to be the quintessential quality of the human race. For every example of human insight, there are a thousand that demonstrate our astonishing lack of understanding. What we discover we desecrate; what we enhance becomes a tool to enslave; what we raise, we raze. In spite of our achievements, Homo sapiens have proven over and over that we are not so sapient as we suppose. As Albert Einstein remarked, “Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.”
Discerning readers might wish to point out that, technically, ignorance and stupidity are different things. Ignorance is a lack of information, whereas stupidity is a lack of intelligence. An intelligent person may be ignorant about certain things—and often is aware that he is. The stupid person has no such self-awareness. The intelligent person can recognize his ignorance. The stupid person cannot recognize his stupidity. An intelligent person is certainly not above being stupid, but the stupid person can be nothing but.
More often than not, however, ignorance and stupidity go hand in hand. Ignorance frequently produces stupidity, and stupidity always reinforces ignorance. I will let the reader provide his own examples from the abundance of options. (Note: If most of the examples which come to mind serve to illuminate the abject stupidity of others, the reader may want to revisit his assumptions.) Suffice it to say that ignorance and stupidity go together like Laurel and Hardy, nuts and bolts, or diaper and rash.
The scriptures identify ignorance as a fundamental condition of humanity. It is now the default setting in our relationship with God and the world. According to Paul, this ignorance was born when humankind exchanged the truth of God for a lie, thus forfeiting true knowledge. Importantly, this decisive lack of information is the result of humankind’s rejection of the truth. Ignorance did not prompt the first rebellion against God, although the serpent successfully leveraged the idea. On the contrary, it is rebellion that led to human ignorance, and this ignorance is nothing less than of truth itself.
Even so, the oracles of the Enlightenment and their progeny argue that human reason escaped the full impact of the Fall, that we are still able to discover truth if we only apply ourselves. Thus, the veneration for intellectual, scientific, and rational spiritual pursuits. But this not the biblical perspective. One of the consequences of abandoning the truth is a profound corruption of the mind. Human thinking became futile and our foolish hearts were darkened. We are always learning but never able to come to a knowledge of the truth. Humans not only lack vital information, we also lack intelligence. Paul sums it up this way:
They did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God [ignorance] so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done [stupidity].
In other words, humankind is by default both ignorant and stupid.
This pitiable condition is inescapable, even for the passionately moral or religious. Paul, that ardent Hebrew of Hebrews, insists that even the Jews, who possess the articulated covenant of God, are still captive to ignorance. For I can testify about them, he writes, that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge. (The Christian, too, is susceptible; resistance to the Holy Spirit is an act of blatant ignorance.) But uninformed faith is not simply a matter of benign misdirection. The proverb bluntly warns that zeal without knowledge is not good. The prophet Hosea laments, My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Ignorance is lethal. And not just for the unfortunate practitioner. When an ignorant humanity embraces a moral or religious creed, it’s time to head for the hills. As Martin Luther King, Jr. observed, “Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.” (Again, the reader is free to offer his own evidence.) No matter the form of implementation, whether secular or sacred, ignorance and stupidity always bear fruit according to their kinds.
The Gospel of the New Testament proclaims the one antidote to humankind’s systemic ignorance. It is to know the mystery of God, namely, Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. The greatest offense to a fallen humanity happens to be its salvation. The one true knowledge, which our first parents deemed not worth retaining, is now returned to us in the Son of God. In him the ignorance born of rebellion is vanquished. As Paul declared to the citizens of Athens,
“In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.”
If ignorance is the fruit of rebellion, then only obedience can restore true knowledge. Christ submitted to his Father’s will and gained access for us, and through him the knowledge leading to life is now available to all. “Repent and believe,” Jesus preached. “Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” Wisdom, indeed.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. Isaiah 55:8-9
Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. Philippians 4:6
I’ve discovered that the tendency to freak out is inversely proportional to the time spent in prayer. Less prayer, more freak; more prayer, less freak.
But once again I get ahead of myself.
In the midst of crisis, a supernal calm can be maddening to those who equate it with denial or delinquency. When the sky is falling, only the blind and irresponsible sit down for a picnic. Given the information at hand, Chicken Little’s panic is entirely warranted. We are amused only because we know the real situation; the guileless chicken did not. If the hapless Henny Penny had been right, anything but a full-on scream-your-bloody-head-off Paul Revere warning ride would have been unforgivable. We’re talking fried chicken.
These are days of chronic crisis. If it’s not immigrants pouring over the border, it’s the latest asteroid hurtling toward the planet. There’s tumult in the Middle East, war in Ukraine, geopolitical destabilization, accelerating climate change, emerging infectious diseases, political polarization, economic inequality, hemorrhaging healthcare, disquieting advances in artificial intelligence, Beyoncé as a cowgirl. As Roseanne Roseannadanna used to say, “If it’s not one thing, it’s another.” When it comes to delightful dilemmas and disasters to die from, we have an embarrassment of riches.
Of course, it’s always been this way. Wars are a staple of human history. Everlasting civilizations collapsed like clockwork. Volcanos erupted and earthquakes quaked. Populations were frequently decimated by famines, plagues, and the whims of unscrupulous tyrants. Slavery was a matter of course, and human sacrifice had long been the haute cuisine among the fashionable gods. Until 1500, human life-expectancy was only thirty years. And if all this wasn’t bad enough, the poor sods had to slog through without smartphones, Starbucks, or Spotify. Unimaginable.
It is not surprising, then, that freaking out has also been a favorite human pastime. People have wrung their hands about the end of the world for as long as there have been ends of the world to wring hands about. And one of these days it will be the End—or at least the end of Part One, if the users Immanuel is correct. I actually believe that the freakers among us are right; it is all going to hell in a hand basket—and perhaps even sooner than any of us might think. And so it might seem suspect that I am decidedly not in freak mode.
One of the best scenes in The Princess Bride movie is of a sword fight between the lovable rapscallion, Inigo Montoya, and Westley, who is disguised as the “Dread Pirate Roberts.” Their southpaw swordplay enthralls as it appears that they are equally skilled. At one point, Westley gains the advantage and presses Inigo to the edge of the cliff where he notices something on the face of his opponent. “Why are you smiling?” asks Westley, to which Inigo replies, “Because I know something you don’t know. I am not left-handed.” Inigo flips his sword to his right hand and the tables are turned—that is until Westley reveals that he isn’t left-handed either. Even when you know it’s coming, the joke never fails to delight.
The scriptures relate many examples of inside intel and holy chill in the face of imminent calamity. In one well-known case, a pagan king, enraged at the prophet Elisha, sent his armies to surround the little town where Elisha and his servant were staying. According to the record,
When the servant of the man of God got up and went out early the next morning, an army with horses and chariots had surrounded the city. “Oh no, my lord! What shall we do?” the servant asked. “Don’t be afraid,” the prophet answered. “Those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” And Elisha prayed, “Open his eyes, Lord, so that he may see.” Then the Lord opened the servant’s eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.
And then there’s the famous account of Jesus and his disciples caught in a furious storm while they were crossing a lake. Waves swept over the boat and the disciples were terrified of drowning. Jesus, however, was sound asleep. (I Am what I Ambien?) As Matthew records it, the disciples went and woke him, saying, “Lord, save us! We’re going to drown!” He replied, “You of little faith, why are you so afraid?” Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the waves, and it was completely calm. That demonstration, we are told, really freaked out the boys in the boat. Pick your poison.
Yes. Things are crazy out there, and it’s not going to get better as long as humans are in charge. But freak out? I suppose—if you have nothing better to do.
“If I look confused, it is because I am thinking.” Samuel Goldwyn
The unexamined life is not worth living, said Socrates. One of the most important distinctions between humans and other animals is our ability to reflect upon our own existence. The famous dictum is literally translated the unexamined life is not lived by man. Socrates believed that to live without contemplation is not to live as a human at all. Absent deliberate thoughtfulness, we are but base creatures of instinct or, according to the psalmist, brutish and ignorant like a beast. Our capacity for higher thought is what sets us apart in the material world. As Blaise Pascal has noted, Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature,but he is a thinking reed. We may be dust in the wind, but we are dust with minds. To invert René Descartes: I am, therefore I think.
For many, thinking is mostly a means to an end. Reason is the ability to solve problems, and once a problem is solved there is nothing left to think about except the next problem in line. Human life is comprised of a series of challenges to be addressed and overcome. There may be a few collateral perks along the way, like the Mona Lisa or Mozart or macaroons, but human existence is essentially a string of “if X then Y” propositions. The answer to “Why?” is always “X.” This suffices.
Unfortunately, such reduction can lead to a rather disenchanted journey, even for a theist. For the Christian, it can take the form of a very un-Socratic axiom: “The Bible says it; I believe it; that settles it.” Inquiry is seen as a form of doubt, or at least an impious waste of time. This perspective, however, can be seen as a kind of intellectual laziness—or even cowardice—and has led many, including the famous 20th century philosopher and futurist, Buckminster Fuller, to conclude: Belief is when someone else does the thinking. Intellects far greater than Fuller’s would take exception to that, but it is true that many saints seem indifferent to anything beyond practical, how-to Christianity.
Over the years I have heard believers proclaim many things about God. They have testified that God is good, that God is holy, that God is powerful, that God is gracious, that God is wise. I have heard them proclaim that he is righteous, merciful, and just. But in all those years, I have never heard someone boldly declare that God is interesting. Among the believing rank and file there seems to be a strange lack of actual curiosity about God. I have found zeal for service; I have found passion for worship; I have found affection for the church; I have found reverence for the scriptures. What I have rarely found in the average layman, however, is a genuine inquisitiveness that compels someone to explore, for exploration’s sake, the astonishing nature and work of God.
When Jesus was asked which was the most important commandment, he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” We’re familiar with the heart aspect of love; the heart is the seat of the emotions. Loving God involves an emotive response. A purely intellectual ascent to his greatness is not love; it is theory. Soul simply means life, the individual’s being. As the poetic King James renders man’s creation: The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. Soul is an umbrella term under which all the aspects of life are housed. To love God with all our souls is to surrender without reserve our whole selves to him. And to love God with all our strength means, as Paul has it, to honor God with your bodies. Heart, soul, and strength are concepts easily grasped.
To love God with all our minds is not so easy to parse. The best most can offer is that it means to think about God a lot. It’s hard to argue with that, but it’s not very enlightening. Jesus’ answer implies that we are to love God with all the consciouscapacities of the mind. Those capacities are reasoning, memory, and imagination. We have already alluded to the mind’s ability to reason things out. To love God with our minds does indeed involve a deliberate seeking, sorting, and solving. This is how the devout scientists of old understood their mandate. This is also the motivation for theology, what thinkers of the High Middle Ages used to refer to as the Queen of the Sciences. Scientists searched out the how; theologians explored the why. Both thought of their vocations as a form of divine adoration. For Christians especially, grappling with unanswered questions, whether terrestrial or heavenly, is an expression of love for the God who made all things.
To love God with our minds also employs memory. The mind’s capacity to retain information is fundamental. As the heartbreaking reality of dementia underscores, memory is essential for personhood; we are the sum of our experiences. An individual is who he remembers himself to be. That is one reason why the scriptures so often exhort the Hebrews to store up in their minds the decrees of God. Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; Moses commanded. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Jesus informs his disciples that the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. To commit to memory who God is and what he has said, and to recount his blessings and faithfulness, is not only to express love for him but to remember whom he has made us to be.
With regard to love for God, the least appreciated capacity of the mind is imagination. The word itself reveals its meaning. To imagine is to create a mental image. Such an image is not limited to real world experiences. The mind is able to create powerful experiences of its own. Some can be terrifying like forebodings or nightmares; others can be uplifting or frothily delightful (think: unicorns). The capacity to imagine things beyond the natural order seems less frivolous when we recognize its crucial role in our relationship with God. The mind’s ability to travel beyond the provincial earthly realm enables us to spy what worldly eyes cannot. Through the imagination vision becomes visionary. The mind can see what the eye cannot, and this can prompt wonderment and worship. To love God with all our minds means entertaining glories only apparent (at least for now) to the mind’s eye.
I am not advocating for so-called mystical contemplations of the divine. I am speaking of the joys of thinking itself. Even the psalmist wasn’t locked into a rigid religious rubric; he often let his mind wander among the universe’s countless marvels: I will ponder all your work and meditate on your mighty deeds. Sometimes it is good to set aside all the practical and religious demands of daily life and just ponder, not to solve problems or satisfy vague obligations, but simply to explore—to think for thinking’s sake. It may not produce a winning argument or great invention, but as playwright Arthur Miller cautioned, “Don’t be seduced into thinking that that which does not make a profit is without value.”
Think about that.
“There are no dangerous thoughts; thinking itself is dangerous.” Hannah Arendt
Like everyone else who makes the mistake of getting older, I begin each day with coffee and obituaries. Bill Cosby
One day, some twenty or more years ago, my 85-year old dad and I were working on something in his yard in the little town of Deering, North Dakota. It was a bright, windy day, so typical of summer on the northern prairies. Out of the blue he paused and looked at me. “I don’t know how I ended up an old man,” he said. “On the inside I feel the same, but on the outside I’ve gotten old.” That was it; he did not elaborate. We returned to our task and he never mentioned it again.
He’s gone now and sleeps in a small, hardscrabble cemetery outside the little hometown he loved. But that moment remains as clear and crisp as a North Dakota day. My dad was surprised by what others before him had likewise discovered. As Emily Dickinson noted, Old age comes on suddenly and not gradually as is thought. Aging can often seem more of an ambush than a devolution.
I confess that for some time now I have regularly checked the obituaries of my hometown newspaper. I’ve noticed that the birth years of the deceased are steadily creeping toward my own. The death of former classmates, whether I knew them well or not, always inflicts a quiet stab of loss. There is something poignant to me about the passing even of those I do not know. Formal portraits, photographed decades ago, show young faces glowing fresh and vibrant. Casual snapshots, barely usable for publication, hint at the last-minute scramble of loved ones caught unprepared by so abrupt a departure. And, of course, there are the expected faces, photos taken at a 90th birthday party or drawn from a church directory. Every entry is the record of a life lived, a brief argument against the long forgetfulness of the grave.
Awareness of mortality does not necessarily mean morbidity. Confronting the stark reality of death can serve to magnify the exquisite value and joy of life. This is especially true for those whose ultimate hope lies beyond the circles of the world. Years ago, before I had attained to that vague milestone known as middle age—an achievement which I have, arguably, already left behind—I was moved to pray this verse from the Psalms: Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. The insight seemed simple enough; acknowledging that I had a limited engagement was a pillar of wisdom. What I did not anticipate was the answer to that prayer. Ever since, I have heard the ticking of the clock. I admit that at times it has disturbed me like the watch in Poe’s story The Tell-tale Heart. It can seep into even the most delightful moments. But strangely, and more often than not, this sober intrusion also infuses a transcendent glow, lifting the moment out of the moment to reveal an elusive beauty that makes the heart ache with longing.
In Frank Capra’s beloved movie It’s a Wonderful Life a man on a porch berates young George Bailey who is reluctant to surrender his affections to 18-year old Mary Hatch:
Man: Why don’t you kiss her instead of talking her to death? George: You want me to kiss her, huh? Man: Ah, youth is wasted on the wrong people!
Here is enacted the age-old conundrum. The young have life but little wisdom; the old have wisdom but little life. Perhaps that’s what the psalmist seeks to address. The sooner I recognize that life is fleeting, the sooner I can embrace a truly wonderful life.
The ticking of the clock is also a reminder that time does not stand still. Each passing moment is a moment forever gone. God may have access to the past, but we do not. Wisdom learns from the past but is not trapped by it. The Apostle Paul strives to make the most of every opportunity—forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead. He knows that meaning is not sourced from the past but from what is yet to come. He exhorts the Corinthians: Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. A meaningful life is not a matter of duration but of purpose. Even so, it’s the tick tick tick that gives the journey its urgency.
King David was once the ruddy, youthful darling among Jesse’s sons. But he too knew what it meant to age. I was young and now I am old, he wrote and referred to his once robust body as this leaning wall, this tottering fence. Such is the fate of all who are born into the world. As Isaiah cries: All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field. Learning to number our days does not alter that. What it does do is charge our days with significance. Life is not a generality; it is manifest moment by moment—and only in the moment. There is no future, only the coming now.
Echoing King David, the poet William Butler Yeats wrote that an aged man is but a paltry thing, a tattered coat upon a stick. Those who know the aches and pains of growing old might concur. There is no escaping the stubborn realities of aging. But the end of our days need not be gloomy. The proverb declares that the gray hair of the righteous is a crown of splendor. And even though it is appointed for man to die once, there is great peace for those who have learned true wisdom. As William Wordsworth writes, An old age serene and bright, and lovely as a Lapland night, shall lead thee to thy grave. Serene and bright and lovely? Yes, please.
Live so that when the final summons comes you will leave something more behind you than an epitaph on a tombstone or an obituary in a newspaper. Billy Sunday
“We played the pipe for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn.” Matthew 11:17
nu·ance noun
a subtle difference or distinction
sensibility to variations (of meaning, tone, or value)
The gospel is as binary as it gets. Jesus doesn’t leave much wiggle room when it comes to God. “No one comes to the Father except through me,” he tells his disciples. Peter reiterates when he is questioned by a hostile tribunal of Jewish leaders: “Salvation is found in no one else,” he proclaims. “For there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.” Those who flinch at the exclusivist claims of Christianity have only its founder to blame—though shooting the messenger continues to be a popular sport. And those who soft-pedal the gospel in order to lessen its offense and widen the narrow way know little of Jesus and even less about road construction.
So it might seem odd that I, a die-hard devotee of definitive doctrine, should decry the dearth of delicate discernment in these dehumanizing digital days. (Sorry. I got carried away.) But it is indeed the case. Our engagements with the world—politics, the arts, religion, sex—are being reduced to surfaces and stark polarities. Ideas atrophy into ideology. Sublimity sinks to sensuality. Values devolve to volume. Meaning mummifies into meme. There is no mistaking it: nuance is dying—and I mourn its demise.
If it were a matter of cultural deprivation alone, it would be lamentable enough. Inhabiting the current landscape can make some of us feel like three-dimensional beings trapped in a two-dimensional world. We take refuge in old-school literature or classical music and with these fragments shore against the advancing ruins of the wasteland. We have learned to keep our condemnable opinions to ourselves, having experienced the quick-draw, blunt instrument wrath of the new enlightenment. We comfort ourselves with the words of the Spartan commander when his small band of warriors faced an overwhelming Persian army: “They have the numbers; we, the heights.” We fortify our courage, even though we well know how that ancient battle ended.
As I say, if it were merely a matter of cultural privation, we might hunker down with a good book and quietly hope that the barbarian hordes will leave us to ourselves. But it is not merely a cultural issue. The end of nuance also means a stunted spiritual imagination; that is, a shrunken capacity to perceive spiritual realities—and this has dire consequences for both believer and nonbeliever alike.
The generation of Christ’s own time also suffered for want of spiritual imagination. The Jews were zealous guardians of divine law, but they could not grasp the reality that it spelled out; they could perceive only the flat facts of the world. They could read the law of Moses but not the writing on the wall. “You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky,” Jesus tells them, “but you cannot interpret the signs of the times.” The implications of this imaginative poverty were devastating. Jesus wept over Jerusalem:
“If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes. The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.”
Our own generation is increasingly handicapped by an evaporating capacity for both nuance and spiritual imagination. The roots of the problem aren’t difficult to identify. That humankind exchanged the truth of God for a lie is, of course, the primal seed which, as Milton decants it, brought death into the world, and all our woe. But from this has lately sprung a garden of noxious seedlings—substandard education, pervasive digital media, relentless social indoctrination, and biblical illiteracy, to name a few. These creep like invasive vines into the mind and suck all but a husk of lower functions and instinct.
The result is a culture that cannot make connections. Nuance employs allusion, and allusions require a meaningful shelf life. In a world of instants there can be no allusions, for there is nothing to allude to. Experience is caught in its own echo chamber, amplifying itself out of all context. There is only this/now which is blind and deaf to all but itself. Nuance also demands discrimination. Discrimination is a learned ability that is developed by practice. The multiplicity championed by the culture is, in fact, monolithic, a many-faced facelessness that only erodes true discernment. Above all, nuance requires margins where reflection can occur. Velocity is the enemy of contemplation. The relentless onslaught of information and images floods the mind and the senses, leaving no refuge for contemplation, no vantage point to behold anything beyond everything.
Good medicine, it seems to me, is to purposefully nurture a capacity for nuance. Reading is a good start. Making time for prayer is also profitable as it offers you a wider vista. Conversation—without added entertainments like games or movies—enhances attention and feeds the soul. Our culture may lack for nuance, but we don’t have to. The capacity for nuance clarifies and enriches, and—very importantly—can save us from the fouler snares.
Fear of man will prove to be a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is kept safe. Proverbs 29:25
Ricky Gervais is an English comedian who is well known as the creator of the BBC comedy series, The Office. Gervais has won seven BAFTA (British TV) Awards, five British Comedy Awards, two Emmy Awards, and four Golden Globe Awards. His standup performances draw large crowds and he has produced comedy specials for Netflix. He is one of the most prolific and successful comedic performers of the past twenty years. He also happens to be an avowed atheist.
Gervais is perhaps best known, however, for his ruthless skewering of Hollywood elites as the five-time host of the Golden Globe Awards. As he opened the 77th annual show, he warned his glamorous (and nervous) audience: “You’ll be pleased to know this is the last time I’m hosting the Golden Globe Awards. I don’t care anymore.” He added, “I’m joking. I never did.” True to his word, he ripped into the assembled glitterati with his signature show-no-mercy humor. Nothing was off the table, to the camera-caught distress of many in the audience. After an especially devastating barb, he would respond to the audible gasps with “Shut up. Shut up. I don’t care. I don’t care.” It was a must-watch, made-for-television massacre.
Disregard for his audience’s indignation is central to Gervais’ comedy. “I’m a scientist at heart,” he explains, “so I know how important the truth is. However inconvenient, however unattractive, however embarrassing, however shocking, the truth is the truth, and wanting it not to be true doesn’t change things.” Gervais is not about to pander to those who find his material offensive. “Someone not liking my work doesn’t mean I have to give the awards or the money back. People who don’t like your work have no effect on you.” On the contrary, Gervais sees outrage as an expected reaction to truth-telling. “Offense is the collateral damage of free speech.” His comedic sensibilities have won a huge following, although there are no doubt many who will not miss his face during awards season.
Jesus isn’t generally known as a comedian. His brand of humor is more of the cosmic kind: the long set up, the apparent defeat, the turn-about punch line. (Nobody pulls off a resurrection like Jesus.) He could fire off a zinger when he wanted to, but he was more into the slow burn. As an entertainer, Jesus was unparalleled. Thousands would gather to watch him perform, especially if refreshments were served. People loved his earthy stories—and the potential for free healthcare. Unlike Gervais, Jesus was a full-on theist.
Yet, like Gervais, Jesus could ruffle a few feathers. His audience didn’t always appreciate it when he aimed too close for comfort, and his disciples sometimes felt the need to point that out. On one occasion, Jesus delivered a trademark line to upend a common assumption: “What goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them.” The Jewish religious leaders in the crowd didn’t think it was very funny. Afterward the disciples came to him. “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this?” Jesus replied, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots.” For Jesus, offense wasn’t merely the “collateral damage of free speech.” Sometimes it was the whole point.
Jesus was not cowed by the tyranny of public opinion like so many in his audience were. Many even among the Jewish leaders believed in him, but for fear of the Pharisees they would not openly acknowledge their faith. As John writes it: They loved human praise more than praise from God. Jesus confronted this issue directly. “How can you believe since you accept glory from one another but do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?” Even the noteworthy Nicodemus succumbed and kept his fledgling faith under cover of night. For Jesus, on the other hand, public approval or disapproval meant nothing. “I do not accept glory from men,” he flatly declared. John put it in a nutshell: While Jesus was in Jerusalem at the Passover Festival, many people saw the signs he was performing and believed in his name. But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all men. He did not need testimony about mankind, for he knew what was in a man. This disregard for public opinion eventually got him killed—or shall we say cancelled. But that, of course, was part of the joke.
For many the Apostle Paul is one of the most offensive performers of all. To the culturally enlightened, he’s the Andrew Dice Clay of Christian dogma whose takes on women, homosexuality, and slavery are regressive at best. Paul was an equal opportunity offender. Even his staunchest allies admitted that his material often got him into a lot of trouble. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, noted Peter, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures. To say that Paul was a funny guy might be pushing it a bit, but his short-fuse, in-your-face persona was every bit as controversial as Gervais and Jesus. He was not inclined to tip-toe on eggshells; his mantra was straightforward: Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. Paul would have been a prime candidate to host the Golden Globes.
Like Gervais and Jesus, Paul had little concern for public opinion. I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court, he asserted. Indeed, I do not even judge myself. Paul saw disregard for public opinion as a requisite for his very mission. If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ. He understood that Christians can face some tough crowds, but that’s just the way it goes. He exhorted young Timothy, Do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner. Rather, join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God. Believers are not to be kowtowed, as he reminded Timothy: God has not given us a spirit of timidity. Ultimately, Paul shared Gervais’ conviction that “the truth is the truth.” For this reason, he proclaimed, I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes. For his audacity Paul ended up in chains, but for him prison was just another stop on the tour.
Considering the company he keeps, Ricky might want to reconsider his theological perspective.
Then the Lord relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened. Exodus 32:14
When I was in second grade, I took judo lessons at the local YMCA. Once a week we donned our white judogis to practice flips and falls. I’ve never been much of a fighter, so I didn’t exactly enjoy the sport, but I did learn how to leverage my opponent’s weight and momentum against him and fling him to the mat. At recess one day, a big third-grader began to bully me to impress his gang. My smaller pack timidly stepped back to observe my humiliation. I have no idea how it happened, but as the thug came to shove me, I grabbed his arm, thrust out my hip, and slammed him to the dirt. The onlookers were as shocked as I was, but I looked down at my vanquished foe and said, in the levelest voice I could muster, “I know judo.” The third-graders never bothered me again.
I don’t know if Jacob employed any martial arts when he wrestled the angel, but he held his own and was able to force a capitulation from the superior (and no doubt irritated) heavenly being. That’s one way it can go with God. Prayer can sometimes be a straight-up David and Goliath thing. The lowly human faces off against the Almighty with no more than a dance belt and a tube of Chapstick and attempts to muscle a concession out of him. God actually loves a good fight. He stands in the ring and calls out, “Is there anybody here who will go toe-to-toe with me?” The crazy thing is that sometimes a foolhardy human actually wins. For all his might and sweeping sovereignty, every so often God can be made to cry uncle.
Sometimes God just has to be told no. It’s not that he’s wrong; God is always right. As the psalmist writes, The Lord is righteous in all his ways. But sometimes he has to be reminded of what’s in his best interest. For example, while Moses is hanging out with God on Mount Sinai, Aaron and the gang at the bottom decide to forge a golden calf and party down. God is not happy. “I have seen these people,” he tells Moses. “They are a stiff-necked people. Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation.” Moses (probably mindful of what a pain having his own nation would be) replies, “Why should your anger burn against your people, whom you brought out of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that he brought them out, to kill them in the mountains and to wipe them off the face of the earth’? Turn from your fierce anger; relent and do not bring disaster on your people.” God decides that Odd Moe has a point and calls off the massacre. Whether that ultimately turned out to be a good thing is still open to discussion. But that’s a different story.
King David also had to tell God to chill. In one of the weirdest of many weird accounts of the Old Testament, we are told that God incited David to take a census of Israel and Judah. (In the later Chronicles culpability is shifted over to Satan to avoid an awkward conflict of interest.) And so, against the counsel of his military chief, David counts the fighting men of his kingdom. This arouses God’s anger—go figure—and he offers David a multiple-choice punishment. David opts for three days of plague in the land, and God sends an angel to administrate the outbreak. After 70,000 innocent people have died, David finally appeals to the Lord. “I have sinned,” he points out. “These are but sheep. What have they done? Let your hand fall on me and my family.” David builds an altar on which he offers sacrifice, and the Lord pulls the plug on the plague. It appears that sometimes God can actually take no for an answer.
The Moses and David incidents point to the astonishing—and sobering—power that prayer has to alter the course of judgment. Divine justice rewards the righteous and punishes the wicked. It is, by definition, both impartial and inexorable. God neither punishes the innocent nor lets the guilty go free. The fact that God is just is fundamental to his character. As Paul writes to Timothy, he cannot disown himself. For him to withhold either reward from the righteous or punishment from the wicked would be unjust and would call into question God’s very nature and character. In other words, it is impossible for the true God to forgo the dictates born of his being.
Which brings into sharp focus the blasphemous privilege and power of intercession. To the prophet Ezekiel God laments, “I looked for someone among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so I would not have to destroy it, but I found no one.” This is one of the most poignant confessions in all of scripture; it reveals the unbearable problem of a God who is both just and loving. God is compelled by his infinite justice to destroy the land and its inhabitants, but he does not want to. He searches for someone who will stand between himself and himself, to advocate both for the land and argue against punishment. What is remarkable is that God himself seeks to be resisted. The tragedy is that resistance was not then to be found.
Of course, the perfect advocate did come, the Son who is sent into the world. As Isaiah declares, He saw that there was no one, he was appalled that there was no one to intervene; so his own arm achieved salvation for him, and his own righteousness sustained him. The Cross is the crux of God’s advocacy against himself. Jesus is the supreme mediator between a just God and humankind. But in Christ the saints are awarded the same audacious power to stay the hand of inexorable judgment. We, too, are awarded the privilege of altering the unalterable. God does not show favoritism, Paul asserts, but as James reminds us, the prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. Through prayer the saints can stand between divine intention and execution, challenge the sovereign God, and perhaps, just perhaps, change the course of destiny.
Engine against th’ Almighty, sinner’s tow’r, Reversed thunder, Christ-side-piercing spear from “Prayer” by George Herbert
