It was the first SNL after the 9/11 attacks. It started on a somber tone. How would a show, which was live from New York and built on satire on humor—respond in the midst of a national tragedy.
Lorne Michaels asked the million dollar question to Mayor Giuliani. “Can we be funny?”
And Giuliani’s humorous response, “why start now”, seemed to give the nation permission to laugh again. We understood the powerful role that laughter has in our healing. I don’t know if President Bush watched SNL but if he did I wonder if he let out a huge sigh of relief when in October of 2001, Will Ferrell revived his Bush impersonation with a good ol’ Texas message to Osama bin Laden.
It was still satire. It was still poking fun at President Bush. But it was lovable. It was tasteful. And it was healing.
Fast forward to 2021 and we aren’t laughing any more. I’ve not seen an episode of SNL in years. But I’ll occasionally watch a late show or delve into other avenues of comedy. And from my view of things, we’ve lost our ability to laugh. There are many buttons we now refuse to push. Our comedy is just as polarized as our nation. Satire has become one-sided. And it’s killing us.
I’m not advocating for a return to cynical laughter. That’s the type of laughter that the Preacher of Ecclesiastes called madness. Scoffing and mocking isn’t going to help us return to anything remotely beneficial to us or pleasing to God. But there is a hopeful laughter that is only borne out of the gospel that I believe has been lost.
I think Edwin Friedman is insightful here. Speaking of “chronically anxious families” he says “lacking the capacity to be playful, their perspective is narrow.” That could easily describe us as a nation. We aren’t able to play anymore and because of this our perspective has narrowed. Friedman continues:
Indeed, in any family or organization, seriousness is so commonly an attribute of the most anxious (read ‘difficult’) members that they can quite appropriately be considered to be functioning out of a reptilian regression. Broadening the perspective, the relationship between anxiety and seriousness is so predictable that the absence of playfulness in any institution is almost always a clue to the degree of its emotional regression. (Friedman, 71)
I would contend that the church—with our resurrection hope—is in a unique position to provide this playfulness. Yes, there is a need for blood-earnestness when it comes to the gospel. There is certainly a type of joviality in the face of anguish which is not only unhelpful but actively harmful. However, there is a corresponding consequence to always being serious. It can mute the realities of the gospel.
I believe Jay Stringer is correct in his observation that “someone who knows vulnerability is someone not afraid to dance.” (Stringer, 198) The gospel should inspire dancing. Because it calls us into a vulnerability that is met with eternal acceptance. This is part of our resurrection hope. We will see Him as He is. And we’ll dance.
We need that glimpse of heaven in the here and now. For the sake of our communities we must not mistake seriousness of attitude with actual change. There is a way in which we can pursue real change with a playfulness that would cause the dour among us to accuse us of being a “glutton, a drunkard, and a friend of tax collectors”. You don’t get that reputation by being hopelessly serious.
Maybe we should Make America Joke Again. Is it possible that such a playfulness met with a blood-earnest gospel could actually create real lasting change? Could we somehow tackle the atrocities in our nation with a cheerfulness birthed from gospel hope? I think we can. I believe we must.
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Photo source: here
