In On The Joke--December 31, 2020

In On the Joke--December 31, 2020

"Just as [the gospel] is bearing fruit and growing in the whole world, so it has been bearing from among yourselves from the day you heard it and truly comprehended the grace of God." [Colossians 1:6b]

The gospel, despite all the ways that theologians and Respectable Religious People have complicated it, is really almost so simple that it sounds too good to be true.  Like watching fireflies or a meteor shower on a summer night and knowing that something beautiful and wonderful is being offered right before your eyes, so long as you don't blink for too long and miss it.  Or like a joke whose punch line so completely surprises you that you are elated to the point of hilarious tears, the gospel comes as the announcement that you are already home free before you've even embarked on the first step of your quest.

And, in all seriousness, the gospel is something like a joke in that it's something you "get," not by forcing yourself to learn correct facts or theological jargon or by completing the correct religious tasks, but like something that happens to you.  When someone tells a joke and then elbows you after the punch line while saying, "Get it?  Get it?" they aren't asking if you possess enough knowledge to pass an aptitude test--they are asking whether the exhilarating experience of the comedic twist has hit you yet.  "Getting it" is an experience rather like an epiphany--it dawns on you, rather than being an achievement.  And "getting it," when it comes to the gospel, is in so many words, the epiphany that God has already "gotten" you, and that God's getting doesn't depend on your "getting it" first.

It is, as Paul Tillich once said, about accepting the fact that you are already accepted.  It's about comprehending that you don't have to comprehend the Mystery who is God in order for that God's love to encompass and claim you.  It's what happens to you when you realize you are loved regardless of how unlovely or loveless you have been--and that you are just as completely, recklessly, beloved even when you have a hard time believing it is true.  "Getting it" when it comes to the gospel is like wrapping your mind around the fact that you belong even when you can't wrap your mind around grace.  It is, in the end, the awareness that your grip on God is not ultimately what saves you, but God's grip on you--and that God ain't letting go of you.  Ever.

So when the apostle here talks with the Colossians about how the gospel is growing and bearing fruit in them since the day they first "comprehended the grace of God," he's not patting them on the back for being clever enough or smart enough to learn their theology lessons or score an A+ on their religion exams.  He's saying, "Y'all get it--you 'get' the reality that you've been claimed by God as a free gift already, and there are no exams!  And you have let that free gift change your own outlook so that you can be people of recklessly free grace to others, too!"

And that's it--the gospel does change us, but it's like unclenching a fist more than boot camp indoctrination.  It's like the way when someone tells you a joke that makes you laugh so hard you spit the water out of your mouth or squeal with delighted tears, you then want to run to tell someone else the very same joke and give the very same joy to them.  The Gospel's freedom and hilarity are contagious, turning us from recipients of its raucously divine comedy into sharers... perpetuators... co-conspirators of grace.

So all this business about how the gospel is growing and bearing fruit isn't a matter of Saint Paul the School Master saying, "I notice how you are all improving in your social graces and how you are all such good boys and girls, now that you have accepted Jesus into your hearts, prayed the right prayer, and put on a good show of piety."  It's more like saying, "You all are in on the joke now--and I notice you're all running out to tell other people the same gut-busting punch-line so they can be in on it, too!  Good job!"

And the gospel will have an effect on us.  After all, once it dawns on you that God's not keeping score, it seems awfully bad form to continue keeping score with other people.  Once you realize that you are the recipient of nothing but divine freebies and that everything (EVERYTHING!) in your life is a gift you did not earn, it becomes a lot harder to be stingy about other people being given good things beyond their deserving, too.  Once you "get it" that you have been infinitely forgiven, grace has a way of making you rejoice to see other people forgiven as well--of debts, sins, and past baggage. And once you've realized that you were accepted by God before you even put it into words or gave it a thought to accept God into your life, well, you're going to want to share that realization far and wide.  Grace changes us--it makes us operate on an economy of mercy with others when we realize that God's only way of dealing with us is by grace.

So today, let it sink in.  Hear the punch line all over again, like it was for the first time. (Maybe, if you've been stuck in Respectable Religious Circles for very long, it really is the first time.)  The Gospel is not a business transaction you have to be savvy enough to accept.  It is not an academic subject you must be intelligent enough to master.  It is the hilarious punch line of God's divine comedy that you and the whole world are beloved, claimed, and chosen apart from anybody's bean-counting or rubrics of good behavior.  And once you get a joke like that, well, what else can we do but find someone else to tell it to?

Lord God, delight us again with the news of your free gift of grace, and let it change us with the audacity of your love.