Ecclesia Ludens, the Church at Play

There’s an obscure, somewhat bizarre episode in the Book of Acts that crosses my mind every once in a while when I’m deep in the thick of ministry at the FreeWay. It’s the story of Paul and the Seven Sons of Sceva.

In case this one wasn’t included in your Sunday School flannel graphs, let me give you the background. During the course of his missionary journeys, Paul arrives in Ephesus, where there is a septet of Jewish brothers going around performing exorcisms for hire. These seven “sons of Sceva” get a load of the miracles Paul’s performing in Jesus’ name, so they decide to give it a try. “In the name of Jesus whom Paul preaches,” they intone over their next demonized client, “I abjure you to come out!” And the result looks something like a cross between WWF and Monty Python:

The evil spirit answered them, “Jesus I know, and I know about Paul, but who are you?” Then the man who had the evil spirit jumped on them and ... gave them such a beating that they ran out of the house naked and bleeding.  Acts 19:16

Now: when I say that this episode crosses my mind sometimes during ministry, I should clarify. It has nothing to do with the beating these guys get for trying to capitalize on Jesus’ name; and it’s not because anyone has ever run out of any of my services bleeding. It’s not even because it involves a failed attempt at casting out an evil spirit.

It’s only because it’s—well—if you can get past some of the cultural baggage here—evil spirits, random acts of cudgelling, seven dudes fleeing a house “naked and bleeding,” and what not—if you can let those things simply exist as they might have in their original, first century context—it is a funny story.

At least it was meant to be so, I think. Seven bumbling exorcists who don’t know Jesus from Adam get a royal whooping from the evil spirit they’re trying to exorcise because they misused the name of Jesus, with the ironic effect that the evil spirit, who surely has no vested interest in upholding Jesus' name, ends up pointing out just how precious and sacred and powerful it truly is. Okay: it’s not Corner Gas material, maybe; no sides got split in my telling of the tale, I’m sure, but still, the more I think about it, the more I think Luke, the author of Acts, wants this little episode to crack a pious but genuine smile on the faces of his readers.

Not that I’d recommend the majority of his work, but the guy who runs the Brick Testament website maybe got this one right, presenting it in the medium of a Lego diorama. It sort of does sound like what you’d get if a 10-year-old boy were to come up with a Bible story. Lots of action, a few good fisticuffs, and a eyebrow-arching guffaw at the end: “And he gave them such a licking they fled the house naked and bleeding!”

And this why I think about it every once and a while at the FreeWay, because it suggests to me that, for all its seriousness and eternal import—and make no mistake, ministry is serious and of eternal import—but even in the midst of all that, there is something to ministry that was meant very much to be, for lack of a better word, fun.

This isn’t an exegetical hill I’m ready to die on yet, but I wonder if a passage like Acts 19:13-16, the one about the seven beaten sons of Sceva, was written especially for church leaders who've let church life wring out of them the ability let themselves go with a good-natured, whole-hearted laugh. Or for church communities so burdened with the weight of glory that life together is no longer life-giving. Or for Christians who don’t really think, actually, that the Christian life has space in it for a healthy sense of humour.

It’s not just in Acts 19:13-16, either, that we see Luke throw a sideways glance at his audience with a wry grin that sort of says, “There is, in fact, some very holy fun, going on here, for anyone who wants to get in on the action.” In Acts 12, for instance, you get the one about Peter, escaped from prison, who goes to the house where they’re praying earnestly for his release, and the servant girl is so flummoxed to see him there that she forgets to let him in and no one will believe her that he’s at the door. In Acts 20 you get the one about poor old Eutychus, who fell asleep in the window because Paul’s sermon was so long-winded (the original long-sermon joke...) Acts is peppered, actually, with funny scenes once you start to look for them.

I should clarify. In calling these things “fun” or “funny,” I don’t mean to trivialize the things of God, or to suggest we should handle them flippantly or foolishly. C. S. Lewis has a great letter in The Screwtape Letters where he unpacks humour theologically, and suggests that there is a very important place for “the Joke Proper,” as a channel and expression of Christian Joy, that there is such a thing as a godly joke, and that laughter is not only spiritual healthy, but has all kinds of potential to be redemptive and worshipful if we’ll let it be so.

That’s the kind of funny I’m trying to get at here. And that’s the kind of fun, I think, that church ministry should include: the “funny” that is willing to watch the greatest made the least and the last made the first, and bubble up with laughter because it’s happening—the “funny” that is humble enough to laugh even at itself— the “funny” that views all things, our trials and our accomplishments, in the clarifying light of eternity, where most of the things you take so seriously will turn out not to be nearly so serious as you take them to be.

We laugh a fair bit at the FreeWay. Jokes get told at board meetings all the time. No small amount of play happens during the Sunday morning set up. Our worship team banters with one another between every other song during Thursday evening practice. And when I hear it, or see it, or join in it—the fun, that is—sometimes I think: I bet Luke would get the joke here; and other times I think: I bet Jesus is laughing with us, on this one.

That’s me with my guard down. The straight-laced theologian in me wants to put it like this: in addition to our understanding of the church as Ecclesia Apostlica (the Apostolic Church), and Ecclesia Semper Reformanda (the church always reforming), we must come to understand her, too, as Ecclesia Ludens.  The church at play.

Upon hearing that Austin Texas is renaming 2nd Street as "Willie Nelson Boulevard"

If I ever have a street named after me,
I hope it's a boulevard, too.
Because I'd feel like I was going nowhere if I was a crescent,
and I'm not even sure what a cul-de-sac really is.

The Teacher's Tale (A lost chapter from Chaucer...)

In a comment to my previous post, my friend Jon wondered out loud about how "commedians have such an ability to preach at times. " It reminded me of this little skeleton in my closet: my most woefully failed attempt to use comedy to make a pedagogical point.

A High School English class I was subbing for was studying Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, and in his absence, the teacher had left a film production of the Pardoner's Tale for them to view. I dutifully dusted off the two-decades layer of dust from the jacket and popped it into the VCR.

Remember those rickety old English-teacher documentaries they used to make you watch, where some BBC narrator flat-lines his way through a description of "Merry Olde England," while details of stained glass windows and tapestries from the period pan across the screen?

This made those look like Oscar material.

When the film ended and the lights went on, there was more glaze in the eyes of the crowd than there is behind the counter of any Tim Horton's in the country. One student managed a pathetic "Mr. Harris-- that was awful--" otherwise, the apathy was underwhelming.

And the injustice of it all hit me: that these students should go home today thinking that Geoffry Chaucer-- merry olde Chaucer-- Geoffry "father of English poetry" Chaucer-- that Chaucer's boring? If English Lit was religion it would be blasphemy of the worst kind.

My mind raced back to my Chaucer days in university and returned with the one tale from the Canterbury Tales I vaguely remembered. "Chaucer told some better ones than that," I volunteered. "If you want, I'll tell you one you might find funny..."

They accepted my fateful offer, and I started telling them the Miller's Tale.

Now, for those of you who know the Miller's Tale, let me say this in my defense: it had been about 10 years since I'd read it, and I'd truly forgotten how.. err.. risqué... it was (pardon my French). For those who don't know the Miller's Tale, let me say this: part way through the telling, I heard this strange voice explaining to a room full of 16-and-17-year-olds how "hende Nicholas" tricked John the carpenter into spending the night in a barrel on his roof, so that Nicholas could spend the night with John's wife Alison--

And I realized the voice was mine.

Chagrin crept up my spine as I explained how Absolon happened to come to Alison's window that same night to confess his love for her and ask for a kiss-And with it crept this niggling thought: "I should have thought this through before I started..."

Suddenly, to my great relief, the bell rang. But before the chagrin could drain out of me, I realized that no one had bolted for the door and freedom, like they usually do at the bell. They sat where they were. They wanted to know how the story ended.

Nor would they accept my feeble attempts to turn it into a teachable moment: "Oops, there's the bell... guess you'll just have to read it for yourself..." (Which you'll have to do.)

They were prepared to wait as long as I could.

So, swallowing great gulps of mortification, that strange voice told the tale to the end: how "nicholas is scalded in the towte," till the "tale was doon, God save al the rowte!"

There was some laughter, but more astonishment (not least of all mine): did the teacher really just tell that story in school? No one went home that day thinking Chaucer is boring; but I went home wishing with all my heart I could call a mulligan on that attempt to bring English Lit to life.

The Fine Art of Listening

I've been thinking a bit about about this comedy routine by Brian Regan I saw a couple of months ago.

Funny and incisive.

True.

In his book Humiliation of the Word, Jaques Ellul suggests that it's only through the concrete act of listening (as opposed to merely seeing) that humans find themselves situated in the universe of truth, for "nothing beside language can establish the order of truth." In this sense, listening-- real active, receptive listening--is one of the most spiritually profound acts we can do.

Spiritually profound, and entirely counter-intuitive.

More intuitive is the impatient waiting for the other's lips to stop moving. "You? ME! See the difference?" Because to listen-- to listen well-- means assuming an entirely receptive posture, a posture of not-knowing, of genuine curiosity and generosity and self-awareness-- it means refusing to use others' stories as merely means to our own ends.

All of this, again, is counter intuitive; but it's there, in this risky openness to the other, that we find ourselves "truthing one another," as St. Paul put it for the Ephesians. And in that truthing, I think, there is the potential for real healing and spiritual growth together as Christian community.

It's My Happy Place

Another thing I've grown to love about Saskatchewan is Corner Gas. One of our family traditions is the Corner Gas party, where we pop a big bowl of corn and hunker down together to laugh our faces off over three or four episodes for an evening.

Now, I realize (from the "thanks-but-no-thanks" expressions that sometimes greet my recommendations of the show) that Corner Gas is a bit of an acquired taste. But, what with it being filmed only 30 minutes down the road from us, and what with the very good chance that you might actually catch a glimpse of someone you know appearing as an extra, it was kind of hard not to be a fan. And the writing, really, was brilliant: lots of subtle word-plays and wry wit, mixed in with bizarre hyperbole and corny situational comedy. Corner Gas has added a whole repertoire of one-liners and disarming rejoinders to our family dialogue (though we've talked pretty carefully with our kids about the J-word).

But I don't think these were the things that finally cinched me as a fan: it was the way the show so effortlessly evoked a sense of place. There were times I was almost sure I could have turned off the TV and just walked out on my front porch to watch the rest of the episode. Scenes in Phil's bar, I could have sworn that if I took a deep enough inhale, I could smell the stale smoke and sour beer on the air. And I'm sure I've been in the cafe that inspired the Ruby, and a half-dozen others like it between Edmonton and Regina.

And, of course, the light. Sometimes the show so overflowed with Saskatchewan light that you were tempted to wonder if you left the curtains open.

Every place has, I think, a certain ethos, a texture you learn when you linger long enough. You don't know what it is, but you know when you're touching it-- when it's brushed against your face unexpectedly, or across your heart. In so many ways, Corner Gas evokes the texture of Saskatchewan that my time lingering here has taught me to appreciate.

Make Me Laugh, Mr. Sub

The other day I was standing at the till in the local Staples store, and as the clerk rang through my purchase he kind of grinned and said: "Hey Mr. Harris. Got a joke for me today?"

I only vaguely recognized him from a class I subbed a couple of months ago. I told him I couldn't tell him any jokes, what with me being off duty, and out of uniform, and all. We laughed.

This has been happening to me a fair bit these days-- unidentified teenagers accosting me randomly for a joke. Once I was waiting in line for a movie and the guy behind me suddenly said: "Hey, it's that Sub! Hey, Mr. Sub, make me laugh." Another time at the grocery store the cashier said: "Didn't you sub out at Riverview High once?" After we established that I'd taught her English class some five months ago, she said: "Yeah, you told us a crazy story about a pig."

I also told them how to correct dangling participles, or some such thing, but she remembered the pig joke.

As a sub, joke-telling was like the bat-a-rang on my utility belt. Taking that old proverb, "Only great folly shouts for silence" to heart, I usually started my classes by telling some corny story to get everyone's attention, rather than contributing to the chaos by trying to shout them all down. And usually before I was half way through, the class was listening rapt.

In two years of subbing, I developed a whole repertoire of goofy stories and off the wall lines that could get me through just about any roll-call unscathed, and establish the kind of credibility with teens that you can only earn by making them laugh.

In the process I learned all over again how important laughter is in forming community. Something about the shared emotional experience of a healthy laugh together: it fosters trust, and disarms confrontation, and encourages intimacy. Of course, humour can also do a lot of perverse damage. It can shatter trust, and intensify confrontation, and betray intimacy. C. S. Lewis said that the greater capacity something has for good, the greater the harm it can do when it is perverted to the bad. He used sex as his prime example of this, but we could say similar things about humour. The fact that it does so much damage when it's misused is a sign of how much good it's capable of if used wisely.

Once in a while subbing, I got to witness the good of humour.

For example: I'd been teaching a grade 12 English class a couple of days in a row, and as I reached for the attendance roster on day four, one of the students interrupted: "Just a second Mr. H." Then he plunked a digital audio recorder on the desk right in front of me. It seems one of his classmates had left for an early spring break to Hawaii. He was fine to miss the rest of the week studying the history of Canadian Lit, but he didn't want to miss the joke of the day. They were going to email it to him that night.

Among the many things I'll miss about being a sub, I'll miss those unique chances to laugh. And for the record, here's the pig joke:

A Case in Point...

With the words of my last post still ringing in my ears, my son and I sat down to enjoy an episode of the Debaters this afternoon. My bowdlerization-trigger-finger twitched for just a moment with the impulse to turn it off when I heard the topic: "Monotheism vs. Polytheism. If one god is good... are many gods better?"

My son looked at me. "Should we listen to this one, Dad?"

But we've talked a bit lately about Christian attitudes towards humor, and I wanted to model the kind of cultural mapping I was describing a post ago, so I said, "Well, let's listen to the kind of jokes they make, and talk about them after."

And here's specifically what we talked about after: listen to the argument that comedian Ron Sparks makes here in favor of monotheism. What struck me is that-- tongue-in-cheekisms and comedic bathos aside-- this is almost exactly the same argument that St. Augustine made against Roman paganism some 1600 years ago in his monumental work City of God: If the pagan deities are such supreme beings, why does there have to be so many of them to keep the universe running?

It's not quite as funny (or succinct), but here's how Augustine put it (Book IV, Chapter 8):

But how is it possible to recount in one part of this book all the names of gods or goddesses, which they could scarcely comprise in great volumes, distributing among these divinities their peculiar offices about single things? They have not even thought that the charge of their lands should be committed to any one god: but they have entrusted their farms to Rusina; the ridges of the mountains to Jugatinus; over the downs they have set the goddess Collatina; over the valleys, Vallonia. Nor could they even find one Segetia so competent, that they could commend to her care all their grain crops at once; but so long as their seed-grain was still under the ground, they would have the goddess Seia set over it; then, whenever it was above ground and formed straw, they set over it the goddess Segetia; and when the grain was collected and stored, they set over it the goddess Tutilina, that it might be kept safe. Who would not have thought that goddess Segetia sufficient to take care of the standing grain until it had passed from the first green blades to the dry ears? Yet she was not enough for men, who loved a multitude of gods, that the miserable soul, despising the chaste embrace of the one true God, should be prostituted to a crowd of demons. Therefore they set Proserpina over the germinating seeds; over the joints and knots of the stems, the god Nodotus; over the sheaths enfolding the ears, the goddess Voluntina; when the sheaths opened that the spike might shoot forth, it was ascribed to the goddess Patelana; when the stems stood all equal with new ears, because the ancients described this equalizing by the term hostire, it was ascribed to the goddess Hostilina; when the grain was in flower, it was dedicated to the goddess Flora; when full of milk, to the god Lacturnus; when maturing, to the goddess Matuta; when the crop was runcated,— that is, removed from the soil—to the goddess Runcina. Nor do I yet recount them all, for I am sick of all this, though it gives them no shame. Only, I have said these very few things, in order that it may be understood they dare by no means say that the Roman empire has been established, increased, and preserved by their deities, who had all their own functions assigned to them in such a way, that no general oversight was entrusted to any one of them.

A comedian making jokes about monotheism on national, secular radio stumbles onto an argument that one of the greatest theologians of Church history marshaled in defense of the one true God against the pagans. The audience laughs. Ron wins the debate. And I'm trying to trace one more route to a spiritual point of contact on my map of Canadian culture.