i take flight on borrowed time
i was once afraid of heights
If you didn’t already know, and I hope you do, Seinfeld is famously about Nothing. A car lost in a parking lot, gum-chewing, a wink, soft-talkers, traffic, waiting for a table, and “yada, yada, yada.” These are all fair game. And rather than flopping, all these nonstarters turn out to be raw material for some of the best television ever created!
That’s a bold claim. But it holds up. The genius of Seinfeld was the realization that those parts of life we consider insignificant are really prime material for great comedy. And upon reviewing their opus, you’ve got to hand it to them. The creators of Seinfeld were clearly onto something.
But isn’t this insight true of all the best parts of life? Nothing is the raw material for all those things that make life worthwhile, like love and joy. Not unlike a good joke, you don’t see the best bits of life coming. You can’t anticipate them. They always look like nothing. But once they land, they leave you gobsmacked, over-the-moon, and doubled over.
That’s the very essence of humor, in fact. It’s how jokes work. The technical term for this is “subversion of expectation.” What makes a joke funny is that you don’t anticipate the punchline. It subverts whatever expectation you might have had.
Now, as we all know, though, the best way to ruin a joke is to explain it. Better still is to stand on the receiving end of one. So, since Seinfeld jokes never seem to go over, I’ll tell you one of Norm Macdonald’s in his honor, instead. It’s called the “Russian Moth Joke.”
A moth goes to a podiatrist’s office. And the podiatrist says, “what’s the problem?” And the moth says, “What’s the problem? Where do I begin?”
I go to work for a Gregory Ilinivich. And all day long, I work. Honestly, doc, I don’t even know what I’m doing anymore. I don’t even know if Gregory Ilinivich knows. All he knows is that he has power over me. And that seems to bring him happiness.
But I don’t know. I wake up in a malaise every day.”
…The podiatrist says, “Oh yeah?” And the moth goes, “Yes.” He goes, “At night, sometimes I wake up, and I turn to some old lady that’s in my bed. A lady that I once loved, doc.”
…I don’t know where to turn. My youngest, Alexandria, She fell in the cold last year. The cold took her down. And my other boy, and this is the hardest pill to swallow, doc. My younger boy, Gregaro Ivanillinivich, I no longer love him. As much as it pains me to say, when I look in his eyes, all I see is the same cowardice that I catch when I take a look at my own face in the mirror.”
…He says, “Doc, sometimes I feel like a spider. Even though I’m a moth. Just barely hanging on to my web with an everlasting fire beneath me… I’m not feeling good.”
…And so the podiatrist says, “moth, man, you’re in trouble. But you should be seeing a psychiatrist. Why on earth did you come here to a podiatrist? And the moth said, “Why? Because the light was on.”
…I have more to say about this joke, but for now, it’s enough to note that it’s a mystery why wisecracks tickle our funny bone. No one knows for sure why it is we enjoy having our expectations subverted. Likewise, there’s no definitive reason why punchlines make us laugh. But, God help us, they do. Don’t they?
Now, there’s no way to prove this, but I have a theory. I have a theory why it is we like having our expectations turned on their ear. It’s because, as today’s Scripture says, we’re made in the image of God. So if Scripture is to be trusted, and it is, then God is the original humorist.
After all, what else is the resurrection except the greatest subversion of expectation in the history of the world?! We all thought the cross was the end. But Easter Sunday proved to be the punchline that took the wind out of death’s sails!
And that’s not God’s only move, either! Like Norm’s joke, God delights in a superfluous setup! It’s not just the punchline God’s interested in. The whole setup is its own masterpiece! Like a masterful episode of Seinfeld, Creation is an elaborate setup for the great punchline of the empty tomb! And, like an episode of Seinfeld, God uses a whole bunch of nothing to pull off the gag.
The nifty phrase for this in Hebrew is “Tohu Vavohu.” That has a nice ring to it. Doesn’t it? Say it with me, “tohu vavohu.”
Tohu vavohu is the evocative phrase that’s blandly translated as “formless void” in our Bible. But, basically, “tohu vavohu” is the very grist of nothingness. “Tohu” means “wasteland.” And “vavohu” means “emptiness.” In other words, the setup for God’s punchline of Amazing Grace is nothing! Literally, nothing! Nothing is everything God needs!
Turns out, Seinfeld is excellent training for an enlightened theological imagination! So this week, when your friends ask you out, tell them you can’t. Tell them that, on your orders of your pastor, you’ve got to watch Seinfeld!
…Now, I know you like to think I come up with this all on my own. But, the truth is, the theory that God creates out of nothing is a bedrock theological principle. The fancy term for this is “ex nihilo.” Out of nothing. Nihilio, or nil, as they say in tennis and soccer.
Really, though, it’s just another way of saying that all the best things in life come from nothing. That God, in all the wisdom thereof, has determined to bless nothing. Make all the good stuff out of nothing. Isn’t that why today’s Scripture keeps repeating that “it’s good” after God finishes working with another batch of nothing?
God is no cut-rate comedian! Or theologian, for that matter. God is a master craftsman of all the stuff that makes for great jokes. And love and life. And joy and hope. And miracles, too.
All that stuff that the world regards as nothing, including yours, is right where God loves to speak! Nothing is everything God needs for the superfluously splendid, delightful, and lovely creation of all this! And re-creation, too! Or, resurrection, as we say! But re-creation, or “recreation,” isn’t half-bad, either! Is it?
Those places in your life that have all the making of nothing: your losses, your dashed hopes, your fears, your griefs, your failures, and your betrayals too, they are the “tohu vavohu,” the “ex nihilo” that God unexpectedly creates out of and subversively speaks into! Your disorder, darkness, and death are the very stuff Jesus uses to shape a Genesis week out of!
Is there some place in your life that looks like nothing good will come of it? Well, odds are, that’s precisely where Jesus is, right now, setting up his mic to delivers the divine punchline of grace that raises the dead and forgives the sinner!
Are you ready for that punchline? Because it’s as short as it is sweet. On the word of the Author of creation. By the power of Jesus Christ, the alpha and omega. The Beginning himself. And the end, too. And through the Holy Spirit hovering among us right now. In the name of the + Father, Son, and Holy Spirit + all your sins are forgiven! The nothing of your sin and death is right where Jesus speaks his everything into!
May this Word echo through your past, present, and future, too! May it turn every last expectation on its ear! May it transform those empty patches of your life into the fertile ground of paradise! May it leave you doubled over in Sarah-like laugher. May it transform this very moment into the blessed seventh day of creation, where all there is to do is wander the wild whereby of recreation itself. Chuckling over the subversive miracle of stumbling into paradise restored in the last way and the last place anyone ever expected.
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