Arguably America’s leading magazine of criticism and comic writing, The New Yorker recently devoted four pages to humorist David Sedaris making a (Biblical) fool of himself. What’s going on here?
In “The Hem of His Garment,” Sedaris relates his tale of being invited, along with dozens of other American comedians and entertainers of other stripes, to meet the Pope. Sedaris disarmingly makes clear that he doesn’t understand why he was invited, not being a Christian. Raised in the Orthodox Church, he professes no faith now.
Indeed, his funniest line is to this effect: “It was a shame that I was invited to the Vatican, actually—like sending me to the U.S. Open when I’ve never watched a football game in my life.”
Had Sedaris stuck to his usual schtick of witty and pampered observer of the ever-changing pageant of modern life, all might have been well. Alas, however, something went seriously wrong the closer he got to St. Peter’s and, in particular, the person of Jesus Christ.
Stephen Colbert arranged a dinner the night before the papal audience. Colbert asked for volunteers to tell a “God joke”—perhaps not the most prudent invitation to a room of people desperate to be funny. Sedaris rose to the occasion and delivered an anodyne joke that made sport of Adam and Eve—no harm, no foul.
When that joke failed to land satisfactorily, however, he took dead aim and told a sexually filthy joke about Jesus. He afterward mused, “I don’t belong here, I thought, embarrassed, for the umpteenth time that evening.” And yet, he told that joke.
He told the joke, furthermore, having spent the evening sitting at table beside comedian Jim Gaffigan’s son. His youngest son.
Now, I like Jim Gaffigan’s humor and he seems like a fine Christian fellow. He isn’t going to win “Father of the Year” points, however, for inviting his son to a gathering at which one could be sure that participants will utter at least a religiously tone-deaf joke, if not a positively offensive one.
Sedaris, however, goes nuclear—in front of people some of which (like Gaffigan père et fils) he simply has to know will be pained. And for what? To fit in? To be one of the boys? Do comedians like Sedaris never, ever grow up?
Were his article simply a “fish out of water” story, or even a “Here’s why I despise the Roman Catholic Church for its child abuse” screed—and there’s plenty of that in the article, too—one could understand, if not approve.
What I find grimly fascinating, however, is that Sedaris—normally rather mild, in fact rarely rising above room-temperature Wildean drollery—knows that he’s ignorant and insensitive about Christianity and yet persists. He even buys a cassock from the Pope’s own tailor because the long black garment is “slimming,” wondering cluelessly only if it’s illegal—not bizarre, not disrespectful, not misleading—to buy and wear it.
He concludes this four-page exercise in repellent strangeness tellingly: “I hated to think I was missing something.” Yeah, you sure were.
The New Yorker keeps having people write about Christianity who not only don’t know enough about it but who clearly have such loathing toward it that they can’t see, or write, straight. Recently I castigated the normally insightful literary critic James Wood for such vituperation, and Adam Gopnik is a regular transgressor of this sort. Now we have Sedaris squatting and defecating while winking at the horrified crowd.
Hebrews 4 says that “the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.”
Most Christians think that this passage refers to the Bible, but it refers to all the words of God, every word of God. That means especially the Word of God Incarnate. Encounter with Jesus himself “judges the thoughts and intentions of the heart” and lays everything bare to the sight of God.
Think of how encounter with Jesus provoked the delight of children and the deep devotion of marginalized women. Think of how encounter with Jesus elicited sarcasm, insult, and finally murderous scheming from the most respectable of his people’s religious élite. Meet Jesus and be exposed for who you really are.
Sedaris says that “I do believe there was someone named Jesus who was a revolutionary, but I don’t think he was God’s son or that he was resurrected.” That’s fine—or, no, it’s not fine, because his soul is in mortal peril, especially having been raised among people who knew better. But there’s nothing offensive about that, just something worrisome and sad.
It's when someone who professes not to care much about Jesus—like a non-athlete who blithely mixes up golf and football—is among people who manifestly do care, and in ways reminiscent of his own pious family members, then goes out of his way to offend. For laughs. Something is weirdly, ominously wrong here.
Normally astute critics sounding like bitter sophomores? Normally waggish humorists sounding like shock jocks?
Something is surfacing. I wonder what it is.
