So, have you heard the one about the Englishman, the Irishman, and the Scotsman who all died at the same moment and found themselves standing together in line at the Pearly Gates? Or the one about the Priest, the Minister, and the Rabbi? Or perhaps the one about the three blondes? Variations on that familiar scenario surely must number in the hundreds, but they all have two things in common. All of them are more silly than funny, and the notions they employ as their stock-in-trade are glaring misconceptions of Christian truth.
Well, what of that? They are just harmless, innocent jokes after all. They are not catechisms. It is not their purpose to be theologically correct. Yet ironically, to thousands of the people who walk or drive past the church every day, they do teach distorted religious notions. In our secular world they are the closest thing many people get to reliable information about what is taught inside a church building. And years of ministering to people in bereavement has taught me that what many people more or less believe, or fear, is not far from what the jokes teach.
But there is nothing so devoid of merit that it cannot be used as a bad example. So let me invite you to consider that genre of jokes, and the lessons they teach.
The jokes lead one to believe that the decision about whether a soul goes ‘up’ or ‘down’, so to speak, will be made after we die.
Not so! Not even close!
For those who have been baptised, that decision has already been made. In the Sacrament of Baptism one is effectively made “a member of Christ, the child of God, and an inheritor of the Kingdom of heaven”. (Catechism, Book of Common Prayer) Thus, citizenship in the Kingdom of heaven has already been conferred upon us. We are already in the door, and we exercise our rights as citizens whenever we participate in the Sacrament of Holy Communion. It is in the celebration of the Mass that we are caught up in the fellowship of Angels, and Archangels and all the company of heaven, that we take our places at the heavenly banquet, and that we are granted there a fore-taste of the heavenly fare.
Moreover, our citizenship is irrevocable. It is guaranteed by the good shepherd who said, “I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them from my hand”. (John 10: 27-28)
The jokes lead one to believe that God is aloof, living in an impregnable fortress whose walls are designed to keep undesirables out. The only Port of Entry is a massive gate that remains locked and barred except for those occasional moments when a successful applicant needs to squeeze in. Apparently, God does not even deign to appear at the gate to welcome new arrivals. Instead, the responsibility for tight security is relegated to a crusty, and probably bored, celestial civil servant named Peter.
Not so! Not even close!
For information about God’s real attitude, the scriptures are a far more reliable source of information than are the casual jokes. Their clear message is that God is anything but aloof and indifferent to us.
That affirmation is first made in the opening pages of the Bible. As the ancient story of Adam and Eve unfolds, the pair originally enjoyed an innocent relationship with their creator, but that trusting bond was shattered by their willful disobedience, So, when the Lord came to walk with them in the cool of the day, their guilt drove them to hide among the trees of the garden. But the Lord searched anxiously for them, calling out, “Where are you?”. (Genesis 3: 8-9) And God has been trying to call us out of hiding ever since. That tragic, poignant question “Where are you?” is either expressed or implicit on every subsequent page of the Bible.
We hear it in the writings of the prophet Isaiah. “Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters … incline your ear, and come to me. (55: 1-3)
It is reported again by the prophet Micah. “O my people, what have I done to you? In what have I wearied you? Answer me! (6:3)
It is reiterated by Jesus. “Come to me, all you that are weary and carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest”. (Matthew 11: 28)
And through to the final book of the Bible, the risen Christ finds himself locked out and asking to be let in. “Listen! I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to you.” (Revelation 3: 20)
In summary, Christian truth is that if an unscalable wall and a locked gate really do exist to separate us from the nearer presence of God, that is not of God’s doing, but of ours.
The jokes lead one to believe that our chances of being admitted to heaven depend solely upon how our good deeds in life weight in on Peter’s scale, or alternately on our skill in correctly answering one of his absurd, trick questions.
Not so! Not even close!
This brings us to the very essence of what we call the ‘Gospel’, the ‘Good News’, the ‘Evangel’. The Good News is that God, in Christ and in dramatic style, severed the Gordian death Knot for us.
We do not comprehend exactly how the death of Jesus ‘worked’ as a saving transaction, except to affirm that the resurrection did not just happen because the conditions of his faith and righteousness were propitious at that moment. What then? Was it a ransom, as some hymns suggest? Personally, I don’t buy that. Did his blood have a purchasing power that sanctifies us? Frankly, that doesn’t turn my crank either.
Mostly, what Christians assert about the resurrection is that it was a God event, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself. (2 Corinthians 5: 19) Or, as St. Paul declares with utter simplicity, “God … raised {Jesus} from the dead”. (Colossians 2: 12) I can live with that ambiguity. But mostly I like the Prayer Book’s take on the matter, that on the cross Jesus “made there, by his one oblation of himself once offered, a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction, for the sins of the whole world”. (Prayer of Consecration)
Well, that’s my story, anyway, and I’m sticking to it. No joking!