What Would Steve Martin Do?
If I had just one wish this Christmas, it would be for all the children of the world to join hands and sing together in a spirit of harmony and peace.
Gotta love Steve Martin’s Christmas Wish.
My wife is sitting beside me working on her computer. She watched the video I just referenced, and then she watched me link to it on my blog. And then she hit me on the arm. We then exchanged this gmail chat:
wife: I hope my family doesn’t read your blog.
me: I hope they do
wife: Why???
me: scandal
wife: not cool
me: very cool
wife: What would Jesus blog?
me: Steve Martin
wife: I don’t think so.
There are many things I could blog about at this point, besides the fact that my wife and I just had a conversation via gmail chat while we were sitting two feet from each other. I could write about my favorite humorist, Steve Martin, and how L.A. Story changed my life. I could write about family scandals. It seemed apparent at the outset of the blog that I was going to write about Christmas Wishes, but that was just the teaser … the smell of fresh baked bread wafting out of the bakery window. But in the end, I am forced to ask, “What would Jesus blog?”
It’s amazing how one little bracelet could have done this to us. It basically gave us a mantra to throw in the face of anyone who is about to embark on an adventure of which we do not approve. We’ve always had opinions about what good Christians should watch, read, look at, study, think about, wear, google, laugh at, dream about, question, listen to, discuss, and ponder. We got pretty good at using the passive-aggressive question, “Should you be doing that?” But then WWJD came along, and it was the ultimate trump card. Drop that bomb and clear the room. It was the argument buster, when all other points had failed. All you had to do was look to heaven, bat your eyes like an angel, and with a single tear, whisper that magical phrase. Game, set, match. You would have to wait for them to leave the room before you could turn Saturday Night Live back on with the volume almost all the way down.
In all our arguments of woulda, shoulda, coulda, I think the person we often forget to think about is Steve Martin. He’s a funny guy. Some would say he’s a wild and crazy guy. I often imagine what kind of hate letters he’s gotten from Christians. I wonder how many have told him that he was going to Hell. I wonder how many have told him they are “praying for him” (the Christians way of saying, “I can’t change you, but God sure will, so get ready for the thunder!”) Maybe he has gotten very few. But I know how vocal Christians have been/are/will be about Hollywood, and I often wonder how it affects guys like Steve Martin.
I don’t expect it bothers them. Probably rolls off their backs. They have a good laugh about us silly Christians and how narrow we are.
When we protest, and shout, and blog about the evil of Hollywood, we insist it is not about the artist. Love the sinner, hate the sin, right? But what we fail to understand is just how connected an artist is to his art. Even silliness is a reflection of the artist’s inner being. We don’t understand that when we tell someone what they have created is evil, the artist wonders if that is how we feel about them personally. My art is evil, therefore I am evil.
They hear it enough. Probably rolls of their backs. They have a good laugh about us silly Christians and how narrow we are. And they wonder what Jesus would do — if he would hate them, too.
I am not saying we should condone everything that comes out of Hollywood. I am not saying I think Mr. Martin’s Christmas Wish was born of morality and reverence. But I can appreciate the deeper meaning — the fact that as much as we like to think we are generous, in the end it is all about us. And I can appreciate Steve Martin’s ability to communicate that in a way that is both hilarious and poignant.
If I love his art, maybe I love him. Is that what it means to be in it and not of it? Maybe in part.
Whether your are painting angels holding babies or gargoyles eating kittens, the ability to take thoughts and emotions and communicate them in a unique way is amazing … and lovable. We should seek to cultivate that as we cultivate a knowledge of Jesus.
And that is what Jesus would do. Game, set, match.
