Mad About You, Jesus
Paul and Jamie are at their usual antics on my rewatch of Mad About You, and the Gospel which connects every good narrative to universal experience intervenes again. This time, the Holy Spirit wasn't just clearing His metaphorical throat at the slightest hint of something redemptive in any entertainment short of debauchery. He was, in fact, proving the bold assertion of Titus 1:15 that to the pure all things are pure, that once we begin to understand Christ's pervasive and attractive authority over all things in Heaven and on Earth, His shining through sitcom isn't all that surprising.
The winsome to some at the center of the show is visiting Paul's uncle Phil in the hospital. Things are not looking good for Phil, played memorably by Mel Brooks. Most immediately this is because Phil mishandled the control for the bed and came to the unwelcome late-in-life discovery that his kneecaps would fit into his eyesockets. Comparatively, difficulty with his bed is a minor problem, and Phil is convinced he is going to die any minute. He asks as an urgent last request that Paul and Jamie name the baby she is carrying for him. They hesitate, but he lays on the dramatics, and they reluctantly agree. They are already foreshadowing works righteousness when we do what might otherwise be commendable primarily because we fear disappointing someone else, but the theology will soon be laid out explicitly for those who are so inclined.
Phil's given name is not Phil. He switched it when he had his "fill" of children teasing him on the playground for being named Deuteronomy. That's right. His parents stamped him with the expectations of an identity in the Law which they intended to stay with him the rest of his life. I'm certain a search of census records would find that particular gesture rare enough that the playground companions of Deuteronomy/Phil could be somewhat excused for teasing him on account of his unusual name. Nevertheless, parents, teachers, and disciplers of all kinds seem especially prone to stamp those we would influence with at least as onerous a label. Whether or not the "law" of our spoken and unspoken aspirations for others line up with God's Law as restated in Deuteronomy, we use our standards and the category we tell people they should fit into.
Phil comes around and cinches our glimpse at the Gospel nicely, although surely unintentionally. Visiting him again, Paul and Jamie shuffle verbally into their desire to renege on their promise and name their baby something other than Deuteronomy. The drama builds, but Mel Brooks punctures it expertly. Recounting the conditions under which the promise was extracted, he scolds the parents-to-be. "I was on pain medication. What's your excuse?" Our excuse, Phil/Deuteronomy, and our confession, Holy Spirit, is that we are under the influence of medication much more powerful than the cocktail which dulled the reason of Paul's uncle temporarily. We, even and sometimes especially Christians, dull the pain of living in a fallen world by self-medicating with pride. Affirmation that others see us in desirable ways provide a steady, dripping dose of pride. Confirmation that we have shaped someone else in our image and that this whiteness has been noticed by the outside world is a heady dose of intoxicating pride, indeed. This may be why, one Christian author admitted, we preach grace to adults, and the Law to children.
Even the coda to this episode converging secular worldview and Gospel alternative is compelling. These few seconds are supposed to provide a quick joke before the credits rolled, and in them, Paul is examining the ultrasound film. He asks the obstetrician concerning his child, "He won't always be transparent, will he?" What a picture of the Gospel beneath! This is our alternative to appearance laden drafting of Deuteronomy's metrics as a means of impressing people. Just as the physical body of humans is, for a while after conception, transparent, so the new, spiritual conceptions Christians have in Christ is likewise see-through. We are what we are in Him, and no more, in need of no more. Expectations of society, parents, and of our own prodigiously developing ego seek to cover that as soon as possible with every appearance that we are okay, and better than somebody else's okay.
Blessedly, Deuteronomy isn't our only dose from God's revelation. Eric Moerdyk in the sermon on Psalm 81 that was my portion this morning is insistent here. "To focus on the warnings and the searching admonitions without the joyful, generous praise of God's promises is not biblical childrearing," or teaching, or discipling, I might add. He continues, "it is spiritual child abuse. To focus on the wonderful promises of God without the searching questions and the grieved accusations is also spiritual child abuse because it cuts apart the very combination with which God wants to exult His joyful promises and express the urgency of His call. Let us not cut apart what God Himself has joined together."
The winsome to some at the center of the show is visiting Paul's uncle Phil in the hospital. Things are not looking good for Phil, played memorably by Mel Brooks. Most immediately this is because Phil mishandled the control for the bed and came to the unwelcome late-in-life discovery that his kneecaps would fit into his eyesockets. Comparatively, difficulty with his bed is a minor problem, and Phil is convinced he is going to die any minute. He asks as an urgent last request that Paul and Jamie name the baby she is carrying for him. They hesitate, but he lays on the dramatics, and they reluctantly agree. They are already foreshadowing works righteousness when we do what might otherwise be commendable primarily because we fear disappointing someone else, but the theology will soon be laid out explicitly for those who are so inclined.
Phil's given name is not Phil. He switched it when he had his "fill" of children teasing him on the playground for being named Deuteronomy. That's right. His parents stamped him with the expectations of an identity in the Law which they intended to stay with him the rest of his life. I'm certain a search of census records would find that particular gesture rare enough that the playground companions of Deuteronomy/Phil could be somewhat excused for teasing him on account of his unusual name. Nevertheless, parents, teachers, and disciplers of all kinds seem especially prone to stamp those we would influence with at least as onerous a label. Whether or not the "law" of our spoken and unspoken aspirations for others line up with God's Law as restated in Deuteronomy, we use our standards and the category we tell people they should fit into.
Phil comes around and cinches our glimpse at the Gospel nicely, although surely unintentionally. Visiting him again, Paul and Jamie shuffle verbally into their desire to renege on their promise and name their baby something other than Deuteronomy. The drama builds, but Mel Brooks punctures it expertly. Recounting the conditions under which the promise was extracted, he scolds the parents-to-be. "I was on pain medication. What's your excuse?" Our excuse, Phil/Deuteronomy, and our confession, Holy Spirit, is that we are under the influence of medication much more powerful than the cocktail which dulled the reason of Paul's uncle temporarily. We, even and sometimes especially Christians, dull the pain of living in a fallen world by self-medicating with pride. Affirmation that others see us in desirable ways provide a steady, dripping dose of pride. Confirmation that we have shaped someone else in our image and that this whiteness has been noticed by the outside world is a heady dose of intoxicating pride, indeed. This may be why, one Christian author admitted, we preach grace to adults, and the Law to children.
Even the coda to this episode converging secular worldview and Gospel alternative is compelling. These few seconds are supposed to provide a quick joke before the credits rolled, and in them, Paul is examining the ultrasound film. He asks the obstetrician concerning his child, "He won't always be transparent, will he?" What a picture of the Gospel beneath! This is our alternative to appearance laden drafting of Deuteronomy's metrics as a means of impressing people. Just as the physical body of humans is, for a while after conception, transparent, so the new, spiritual conceptions Christians have in Christ is likewise see-through. We are what we are in Him, and no more, in need of no more. Expectations of society, parents, and of our own prodigiously developing ego seek to cover that as soon as possible with every appearance that we are okay, and better than somebody else's okay.
Blessedly, Deuteronomy isn't our only dose from God's revelation. Eric Moerdyk in the sermon on Psalm 81 that was my portion this morning is insistent here. "To focus on the warnings and the searching admonitions without the joyful, generous praise of God's promises is not biblical childrearing," or teaching, or discipling, I might add. He continues, "it is spiritual child abuse. To focus on the wonderful promises of God without the searching questions and the grieved accusations is also spiritual child abuse because it cuts apart the very combination with which God wants to exult His joyful promises and express the urgency of His call. Let us not cut apart what God Himself has joined together."
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