I have joked with some seriousness that the two books that have been most influential in my pastoral leadership are Be Our Guest: Perfecting the Art of Customer Service by the Disney Institute and Bossypants by Tina Fey. Both books, in case you’re interested, are on the shelf in my office. Be Our Guest is a deep dive into Disney’s model of customer service. It’s a very practical how-to guide for evaluating customer experience.
Bossypants, on the other hand, is Tina Fey’s hilarious, and sometimes crude, memoir of being a woman in the male dominated field of sketch comedy. I love it because Tina Fey is hilarious and I secretly think she, Amy Poehler, and I, could be best friends. But why I think it is a great book for pastoral leadership is because she includes a section on the rules of improvisation that I find brilliant. The central theme of the guide is the concept of “Yes, and…” The premise is whatever idea your partner presents, agree with it and add something. Her argument is if someone opens an improv scene by pointing their finger at you and saying, “I have a gun,” and you say, “no, that’s not a gun, that’s your finger,” you’ve killed the scene. So agree. Yes, we all know it’s not really a gun, but that’s the magic of theater, none of this is real, so go with it. But more than that, if someone points their finger at you and says, “I have a gun,” and you respond, “yep,” you’ve dragged the scene to a standstill. It is not enough to just agree, you also have to add something. So if someone says, “I’ve got a gun,” and you say, “The gun I gave you at Christmas? You jerk!” Then we’ve got something.
Now, Fey goes on to say that of course, in real life we cannot always just agree blindly on everything. But the point of the “Yes, and…” principle is to start from a place of open-mindedness. So I started thinking about this and wondered if the real-life corollary to “Yes, and…” is “No, but…” We disagree, but by offering another alternative we can keep the conversation going in a way that a straight up no cannot do. So in the finger gun example, if the scene starts, “I’ve got a gun,” and you respond, “no, oh my gosh, stay very still, that’s the rare and very dangerous Venomous Chameleon Gun Snake, who tricks its prey by camouflaging itself as a hand gun,” you’ve disagreed, and we still have a scene, we still have the opportunity for interaction.
The final rule is for improv is “There are no mistakes.” Fey’s example is if she opens a scene with what she clearly thinks is a policeman riding a bicycle, and her partner thinks she is a hamster in a hamster wheel, now she’s a hamster in a hamster wheel. She’s not going to stop to explain she’s really a policeman on a bicycle. “Who knows,” she wrote. “Maybe I’ll end up being a police hamster who’s been put on ‘hamster wheel’ duty because I’m ‘too much of a loose cannon’ in the field. In improv there are no mistakes, only beautiful happy accidents.”
I got to thinking about Fey’s improv rules this week because once again in our Gospel text this morning the presenting issue of the story, the death and raising of Lazarus, seems almost secondary to the bulk of the narrative, a series of conversations between Jesus and others. Jesus engaging with and drawing people into conversation has been an ongoing theme in our Gospel readings throughout all of this Lenten season. And I started to wonder if Jesus was maybe using these same rules of improv that Fey outlined.
Think about it. Nicodemus came at night and said, “Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who came from God.” To which Jesus responded, “Yes, and…” “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” Or the woman at the well. “Why would you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria.” Jesus responded, “Yes, and…” “If you knew who was saying to you give me a drink, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” Or the man born blind. The disciples asked, “Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind. Jesus replied, “No, but…” “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s work might be revealed in him.” Each time Jesus engaged someone in conversation, he found ways to move the conversation along to a deeper level, bringing forth a larger truth than the surface level dialogue about identity, life, or the nature of sin. And each time, the person who was transformed by Jesus was the person who was able to change along with Jesus’ challenges, who could let go of the simplicity of the yes/no dichotomy and move to a more complex understanding of what Jesus was offering.
We see this even more clearly in this story of the raising of Lazarus. The scene opened with the sisters sending a message to Jesus, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” Jesus countered, “yes, and…” “This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God’s glory; rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” So Jesus stayed, and it appeared he was wrong, as Lazarus, in fact, died.
Then, he decided to go to Judea and the disciples’ were like, um, that’s not so much a good idea, as, if you remember, they were trying to stone you. Counter Jesus, “Yes, and…” “Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Those who walk during the day do not stumble…” Yes, they want to stone me, and we should go anyway, because “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going to wake him up.” The disciples’ respond with a simple no, “Lord, if he’s asleep, he’ll be alright.” Jesus expanded, “No, but….” “Lazarus is dead… let us go to him.” Finally, Thomas was willing to agree, willing to be moved to “Yes, and…” albeit, in a pretty resigned way. “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” Not a super eager agreement, sure, but enough to move the scene along, enough to get them all to Judea.
When they arrived in Judea and were met by Martha, we saw a similar conversation play out. Martha started with a fact, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” Jesus agreed, “Yes, and…” “Your brother will rise again.” Martha tried to halt action with a straight up yes, “I know that he will rise again at the resurrection on the last day.” But Jesus would not be deterred, “Yes, and…” “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me will never die. Do you believe this?” And through his persistence, Martha was moved: “Yes Lord, [and] I believe.”
And Lazarus was raised from the dead. And many who had seen what Jesus did believed in him. And we ended the reading there, but verse forty-six goes on to say, “But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what he had done.” The miracle of the raising of Lazarus ends up being the turning point in the Gospel of John. We read this story on the last Sunday of Lent, because it is the event that signifies the beginning of the end for Jesus. From this point on it is just a steady march to the cross, as the Pharisees begin to look for ways to kill Jesus.
Which is, if you think about it, the greatest “Yes, and…” of all. The “yes, and…” that makes the gospels more than just a historical report of an interesting man who lived and died long ago, but the Gospel, the Good News that changed and changes the world. Because yes, Jesus was put to death on a cross. Yes, he died a criminal’s death and was buried. Yes, all this is true. And none of that was the end, because And he rose again. On Good Friday, we will hear Jesus himself utter the words, “It is finished.” And then three days later, when the disciples reach the tomb they’ll find the stone rolled away, and a new story begun.
What we see in this story, and in the overarching story of scripture, is that God’s interaction with us is always “yes, and…” Yes, God made creation and called it good, and God made people, and called them very good. Yes, you are slaves under Pharaoh, and I will lead you to a land of milk and honey. Yes, Jesus died, and he rose again. Yes, you are dead in sin and cannot redeem yourself, and as we heard Paul say in Romans, “the Spirit…who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies.” That’s not to say that God does not sometimes say no, but God always follows no up with an addition. No, you may not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but I will continue to be with you. No, if you continue to live in ways that are unjust, you will be conquered by the Babylonians, but even in exile I will be with you and I will redeem you. “No, you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received a spirit of adoption.” God’s dance of relationship with us is like improv, never leaving the scene where it’s at but always adding to it, drawing us more fully into connection, bringing us along to places we never thought we would be and in ways we couldn’t imagine we’d get there.
And because God’s relationship with us is “yes, and…”, because God is always drawing us into new and richer and fuller places with this gentle, persistent coaxing, we are free to have such persistence and grace and hope with each other. The nature of relationship is cruciform, the up/down axis is God relating to us in this hopeful expanding way, so that we then can relate side to side with each other. Just think about how this approach might change our relationships, change the world, if we approached each other not as a yes or no, right or wrong, one way or another, but as a possibility to be engaged with and to learn from.
God’s response to us is always yes, and, is always to urge us to more. So don’t be afraid to take the risk, try something new, and live into the relationship. Thanks be to God, in whom there is always more. Amen.
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