Spiritual lessons from a secular comedian
Dave Chappelle says things the rest of us can't say but should think about
"Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions." —Luke 12:15
Sometimes we can learn deep lessons from unlikely sources. Like comedians who dare to say things the rest of us can’t say.
Last Saturday, Dave Chappelle was the guest host of “Saturday Night Live,” a famous U.S. television comedy show now in its 50th year. Chappelle is extremely popular but also controversial and sometimes offensive, including to the LGBTQ community.
Early in his monologue, Chappelle spoke about the wildfires that have destroyed 12,000 structures and killed 25 people around Los Angeles, California this month.
“There were a lot of elements that came together to make this fire the catastrophe that it was,” Chappelle said. “The winds were 100 miles an hour, and LA was dry as a bone. If you were a rational, thinking person, you would have to at least consider the possibility … that God hates these people. Sodomites!”
Nonreligious Americans wouldn’t seriously consider that explanation, but some Christians might. In fact, an African friend told me that Christians in his country were wondering whether people in Los Angeles had done something to bring God’s judgment on them.
There are Old Testament precedents, including Sodom and Gomorrah, of God bringing judgment on a city or nation. But in New Testament times, we should be very reluctant to draw such conclusions. Both rain and misery hit the just and the unjust alike (Matthew 5:45; Luke 13:1-5). In Los Angeles, many Christians were affected.
Chappelle himself refuted his theory that God’s judgment could explain the wildfires: “But that’s not true, because West Hollywood was unscathed.” (West Hollywood is a heavily LGBTQ suburb of Los Angeles.)
Chappelle taught, by comic implication, another hard but important lesson. “On the news, they said these fires were the most expensive natural disaster in U.S. history,” he explained. “You want to know why I think that is? Because people in L.A. have nice stuff. I could burn 40,000 acres in Mississippi for like 600 or 700 dollars.” (Chappelle doesn’t dislike Mississippi—it’s just a mostly rural, less wealthy part of the country.)
We should certainly not minimize the sufferings of Los Angeles fire victims, many of whom lost loved ones and livelihoods as well as property. But Chappelle’s prompting reminds us to examine our own attachment to our “stuff.”
I live in a city with high exposure to fire risk. Major fires in 2012 and 2013 destroyed 700 houses. In 2020, a brush fire on a hillside came within 1,000 feet of our condo complex. We have often discussed what we would try to save if we had to evacuate on short notice. Except for some family memorabilia and copies of my own books, we’ve realized that just about everything else is replaceable. By pursuing emotional detachment from our possessions, we can live more freely for God. How about you?