What Would Jesus Watch At The Comedy Festival?

Last night I had the privilege of watching our perennial favourite comedian, Andrew McClelland, perform his hilarious hour long show, Truth Be Told, at the Victoria Hotel. He is a master story teller, who dresses in a flamboyant gentleman's standard and employs liberal doses of wit with expansive vocab to tell entertaining stories from history and his own life.

The WWJD wristband fad of the late 90s

In one section of his show, he referred to a book, What Would Jesus Eat, which he amusingly suggests has the worst title for a book behind celebrity food critic, Matt Preston's latest book which is called Cravat-a-Licious. This book title reminded me of the late 90's Christian fad of wearing WWJD woven wristbands which had two apparent purposes: a) to remind the wearer of their imperative to behave in a Christ-like manner; and b) to act as a point-of-interest when talking with a curious non-Christian, because Christians seemed to lack any other conversational strategy to inform the non-Christian of their faith viewpoint. The WWJD bandwagon has since expanded out to dieting, commercialization of society, music and parody.

On reflection, the question of "What would Jesus do?" always seemed a little strange to me. On one hand, Christians already have an understanding of their moral imperative through the Spirit, as the Apostle Paul writes:

The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit. The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments, for, who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.
1 Corinthians 2:14-16

On the other hand, (albeit facetiously), it seems improbable to consider the moral ramifications of 21st century choices based on the life of a 1st century Jewish insurgent. Eg. Should I buy a Prius, plant 15 trees, drink fair-trade-coffee or drop a few coins in the hat of the busker that I sang along with as I walked by?

For me, the key problem with the WWJD meme is that it paints the world in a far too simplistic mold, with the proposition that every choice has a clear delineation between good and evil. Jesus himself hung out with the prostitutes and drunkards (Luke 7:34), an action that clearly challenges most modern Christian notions of acceptable behaviour. Therefore, I think that most choices require wisdom, research, consultation with scripture and careful consideration of the facts. Even then, I'm willing to bet that the 'right' action will not be immediately evident.

Which brings me to my original question: what would Jesus watch at the comedy festival? Most Christians I know are too wary of the comedy festival, let alone to even consider which comedian they might watch. Watching the Comedy Gala on the TV is not a good way to sample the Festival.

I've been going to the Melbourne International Comedy Festival for over 5 years and I have found it to be a worthwhile and entertaining experience. It's good to have a laugh and with discernment, you can find some really good acts that are relatively clean (probably no more dirty than what you would probably watch in a movie let's be honest). Obviously avoid the comedians whose posters contain words such as 'provocative', 'challenging', 'sexy' or 'Stephen K Amos'. Yes, Christianity can be comedic fodder, but perhaps we could learn something about not taking ourselves too seriously?

For those who are looking to dabble their noses into live, stand-up comedy for the first time, the Comedy Festival is featuring a show called Squeaky Clean Comedy. There is only two more shows left (15th and the 23rd), so check them out. Otherwise, be a little adventurous, do some research and go have a laugh!