If you love old movies, I hope you haven’t missed the 1934 classic “The Gay Divorcee.” No, now that I think about it, there is almost no chance that you have missed this particular film. It features the songs “Night and Day” and “The Continental,” not to mention “Let’s Knock Knees,” and it stars Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, and very importantly, the great Edward Everett-Horton. I won’t even try to summarize the plot. Let’s just say that in the process of trying to end her unhappy marriage, Ginger Rogers falls in with a kind of professional marriage-wrecker named Rodolfo Tonetti. Tonetti, played by Erik Rhodes, is a foppish, foolish, stage Italian. There is a lot of unfortunate cultural work being done in the representation of an Italian man here, but I’m going to have to gloss over that a bit this morning in order to focus on one of the film’s funniest running jokes.
Here’s the joke: Tonetti has a secret password, or sentence, that he is supposed to use in order to pull off the stunt that will allow Ginger Rogers to end up with Fred Astaire. At the key moment, Tonetti is supposed to say “Chance is a fool’s name for Fate.” Of course he is too foppish and bumbling to get that right, so the film is full of instances in which he tries to speak the magic sentence at what he hopes is the right time, and fails wonderfully. “Give me a name for chance and I am a fool,” he says to the wrong person. “Chances are that fate is foolish,” he opines hopefully so someone else. In a conversation with one rather worldly woman, he tries again, hoping it’s time to use the secret password: “Fate is a foolish thing to take chances with,” he says. To which she replies, “So are you.” Poor man, he just can’t get it right. It’s “Chance is a fool’s name for Fate.” That’s the magic sentence.
Poor Rodolfo Tonetti bumbles his way through “The Gay Divorcee” as proof that fate really does intend for Fred and Ginger to end up together forever. He’s a walking sign that despite all the obstacles, and although human beings are clueless, there is a destiny that will unite lovers, especially when they are fabulous dancers like Fred and Ginger. Tonetti may not quite be able to say so, but chance occurrences in this comic film are indeed underwritten by comic destiny. It’s a comedy. Desires will be fulfilled. By chance, Fred meets Ginger. Then Fred loses Ginger. By chance, Fred gets Ginger back. But you know and I know that chance is a fool’s name for fate. Fred and Ginger were bound to happen.
There is no particular reason to believe that the disciples in this morning’s gospel were much more insightful or spiritually attuned than Rodolfo Tonetti when they met Jesus. Let’s imagine that, all their lives, they thought they had been supposed to know the secret password for unlocking everything they desired: justice, nearness to God, peace, lives filled with joy and gratitude, the destiny of all creation to live in harmony and fulfillment. Let’s say they were in a story in which they were fated to pair up with God in a cosmic dance, and they knew it, but they were nervous about making it happen. They knew—and John the Baptist had recently reminded them—that there would be a decisive encounter sometime in their lives with salvation. And so there they were, on the banks of the Jordan River. Jesus had passed by the day before, silently, but if their hearts were stirred by his presence on that occasion they had nevertheless failed to take the opportunity to speak the magic words. And then there he was again the next day, a little less mysterious this time, a little more approachable, slowing down on his walk to give them a second chance, and I can feel the dryness in their throats and the pounding of their hearts as Jesus speaks what might very well have been the signal they were expecting: “What are you looking for?” he asks.
OK, maybe that’s not a secret sign from Jesus. Maybe they weren’t actually expecting a special handshake or a password when salvation met them in person. But it’s some kind of moment of truth. It’s some kind of moment in which you want to have the right answer. Fate, after all, is a foolish thing to take chances with. So when Jesus looks right at them and asks “What are you looking for?” I can feel how disappointing it must have been for the disciples to find themselves nervously shuffling around and coughing, trying to figure out the magic response they are somehow supposed to know, and coming up only with the rather off-topic, “Where are you staying?”
I can imagine them silently castigating themselves for the response. “That’s all I can think of to say?” they must be wondering. “He’s going to think we are looking for a Motel 6. What do I actually want from him? What’s the magic right thing to want?” All this time, maybe like you and me, the disciples have imagined that when God spoke to them they would be quick to respond, light on their feet, masters of the moment—but here they are in front of Jesus and they are able only to express a vague desire to be around him. As Rudolfo Tonetti would say, “Give me a name for chance, and I am a fool.”
But this is a better story than “The Gay Divorcee.” No, the disciples don’t have a magic password. No, when Jesus asks them what they are looking for, they can’t exactly name it. Isn’t that always the way? When you pray, do you really know what you are praying for? Wouldn’t you be happy enough just to know that you might be somewhere near where Jesus can be found? Which one of us knows what it is that Jesus wants to give us or say to us when we slip out to Mass on a weekday morning, or to Confession on a Saturday? Why did you start volunteering at the Saturday Soup Bowl? What are you looking for when you open the Bible? What does it mean to you to pray the Rosary? Today is the first day of adult Confirmation classes in our parish for this year, and though I know I’m going to hear some beautiful reasons for all of us to be in the process together, I bet there isn’t a single one of us, myself included, who can say what it really means to be confirmed or received or baptized. We have a million words for what we ask of Jesus but we don’t exactly have the secret password we might want. There may not be one specific thing we can name that is the key to our desires or the heart of our spirituality or the hallmark of our relationship with God.
And Jesus, who is himself the Word of God, knows that it’s enough for us to be somewhere in his presence. “Come and see,” he says. Come and see.
Do you notice that he answers them in language that is as off-center as their halting question? Where are you staying? “Come and see” sounds pretty definite, but the joke is on the disciples. The Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head. The Logos has pitched his tent among us but he is an itinerant figure and the disciples are in for a very long journey if they want to see his mysterious home. Sure, they will be able to stay with him that day and for a good deal longer than that, but ultimately when they go looking for him they will find an empty tomb that leads them to more journeying. And then his ascension to a place called heaven.
Maybe all our lives we are awaiting a decisive encounter with the Lord, the Logos, and maybe the Lord knows exactly what to do with our bumbling formulas and our failed magic passwords. Maybe Jesus knows that when we come here seeking something, or when we journey out there in a quest for him, what we are looking for is exactly what we cannot name. Maybe Jesus knows and can help us to understand that just following him, just travelling in the atmosphere of possibility that surrounds him, is more than enough. Our efforts to unlock salvation are all mistakes. Our sense of what it means to be called is comically limited. Our notion of a destiny that draws us to God in Christ is wonderful but if we think we can map out our decisive moments we are deeply mistaken. Much of the work God does in us is invisible to us. Often we will have only the vaguest intimation of prayer or the will of God or the opening of our own hearts.
I don’t know that Jesus would quote Rudolfo Tonetti but I like to imagine that he would. I like to imagine that he could speak a word to us that would allow us to drop our expectations, surrender our limited notions of our spiritual destiny or our calling or our fate. “Fate,” as Rudolfo might say, “is a foolish thing. Take a chance.”
Preached by Mother Nora Johnson
19 January 2020
Saint Mark’s Church, Locust Street