The Pointed Joke
When I was in middle school I read A Modest Proposal. This is perhaps the most well know example of satire. It is written by a guy named Jonathan Swift. Mr. Swift was an Irishman living at a time when being Irish in the UK meant that you got little to no rights. In his modest proposal he suggests to the English parliament that the Irish sell their babies to the English as a delicacy. He goes into detail of how this will keep the Irish from being poor. How it will let the Irish be a help to the English economy. How it will be all around good for society. He meant none of it.
Swift was doing something called reductio ad absurdum. This basically means that you take the argument of someone else and reduce it to something absurd. In doing this the person shows how the premise itself is absurd. Jonathan Swift knew that his proposal was anything but modest. But he also knew that the British thought very little of the Irish. He knew that the proposals that they brought to "solve" the Irish problem were just as ridiculous. This was his attempt to show them how ridiculous they were being. He also knew they were going to be offended. That was point.
The Enemy of Offense
At this point many of you might notice that all of my examples have been in the secular world. You may come to the conclusion that Christians should not do these things. After all Jesus called us to love each other. Jesus hung out with sinners and tax collectors and was all about love. In fact you may remind me that I have talked about how we should care for widows and orphans. This is all true. But this is not the church.
See I know that we are called to admonish, to teach, one another. We are to keep each other accountable. If we see a brother or sister stumble we are supposed to be there to pick them up. If we see them start to stray we are supposed to be there to correct them. If someone sees us go astray they are supposed to come and correct us. AND we are supposed to take that correction, not resist it.
This is the problem. We have gotten to a point where we feel that we shouldn't do things that might offend each other. We are afraid of how they will respond. Why? Because we have also gotten to a place where when someone calls us out on our junk we cause a scene. We get offended. How dare THEY tell US what we have wrong. Don't they realize that they are living in sin. This is not exactly the humble attitude that Jesus called us to have as Christians.
The Sting of a Bee
Recently there are been a few Christian satire sites and twitter accounts crop up. These sites satirize Christian culture much like The Onion satirizes secular culture. The problem is that I have seen many Christians look at these and say they are not in good taste. They look at the satire on these sites and say that it is hurtful. They say that it is offensive.
My immediate response to this is to question why they feel this way. Are these people perhaps offended because it is their belief that is being satirized? To be fair this is probably not the case for everyone who has issue. But then I start to question if we really understand the types of humor in the bible. Do we really know how God and His people have used humor in the past?
Sarcastic Paul
Paul was not a really nice guy. The first time we meet him in Acts he is running the coat check at the execution of a Christian. Not really the best place to start if you are going to become the most prolific writer of the New Testament. From there he went on to imprison Christian after Christian. Needless to say that Paul was not the model of Christian living. At least not at first.
This is important because I think we often read the bible with sanitized eyes. We forget that these were ordinary people who God used to do extra-ordinary things. We whitewash stories like Noah and make cute animals to put on nursery walls. (Save that talk for another blog, Phil...) I too have suffered from this. But recently I re-read 1 Corinthians 4 and something jumped out at me. This passage is just dripping with sarcasm.
Paul starts out by telling the Christians at Corinth to get a grip and stop thinking so much of themselves. He starts off implying it and then downright tells them in verse 7. This is followed by some of the best sarcasm I have seen in scripture. I can just hear the exaggerated tone in Paul's voice.
Jesus Never Pulled a Punch
I want to point out just a few places where Jesus was downright savage. I want to do this because we sometimes think that Jesus was not ever angry. We think that Jesus never condemned anyone. The is just patently false. Jesus condemned lots of people. They just all happened to be self-righteous, holier-than-thou, religious leaders.
I think the most obvious place of this is Matthew 23. Yes the whole chapter. He basically tells off the Pharisees. He condemns them for keeping people out of the kingdom of heaven. (Yes that is right, he tells them that they are sending people to hell.) He calls them vipers, and whitewashed tombs, and fools worthy of condemnation.
Each and every case here is full of hyperbole. At one point he tells them that they will strain out a gnat but swallow a camel. Basically he is telling them that they are focusing on the minors and not the truly important things. He wasn't wrong. When Judas give back the silver out of guilt, they determine that they can't take blood money so they buy a potter's field. Seriously?! That is what they are concerned about?! They are worse than our politicians! (I think I need a minute to cool down.)
But Aren't They Offended?
There is one case that really sticks out to me though. The Pharisees come to Jesus and complain about the way his disciples are eating. They weren't ceremoniously washing their hands before they ate. (Apparently they weren't hygienic enough.) Jesus tells them off by saying they keep traditions but they don't take care of their parents. They have kept their own traditions, but broken the law of God. Then he quotes from Isaiah about this very thing. You know that book that they were supposedly well studied in. Yeah, that should have told them to do things differently. They should have known better, but they didn't.
It doesn't end there. No, just to dig the nail deeper, Jesus brings the crowd to him and tells them off in front of the crowd. Essentially he says. Don't worry about their traditions, make sure that you don't condemn people with your mouth. The implication here is that the Pharisees do just that.
Well at this point the disciples come to Jesus and are like. "Umm, Rabi, you know that you just pissed them off right?" Jesus' response is beautiful. He tells them that God will uproot anything that is not of Him. He tells them to let the blind men be. They will lead other blind men into hell. Just let it happen.
What?!?!
Did Jesus just say what I think he said? He not only purposefully insulted them. He did in front of a crowd. And he said that because they are offended and do not change they will go to hell. Yup. Jesus essentially said "I wanted to offend them. Don't worry about it. They are going to hell anyway."
What About Us?
I would be remiss if I just ended this blog here. The first, and foremost thing that I should point out is that Jesus can make that final determination about someone BECAUSE HE IS GOD. If we think that we can determine where someone will go then we are exactly like the Pharisees that he condemned. Second, I do not think that every form of sarcasm and humor is good, honest, or true. I do think that people intentionally say hurtful things and then pretend that it is humor. But in both cases the issue is with the heart and not the action. So given these two things I want to provide some practical ways we can live this out.
Check Your Heart
This goes for when you want to confront another Christian (whether that be in satire or not) and when they confront you. If you are going to someone because you want to show how much better than them you are. Stop. Take the plank out of your eye. This is not what was ever intended by God. Yes Paul and Jesus were harsh with people. But it was never about making themselves look better. It was always about shocking someone into right relation with God. Paul even says as much to the church at Corinth.
Likewise if someone confronts you and your first reaction is to get offended. Stop. Ask yourself why you are offended. Are you offended because you know they are right and you need to change something? If that is the case thank them. They have just saved you hurt and pain. If, however, they are just coming to you to hurt you. Brush it off. You are a child of God. You are loved by your Creator. Your worth is not in how they feel about you.
Oh and one more thing. If they are right about what they say, even if they are in fact trying to hurt you, even if they have a plank in their eye, thank them. No one is perfect. (That includes you) God uses flawed people to do His will. Just because someone has their own issues doesn't mean that the word they have for you is not from God.
Stop Being Offended for Other People
I will admit this one affects me more than it should. I can't stand it when someone says they are offended on behalf of someone else. If that person has not told you that they are offended stop assuming things. We all know what assumptions make us. Maybe what was said was needed and both parties involved are actually on better terms. You don't know. The only way to know is to actually talk to both parties.
If, however, someone has been hurt or offended then it might be time to confront the person who has done the offense. But remember when doing this to check your heart. If you don't know what this means see above.
Stop Condemning Non Christians
This does you no good and you just make the church look arrogant and hypocritical. This is perhaps the whole point of this blog post. If your church spends all its time trying to tell the world how they should live, but spends no time on itself you are doing it wrong. If you wonder how your church isn't growing and it is doing this you have your answer. No one outside the church is going to listen to what we have to say when they see that we are no better than they are. If we love those outside the church and admonish those inside we will start to become the people of God that we are called to be.
The whole point of this blog, the entire thing, is to determine what it means to live like Jesus. We are called to be humble like him. We are called to love like him. Sometimes that love looks like healing the sick and caring for widows and orphans. And sometimes that looks like calling the church out. Sometimes that means awakening the bride. Telling her that she needs to get herself ready because the groom is coming. I have more on that, but it will have to wait for another post.
Amen!
When I was in middle school I read A Modest Proposal. This is perhaps the most well know example of satire. It is written by a guy named Jonathan Swift. Mr. Swift was an Irishman living at a time when being Irish in the UK meant that you got little to no rights. In his modest proposal he suggests to the English parliament that the Irish sell their babies to the English as a delicacy. He goes into detail of how this will keep the Irish from being poor. How it will let the Irish be a help to the English economy. How it will be all around good for society. He meant none of it.
Swift was doing something called reductio ad absurdum. This basically means that you take the argument of someone else and reduce it to something absurd. In doing this the person shows how the premise itself is absurd. Jonathan Swift knew that his proposal was anything but modest. But he also knew that the British thought very little of the Irish. He knew that the proposals that they brought to "solve" the Irish problem were just as ridiculous. This was his attempt to show them how ridiculous they were being. He also knew they were going to be offended. That was point.
The Enemy of Offense
At this point many of you might notice that all of my examples have been in the secular world. You may come to the conclusion that Christians should not do these things. After all Jesus called us to love each other. Jesus hung out with sinners and tax collectors and was all about love. In fact you may remind me that I have talked about how we should care for widows and orphans. This is all true. But this is not the church.
See I know that we are called to admonish, to teach, one another. We are to keep each other accountable. If we see a brother or sister stumble we are supposed to be there to pick them up. If we see them start to stray we are supposed to be there to correct them. If someone sees us go astray they are supposed to come and correct us. AND we are supposed to take that correction, not resist it.
This is the problem. We have gotten to a point where we feel that we shouldn't do things that might offend each other. We are afraid of how they will respond. Why? Because we have also gotten to a place where when someone calls us out on our junk we cause a scene. We get offended. How dare THEY tell US what we have wrong. Don't they realize that they are living in sin. This is not exactly the humble attitude that Jesus called us to have as Christians.
The Sting of a Bee
Recently there are been a few Christian satire sites and twitter accounts crop up. These sites satirize Christian culture much like The Onion satirizes secular culture. The problem is that I have seen many Christians look at these and say they are not in good taste. They look at the satire on these sites and say that it is hurtful. They say that it is offensive.
My immediate response to this is to question why they feel this way. Are these people perhaps offended because it is their belief that is being satirized? To be fair this is probably not the case for everyone who has issue. But then I start to question if we really understand the types of humor in the bible. Do we really know how God and His people have used humor in the past?
Sarcastic Paul
Paul was not a really nice guy. The first time we meet him in Acts he is running the coat check at the execution of a Christian. Not really the best place to start if you are going to become the most prolific writer of the New Testament. From there he went on to imprison Christian after Christian. Needless to say that Paul was not the model of Christian living. At least not at first.
This is important because I think we often read the bible with sanitized eyes. We forget that these were ordinary people who God used to do extra-ordinary things. We whitewash stories like Noah and make cute animals to put on nursery walls. (Save that talk for another blog, Phil...) I too have suffered from this. But recently I re-read 1 Corinthians 4 and something jumped out at me. This passage is just dripping with sarcasm.
Paul starts out by telling the Christians at Corinth to get a grip and stop thinking so much of themselves. He starts off implying it and then downright tells them in verse 7. This is followed by some of the best sarcasm I have seen in scripture. I can just hear the exaggerated tone in Paul's voice.
"We are fools for Christ’s sake, but you are prudent in Christ; we are weak, but you are strong; you are distinguished, but we are without honor."Did you catch that? That is straight up sarcasm people. Paul does not think that the Corinthian church is prudent, or strong, or distinguished. No, he thinks they are being arrogant snots who think themselves better than everyone else. So what does Paul do? He exaggerates their arrogance. They would never claim to be better than Paul, but he goes there. He brings their arguments to absurdity to show them how foolish they are being. He doesn't end it there, but we will get back to that.
Jesus Never Pulled a Punch
I want to point out just a few places where Jesus was downright savage. I want to do this because we sometimes think that Jesus was not ever angry. We think that Jesus never condemned anyone. The is just patently false. Jesus condemned lots of people. They just all happened to be self-righteous, holier-than-thou, religious leaders.
I think the most obvious place of this is Matthew 23. Yes the whole chapter. He basically tells off the Pharisees. He condemns them for keeping people out of the kingdom of heaven. (Yes that is right, he tells them that they are sending people to hell.) He calls them vipers, and whitewashed tombs, and fools worthy of condemnation.
Each and every case here is full of hyperbole. At one point he tells them that they will strain out a gnat but swallow a camel. Basically he is telling them that they are focusing on the minors and not the truly important things. He wasn't wrong. When Judas give back the silver out of guilt, they determine that they can't take blood money so they buy a potter's field. Seriously?! That is what they are concerned about?! They are worse than our politicians! (I think I need a minute to cool down.)
But Aren't They Offended?
There is one case that really sticks out to me though. The Pharisees come to Jesus and complain about the way his disciples are eating. They weren't ceremoniously washing their hands before they ate. (Apparently they weren't hygienic enough.) Jesus tells them off by saying they keep traditions but they don't take care of their parents. They have kept their own traditions, but broken the law of God. Then he quotes from Isaiah about this very thing. You know that book that they were supposedly well studied in. Yeah, that should have told them to do things differently. They should have known better, but they didn't.
It doesn't end there. No, just to dig the nail deeper, Jesus brings the crowd to him and tells them off in front of the crowd. Essentially he says. Don't worry about their traditions, make sure that you don't condemn people with your mouth. The implication here is that the Pharisees do just that.
Well at this point the disciples come to Jesus and are like. "Umm, Rabi, you know that you just pissed them off right?" Jesus' response is beautiful. He tells them that God will uproot anything that is not of Him. He tells them to let the blind men be. They will lead other blind men into hell. Just let it happen.
What?!?!
Did Jesus just say what I think he said? He not only purposefully insulted them. He did in front of a crowd. And he said that because they are offended and do not change they will go to hell. Yup. Jesus essentially said "I wanted to offend them. Don't worry about it. They are going to hell anyway."
What About Us?
I would be remiss if I just ended this blog here. The first, and foremost thing that I should point out is that Jesus can make that final determination about someone BECAUSE HE IS GOD. If we think that we can determine where someone will go then we are exactly like the Pharisees that he condemned. Second, I do not think that every form of sarcasm and humor is good, honest, or true. I do think that people intentionally say hurtful things and then pretend that it is humor. But in both cases the issue is with the heart and not the action. So given these two things I want to provide some practical ways we can live this out.
Check Your Heart
This goes for when you want to confront another Christian (whether that be in satire or not) and when they confront you. If you are going to someone because you want to show how much better than them you are. Stop. Take the plank out of your eye. This is not what was ever intended by God. Yes Paul and Jesus were harsh with people. But it was never about making themselves look better. It was always about shocking someone into right relation with God. Paul even says as much to the church at Corinth.
Likewise if someone confronts you and your first reaction is to get offended. Stop. Ask yourself why you are offended. Are you offended because you know they are right and you need to change something? If that is the case thank them. They have just saved you hurt and pain. If, however, they are just coming to you to hurt you. Brush it off. You are a child of God. You are loved by your Creator. Your worth is not in how they feel about you.
Oh and one more thing. If they are right about what they say, even if they are in fact trying to hurt you, even if they have a plank in their eye, thank them. No one is perfect. (That includes you) God uses flawed people to do His will. Just because someone has their own issues doesn't mean that the word they have for you is not from God.
Stop Being Offended for Other People
I will admit this one affects me more than it should. I can't stand it when someone says they are offended on behalf of someone else. If that person has not told you that they are offended stop assuming things. We all know what assumptions make us. Maybe what was said was needed and both parties involved are actually on better terms. You don't know. The only way to know is to actually talk to both parties.
If, however, someone has been hurt or offended then it might be time to confront the person who has done the offense. But remember when doing this to check your heart. If you don't know what this means see above.
Stop Condemning Non Christians
This does you no good and you just make the church look arrogant and hypocritical. This is perhaps the whole point of this blog post. If your church spends all its time trying to tell the world how they should live, but spends no time on itself you are doing it wrong. If you wonder how your church isn't growing and it is doing this you have your answer. No one outside the church is going to listen to what we have to say when they see that we are no better than they are. If we love those outside the church and admonish those inside we will start to become the people of God that we are called to be.
The whole point of this blog, the entire thing, is to determine what it means to live like Jesus. We are called to be humble like him. We are called to love like him. Sometimes that love looks like healing the sick and caring for widows and orphans. And sometimes that looks like calling the church out. Sometimes that means awakening the bride. Telling her that she needs to get herself ready because the groom is coming. I have more on that, but it will have to wait for another post.
May you learn to check your heart. May you laugh when people satirize you. May you call your brothers and sisters to life. May you hear when they do it to you. May the bride make herself ready. And may the groom find her worthy.
Amen!
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