AS UNCA D winds down his blogging career, it is time to confess the sin of mockery. I am a mocker. In my prime, I was good at it.
Soon after I turned my life over to Jesus, however, I learned that mockery is a sin. I even taught a lesson about the subject during Easter season, 2017. Here are excerpts from the lesson, edited for print. May this lesson help you understand and do what I understand but . . .
. . . still struggle to do.
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The first four verses of today’s scheduled lesson raise an issue that troubled me since my earliest days as a Christian. I have never come fully to grips with the subject. Let's read from Matthew 27:41ff.
In the same way the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders mocked him. “He saved others,” they said, “but he can’t save himself! He’s the King of Israel! Let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him. He trusts in God. Let God rescue him now if he wants him, for he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’” In the same way the robbers who were crucified with him also heaped scorn on him.
What I saw almost immediately after I became a Christian, and what you can see by searching the Bible for the word mock and its derivatives is that mockery is an important biblical theme. By derivatives, I mean mocks, mocked, mocking, and mockery—words like these. And similar or related words, such as scoff and ridicule.
Today’s assigned verses are about mockery of the Son of God. We can stop here, if we wish, by agreeing that it is wicked to mock the Son of God, or God, or the people of God, or the things of God. Who among us would do such a thing?
We can agree on this point because we share the special knowledge about God that comes by grace, through faith. But let’s stop for a moment and go back in time. What might we have said or thought if we had been standing at the cross in the hours before Jesus was crucified?
All the right people agreed, after all, that this man Jesus was a charlatan and blasphemer. The chief priests. The teachers of the law. The elders. Who would have known better than they? Whom would you have believed? Whom would I have believed? These eminent religious and cultural and political leaders? Or this itinerant preacher who had wandered into Jerusalem from the hinterlands?
He was from a nobody from nowhere—a town of no importance. “Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?” John 1:46. To call someone a Nazarene was, in fact, usually taken as an insult.
How likely is it that I, or you, would not have sympathized with the mockery or, worse, joined the mockery? It chills my heart to consider these questions. In my human nature, I would probably have done the wrong thing.
Those who knew better did not know better because they were better people, for they were sinners too. They knew better because God had revealed it to them, as God revealed to Peter the answer to the question: Who is this man, Jesus?
Let's step back up from this horrific moment in Bible history and human history and consider the concept of mockery more broadly. Apart from the special case of mocking God, the Son of God, and the people and things of God—which we agree is wrong— what can we say about the spirit of mockery as a general proposition? What does the Bible teach us about mocking other people?
The Spirit of the Age
We live in an age of mockery. It is the currency of our time. It demeans and debases us and our culture. I’m not going to dwell on this but I will offer two examples, one from each side of our recent political season.
“You know, to just be grossly generalistic,” one presidential candidate said, “you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic—you name it.” She went on to say these deplorables were also irredeemable. She gave this little speech many times. She did it because her audiences laughed and applauded.
Mockery was also a major part of Mr. Trump’s political arsenal. He ran against Crooked Hillary and, before that, Lyin’ Ted and Little Marco. The insults worked. He won the GOP nomination.
Both candidates reflected a culture that was already debased, then they debased it more. Our world readily accepts mockery as a substitute for serious, reasoned, respectful discourse. Our world also readily accepts mockery as a substitute for genuine humor.
To much laughter and applause, we have been told recently that our president lusts after his daughter, has a sexual relationship with Vladimir Putin, and writes on the walls of the White House with his own feces.
These are said to be jokes, but they are not funny. They are hateful. The authors of these cruel insults were Bill Maher of HBO, Stephen Colbert of CBS, and a trio of giggling comedians on a PBS game show yesterday. PBS, in case you do not know, is a radio network you and I support with our tax dollars.
It’s remarkable that such things are being said and even more remarkable that none of these mockers is in serious danger of being fired or admonished or shamed for saying these things.
We could go on about this subject, but let’s not. Mockery is, indeed, the spirit of the age. Let’s turn to the Bible and see what it teaches about mockery.
Mockery Is a Sin, Born of Pride and Rebellion
The first verse of the first chapter of Psalms links mockery with wickedness and sin:
Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers.
Other verses link mockery with pride, arrogance, and rebellion. The proud and arrogant person—“Mocker” is his name—behaves with insolent fury, says Proverbs 21:24. Isaiah, himself an object of scorn and mockery, says God regards mockers as rebels.
Whom are you mocking? At whom do you sneer and stick out your tone? Are you not a brood of rebels, the offspring of liars? Isaiah 67:4.
When Zephaniah prophesises God’s judgment against the enemies of Judah, he links mockery with pride.
This is what they will get in return for their pride, for insulting and mocking the people of the Lord Almighty. Zephaniah 2:10.
Old Testament lists of the sins of the Israelites often include mockery against God and God’s people. 2 Chronicles 36:16 prophesies the fall of Jerusalem with this very point.
[T]hey mocked God’s messengers, despised his words and scoffed at his prophets until the wrath of God was aroused against his people . . . .
The Bible also makes a special point of condemning mockery against the poor and powerless.
[God himself] mocks proud mockers but shows favor to the humble and oppressed.
Mockery Hurts
We are taught that stick and stones may break our bones, but words will never hurt us. This is folk wisdom. It is useful to help a child—or an adult, for that matter—deal with hurtful words. But that words will never hurt us is not the biblical view of mockery. The biblical view is that mockery, taunts, ridicule are painful. That they can and do hurt us.
There’s probably no one in this room who has not heard stories about verbal abuse directed at sensitive children and teens by school bullies. How much does this mockery hurt? So much that the victims can be emotionally scarred, deeply so, unable to maintain their grades, afraid to return to class, sometimes even driven to violence or suicide.
Mockery hurts. The Bible does not pretend otherwise. The Bible tells us that words can wound us, and deeply. Great figures of the Bible often lamented the mockery they endured. From Psalms:
All who see me mock me; they hurl insults, shaking their heads. Psalm 22:7.
Those who sit at the gate mock me, and I am the song of drunkards. Psalm 69:12.
Remember, Lord, how your servant has been mocked, how I bear in my heart the taunts of all the nations. Psalm 89:50.
Psalm 69:19 uses a different word—scorn—to make the same point.
You know how I am scorned, disgraced and shamed; all my enemies are before you. Scorn as broken my heart and left me helpless . . . .
Job also cries out.
Surely mockers surround me; my eyes must dwell on their hostility. Job 17:2.
Even the little boys scorn me; when I appear, they ridicule me. Job 19:18.
But now they mock me, men younger than I, whose fathers I would have disdained to put with my sheep dogs. Job 30:1.
And now those young me mock me in song; I have become a byword among them. Job 30:9.
Jeremiah too laments the mockery directed at him.
I am ridiculed all day long; everyone mocks me. Jeremiah 20:7.
The anonymous author of Lamentations also complains.
I became the laughingstock of all my people; they mock me in song all day long. Lamentations 3:14.
Look at them! Sitting or standing, they mock me in their songs. Lamentations 3:63.
Mockery hurts. God’s Bible heroes speak very clearly about the pain.
Mockery Also Hurts Society
The Bible tells us that mockery is genuinely painful to those against whom it is directed. But the Bible also says that mockery has social costs. It hurts society.
Mockers stir up a city. Proverbs 29:8.
Drive out the mocker, and out goes strife; quarrels and insults are ended. Proverbs 22:10.
Mockery was one among several offenses that drew God’s ire against Israel and Judah.
Now stop your mocking or your chains will become heavier . . . . Isaiah 28:22.
Mockery by Israel’s leaders is especially harmful. Hosea associates it with drunkenness.
On the day of the festival of our king the princes become inflamed with wine, and he joins hands with the mockers.
Proverbs 24:9 says people detest a mocker.
God Hears Our Prayers about the Pain of Mockery
Mockery hurts. It hurts individuals. It hurts society. From the verses I have read and many others, we also learn that God’s ears are open to his people who suffer mockery. Job and David and the others cry out and pray in expectation of God’s sympathy and help. So can we.
There Is Little We Can Do to Turn a Mocker Away from Mockery
Proverbs suggests that it is difficult, perhaps impossible, to turn a mocker away from mockery by rebuking him or reasoning with him.
A mocker does not respond to rebukes. Proverbs 13:1.
Mockers resent correction. Proverbs 15:12.
Do not rebuke mockers or they will hate you. Proverbs 9:8.
Whoever corrects a mocker invites insults. Proverbs 9:7.
The New Testament's Answer to the Spirit of Mockery is Love
Aside from the mockery of Jesus before his crucifixion—a subject we will soon return—the New Testament says relatively little about the sin of mocking others. The reason for silence on this issue is simple: love. Love is the New Testament answer all sorts of questions about what is or is not a sin. Love your neighbor as yourself. This is the second half of Jesus’ famous answer to the question about the greatest commandment. Matthew 22:39. One who loves his neighbor in this way cannot then logically hurt his neighbor by mocking his neighbor. Nothing more needs to be said.
Other New Testament verses support this understanding. Blessed are the poor in spirit. This beatitude drains away the prideful motivation for scorn and mockery. Matthew 5.
Likewise, when Jesus teaches in Matthew 25 that whatever we do for the least of these, we do for him, we are forced to consider that mocking another person could very well be like mocking Jesus.
And don't forget what James has to say.
An untamed tongue is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. James 3:8.
Listen. With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be. Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? James 3:9–11.
The Testimony of Sweet-Spirited Christians
Perhaps the best evidence we have of the New Testament answer to mockery is found in the testimony of the lives of faith of those special Christians who are farthest along the road of becoming more like Jesus.
Think of Christians who have inspired you and taught you by their example what it means to be Christian. How many of them have had sharp tongues? None.
The Christians who have most inspired me were the ones whose spirits and words were sweet, humble, pure, kind. Not mockers. What about you?
The Mockery of Jesus Teaches Us Everything We Need to Know About Mockery
We will end our lesson as we began, with the picture of the religious authorities of Jerusalem mocking our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Everything the Bible says about mockery and scorn is encapsulated in these verses.
The Bible teaches that mockery is painful. We see the suffering of many Old Testament heroes who are subject to the mockery of their enemies. The mockery hurts them. They call out to God. Here Jesus is the target of mockery, and it hurts. The contempt and ridicule he suffers are meant to hurt, and they do. They are an essential part of what the crucifixion means.
The essence of crucifixion is physical pain, followed by death. Yet little of Matthew's text is devoted to details about the mechanics of crucifixion. Many words, by contrast, are devoted to details about the mockery.
Just as we infer the pain Jesus must have suffered for the bare descriptions of the mechanics of crucifixion, administered by Roman soldier, so we are invited to infer the emotional pain he must have suffered from the taunts and mockery directed at him from the foot of the cross, primarily by Jewish religious authorities.
Our challenge, standing at the foot of the cross, is to decide whether we identify with the man, Jesus, on the cross or with his tormentors.
We are taught to love our neighbor, even a neighbor who is an enemy, as ourselves. If we do love this neighbor, how can we mock him? If we do mock him, are we not, in a spiritual sense, joining the mockers at the foot of the cross? Our target is not literally the man, Jesus; our target is a neighbor, made in the image and likeness of God.
What are we to do when words of mockery rise to our lips? Let's start by agreeing that mockery is wicked and sinful. And let's agree that the Holy Spirit can give us strength to make the right choice.The challenge is to say what needs to be said with love instead of mockery.
So let's pray for God's guidance and for God's strength as we struggle with this elemental, and very wrong, human sin.
x x x
That's the lesson. How should it applied?
Let's imagine a hypothetical American presidential race in which one candidate appears to suffer cognitive decline. Is a Christian forbidden to consider this issue or mention it as a reason for declining to vote for that candidate?
I would say this: Yes, Christians can take account of the cognitive decline and discuss it with others---seriously, respectfully, remembering that both the candidate and his supporters are neighbors, made in the image of God. What Christians cannot do, I believe, is mock that candidate for his cognitive decline.
Mockery and ridicule are powerful weapons, frankly, and the Christian approach amounts to voluntary disarmament. I have never been strong enough to lay down those weapons. May God help me to do so now.
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