I learned the fine art of sarcasm from my mother. I remember getting in trouble for saying smart-a** comments from a young age. It comes naturally to me and when uncontrolled can get me into quite a bit of trouble. In Scripture, James offers a direct hit when he likens our tongues to the rudder of a ship, one small movement can turn the whole thing around. We can really get ourselves into hot water if we don't tame our tongues.
But sometimes, just sometimes....the snarky comment can sum up a difficult situation perfectly. Note, fellow pastors that this situation rarely occurs while you are preaching. (This is one of the many reasons I should NOT be allowed in front of a church).
So many of the things we encounter daily don't make a whole lot of sense, often causing us to question, "Why, God?" There are huge issues dividing the gift of God's grace into categories: who is in, and who is out. People boldly proclaim that salvation is for "us" but can't possibly include "them." It sometimes makes me feel like I'm the only one who gets that Jesus was serious when he set forth the new command “Let me give you a new command: Love one another. In the same way I loved you, you love one another. This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples—when they see the love you have for each other.” Or, another of Christ's bolder statements from Matthew 1, “Don’t pick on people, jump on their failures, criticize their faults— unless, of course, you want the same treatment. That critical spirit has a way of boomeranging. It’s easy to see a smudge on your neighbor’s face and be oblivious to the ugly sneer on your own. Do you have the nerve to say, ‘Let me wash your face for you,’ when your own face is distorted by contempt? It’s this whole traveling road-show mentality all over again, playing a holier-than-thou part instead of just living your part. Wipe that ugly sneer off your own face, and you might be fit to offer a washcloth to your neighbor."
In the midst of real human struggles, overwhelming joys, and daily routines I am afraid that the voice of Christ in the world gets associated with people like the Westboro Baptist Church, the folks who picket military funerals (and basically any other event that they don't like) in the name of some sort of Christian-cleansing for the world. These are the wacko people who get the front page press, showing the world how horrible, judgmental, and just plain crazy it is to take Jesus seriously. While most of us are doing small-scale ministry in our cities and towns, loving on people, healing the hurts, feeding the hungry, the Christ in our midst is often squelched out.
Back to the power of sarcasm (see, you knew I'd pull this all together). One of my favorite "pages" on Facebook is called Unvirtuous Abby. I love it because they update their status with things I often wish I could say out loud. Those sarcastic, snarky phrases that make us both laugh and feel sorrow that their truth. Today they posted about the impending death of Fred Phelps, the founder of the Westboro Baptist Church. From the sounds of it, he is now in the midst of Hospice Care and will be heading out of this world. This is the man who has condemned so many others to hell that you wonder just how God might respond. Unvirtuous Abby posted about the angels that may take him to the Gates, about the surprise he might be encountering once he passes. In light of the heavy damage he and his community have done in the name of Christ I am thankful that we can look at this event with a bit of a sense of humor. As one of my favorite women once told me, "You know you're in trouble when you lose your sense of humor."
Last night I heard a great sermon at our Community Lenten Service. It was based on 1 Corinthians 1:
18-21 The Message that points to Christ on the Cross seems like sheer silliness to those hellbent on destruction, but for those on the way of salvation it makes perfect sense. This is the way God works, and most powerfully as it turns out. It’s written,
I’ll turn conventional wisdom on its head,
I’ll expose so-called experts as crackpots.
So where can you find someone truly wise, truly educated, truly intelligent in this day and age? Hasn’t God exposed it all as pretentious nonsense? Since the world in all its fancy wisdom never had a clue when it came to knowing God, God in his wisdom took delight in using what the world considered dumb—preaching, of all things!—to bring those who trust him into the way of salvation.
22-25 While Jews clamor for miraculous demonstrations and Greeks go in for philosophical wisdom, we go right on proclaiming Christ, the Crucified. Jews treat this like an anti-miracle—and Greeks pass it off as absurd. But to us who are personally called by God himself—both Jews and Greeks—Christ is God’s ultimate miracle and wisdom all wrapped up in one. Human wisdom is so tinny, so impotent, next to the seeming absurdity of God. Human strength can’t begin to compete with God’s “weakness.”
26-31 Take a good look, friends, at who you were when you got called into this life. I don’t see many of “the brightest and the best” among you, not many influential, not many from high-society families. Isn’t it obvious that God deliberately chose men and women that the culture overlooks and exploits and abuses, chose these “nobodies” to expose the hollow pretensions of the “somebodies”? That makes it quite clear that none of you can get by with blowing your own horn before God. Everything that we have—right thinking and right living, a clean slate and a fresh start—comes from God by way of Jesus Christ. That’s why we have the saying, “If you’re going to blow a horn, blow a trumpet for God.”
I fear that we Christians have become so diligent about following the rules and making sure our opinions are heard that we have utterly forgotten (or set aside) the joy of Christ. As Howard Thurman said, "“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive." A relationship with a God who has chosen to love the world, not condemn it (that's John 3:17...what comes after the verse you learned in VBS) should most definitely make us come alive. We are the broken who have been healed. We are the blind who have been given sight. We are the outcast, the tax collector, the Pharisee....and we have been invited into Love Divine.
I know it is Lent and we are focusing more inward than outward, but in light of today's events I ask you, how have you been an example of the joy found in knowing Christ? How have you broken down the barriers in order that our loving Christ be glorified? What does the world need that your presence can bring? Where have you been stuck in judgement rather than grace?
This is the real crisis, as I see it. When we live out of the joy of Christ - out of the victory - we can fully live out of the love of God.
In closing, yet another of those sarcastic (yet ultimately truthful) comments:
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