I want to elevate people. Deep down, I really do.
Seinfeld was a comedy that affected a generation.
Everyone finds humor that is sarcastic, demeaning and laced with in-jokes and mutual defamation to be prized and enjoyable. I’m one of them, at least in part.
Since living in the East of Canada, I find less sarcasm in the humor than I’ve found other places on the earth. I find that maritimers tend to laugh less at each other in mockery and more with each other in revelry. Sarcasm literally means “to take flesh.” There seems to be less blood on the floor in our jests, less of each others and less of those not present (be they actors or public figures).
A friend tells me that blending sarcasm, with false enthusiasm, is called “sarcusiasm.” I do that quite well, I’ve noted.
Today, I’m wondering if sarcasm and its single-parent, cynicism, has any place in a redemptive view of the world. From the AIDs crisis in Africa, to how I laugh with my buddy today, I’m thinking that I’d like to become less and less sarcastic, and more and more elevating to be around.
I agree with a friend that cynicism is a gateway drug to all things nasty. Sarcasm seems to me to be its ugly child, who is more fun to be around.
I’m wondering if an innocence of joy is attainable. That’s the way the Church, that believes a story based on broken Imagebearers and redemptive energy in the world, should be.
That’s what I think today.
35 Comments
Jesus was sarcastic.
Don’t believe me? – read this book and see JC in a whole new light.
I think there is such a thing as blessed sarcasm.
Good link, MJ. Nice interjection.
Yet, I don’t agree. Here’s why.
I don’t think we would aptly label Jesus’ style of cutting words and cutting actions “sarcastic.” Not in the full “taking of flesh” sense, never to replace it. The sarcasm I’m talking about only takes; it doesn’t give. It’s concern is not truth or justice, but rather mockery.
I think that he was subversive and sharp-tongued, and dished out reality to those who might miss a subtler toss of the truth. You call it sarcasm, I call it sharp words.
I understand what you’re saying, but I don’t buy it; not as North America or Europe has known it.
We tear down for the sake of it. Or, for the sake of something we need deeper to believe about ourselves, or as an alternative to action. Sarcasm is a substitute for redemptive actions that actually change the world we’re frustrated with. What a sorry substitute.
And Lions don’t bite?
(had to use SOME sarcasm here…;-D)
“Oh, Aslan sounds terrible, Mr. Beaver. Is he dangerous?”
“Of course he’s dangerous!” he replied. “But he’s good.”
And therein, in motive and purpose, is the difference I’m talking about.
So you mean?…
1. A cutting, often ironic remark intended to wound.
Rather than…
2. A form of wit that is marked by the use of sarcastic language and is intended to make its victim the butt of contempt or ridicule.
(dictionary.com)
Interesting debate. Dan, I also found that living in Eastern(ish) Canada challenged my humour and prompted me to think about the intentions behind how I speak to, and about, people.
Perhaps that bridges where you guys are coming from? What was Jesus’ intention? If His intention was to wound then I believe this was in order that He could heal? I don’t think think I could ever say the same for my sarcasm!
Here’s some wicked sarcasm from JC… (as a cultural refernce point – women in that particular culture were often refered to, and treated as dogs).
Matthew 15:21-28
21 When Jesus left there, He withdrew to the area of Tyre and Sidon. 22 Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came and kept crying out, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David! My daughter is cruelly tormented by a demon.” 23 Yet He did not say a word to her. So His disciples approached Him and urged Him, “Send her away, because she cries out after us.” 24 He replied, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” 25 But she came, knelt before Him, and said, “Lord, help me!” 26 He answered, “It isn’t right to take the children’s bread and throw it to their dogs.” 27 “Yes, Lord,” she said, “yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table!” 28 Then Jesus replied to her, “Woman, your faith is great. Let it be done for you as you want.” And from that moment her daughter was cured.
I think most women today would have huffed-off after he ignored them. I guess he was testing her faith… but you’re probably dead if you can’t see the sarcasm in that comment about dogs.
That one’s courtosy of Paul Coughlin.
Hey dan. I studied at SSU last year, not sure if you remember me or not. I noticed from your site that your into the emerging church thing. I wasnt quite sure where to post this as this site is new to me but I ran across a couple of articles and I really wanted to know what you thought of them. Im not saying I agree or disagree with them, just wondering what you think.
here is the first part
http://blog.christianitytoday.com/outofur/archives/2005/10/why_james_macdo.html
and the second
http://blog.christianitytoday.com/outofur/archives/2005/10/why_james_macdo_1.html
thanks for your time
In Christ
Justin
PS have you ever heard of relevent magazine and or books? there great
That’s a bit tenious I think. My initial reaction is that Jesus is using symbolic language rather than sarcastic language (Cannanites, along with Samaritans etc, were reffered to as dogs, and Jews as the children of God). Middle eastern culture places a high emphasis on words and symbolism. Nothing is wasted and everything examined. Sarcasm is too easy to mis-interpret and often used as a method of confornting without the consequences of being direct. Jesus never backed down from confrontation. Western sarcasm comes from the superficiality which evolved in our society, whereby cutting words are hidden or dressed up in a veneer of polite language. Watch any period drama set in 18th century European high society for an extreme example. I think it’s often too easy to think of Jesus in wester terms when he was after all a first century Palestinian jew.
Yes, I agree, Graeme.
MJ, literally, the word “sarcasm” by dictionary definition could be applied to Jesus’ patterns of dealing with some people, but that’s missing the point. The english language and its simple categories (words) for complex issues (many meanings) is a rabbit trail. Everyone knows the english language throws far too many meanings into one word, thus confusing the pure meanings of words.
My point is an issue of motive. To wound with the intention of healing, or disorienting by offending the mind to access the heart, is an art form that Jesus seemed to implement well.
Biting (another root of sarcasm) simply to harm or again, “take,” is the “type” of sarcasm I’m decrying.
I’ll probably still keep some shades of sarcastic humor in my vocabulary of interaction, but I’d like it to bend toward being a “healing humor,” a “benevolent bite.” Reality is, I’m getting tired of the endless cranky edge of sarcasm as lifestyle. Friendships are being made and kept, but too many hours are logged in on the treadmill of pointless cynicism, negativism and futilism.
That’s what we’re talking about. I.e. Sarcasm needs another word to replace it to define the difference between what Jesus did and what our generation finds its most embraced form of humour.
Maybe “benevolent sarcasm” could take us somewhere, but again, sometimes the most benevolent sarcasm is still flowing from a heart steeped in cynicism, rather than hope or a lifelong desire to elevate another to a higher place.
Usually those motives are mixed in me, at best. I would love for the elevation of others to mark my most cutting remarks, and my most tender tussles.
Note: I also strongly believe that sarcasm is often a replacement, as a good friend puts it, for indignant action. To joke about something is easier than doing something about it, and to revel over another’s weakensses elevates… us.
I’d love some others to weigh in on this from different parts of the world. Canada, the UK (England) and Scotland are represented so far.
Maybe “spitefulness” is a better word?
Graeme – is it symbolic when people call Jews “shysters”? – “dog” sounds more like an ethnic-slur to me… it certainly isn’t a “nice” thing to call someone…
Is it?
Mj, symbolism doesn’t have to be nice. You are right that “dog” was and is an ethnic slur. Jesus was saying it how it was. I believe he was challenging his culture too, don’t forget there were fellow Jews there who probably had those attitudes.
Jesus often got people to answer their own questions by throwing the ball back in their court. He was saying to the woman, ” This bread is for the Jews first, why should I give it to you gentiles (pagans, heathens, whatever). The woman then proved herself (and her race) to be above the common mis-conception by answering well and demonstrating faith. I think that Jesus was showing the Jews (his disciples) that they were in a special position but even those considered outcast could recieve the bread. in fact it brings to mind the phrase, “he who has been forgiven much will love much”. Just my thoughts anyway…
Hmmm – well, I guess I should look at the way I use sarcastic humour sometimes then…
Thanks for thrashing this one out guys!
Good groupalogue guys.
Hmmm…another one to mull over. Not being one for sarcasm
I’ll have to think this one through. I’ll try to jump in to represent the U.S. (also Hockey loosers) in the next day. My first thought…hmmm…I’ll be nice and let these thoughts sink in first.
Jason
I moved from a small town in the Maritimes to a big city in Ontario. I ran into an old friend, and their greeting to me was a sarcastic insult about the way I spoke. I was thrown aback, and remarked that I had grown unaccustommed to friends showing their affection for you by insulting you and tearing you down. Her reply?
“Better get used to it! Your back in the city now, farmboy”
Somehow I have trouble picturing Jesus looking at his friends, seeing their weaknesses, and exploiting them in order to amuse himself. He was king of all, but took the place of the least. Sarcasm takes the “high place” and puts the butt of the joke into the low place. It is selfish humour. It’s a shame we don’t do the opposite of this more often. To look at other’s weakness and mock them is painful. To observe another’s strength and praise them for it is far superior.
Did I say he used it on his friends?
He reserved his most lashing remarks for those dastardly pharasees… and fair play to him.
I can picture this answer to Pilate laced with sarcastic humour… but I could be wrong;
Mark 15:2 Pilate questioned Him, “Are You the King of the Jews?” And He answered him, “It is as you say.”
I think my point Jake is that there is a difference between a dry sense of humour and being an asshole.
Actually that Pilate example was crap; a better example would be in Mark 7:9 where he is criticizing the Pharisees…
“You have such a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God” (ESV, emphasis added)
I think that part of Jesus’ message is that we treat our enemies with the same level of respect as we do our friends, if not more, carrying their pack the extra mile. I doubt that Jesus’ comments to the pharisees held the intent of tearing them down and making them feel inferior to him, which I do see as a characteristic of sarcasm most often. Thus, the idea that Jesus was only sarcastic to his opposition is difficult for me.
I suppose there could be a righteous way of being sarcastic, but i doubt that is a road that I will spend much time seeking.
Jesus had one goal, one motivation in mind, when he used what we here are suggesting is sarcasm (I suggest the word is malformed and does not cover what Jesus modeled).
That motivation, expressed in the life we see lived before us in the scriptures (…being in very nature God), seems to always and unswervingly be… elevation.
Whether a Pharisee is having an encounter with a mirror on himself, through a back-handed comment, the Reader of the heart would have (by track record) had in mind “revelation leading to repentance.”
When I mock someone’s accent (Jake’s ex.), or suggest that someone has a unibrow, or mock a mullet, or teach my children to use sarcasm as a weapon when they feel they’ve been dissed (yes, my world), then I can’t correlate that type of sarcasm with Jesus.
I call his “benevolent sarcasm.” I call mine and much of this generation’s “biting sarcasm.”
One is giving, in the end. The other is taking, from the end.
Jake – again, I’m not talking about how I behave with people I dislike… I’m talking about Jesus.
How do you explain the bit in Matthew 12 where he calls the pharisees a “brood of vipers”? – again, it wasn’t a pleasant rebuke.
Anyway – this is getting tiresome.
I agree – tearing people down sucks.
But I do think that sometimes we need to look at Christ through different lenses – he didn’t drive the money-keepers out of the temple with a pink feather duster afterall…
I would be interested to hear the thoughts of any language scholars or cultural historians. What would the humour of the day have been like?
How much are we applying our contemporary Western values to interpretation? That’s a genuine rather than a loaded question by the way!
Dan: Never mock the mullet!
MJ, I think you’re confusing correction via sarcasm, with a lifestyle of sarcastic interaction and cynicism.
Jesus’ macro goal was the course correction of a people, and a corporate turning of both Israel and its wider family of humanity. Again, benevolent sarcasm, from a heart that is “for” the open heart and mind, is modeled here.
Yes, Andy, Western individualism is indeed confusing the matter as well, as the Jews of the day would have seen the individual primarily in light of the corporate community (Eastern), not the community primarily in the light of the individual (Western).
I do believe that Jesus was benevolently sarcastic with the Pharisees and others in order to course correct a people, and individuals, over the long and short term. I do not believe he is a model for the destructive sarcasm, bred in the pool of cynicism, that marks much of Western culture today.
Go to any third world country and see if they have time to mess with each other to such a degree as we do through sarcasm.
Jesus is not the poster child for Western run-rampant degradation. He is the model of cutting words fighting for the unearthing of sometimes subterranean truth.
Personally, I won’t be tired of this conversation till I can lay my head on my pillow and say I not only get it, but am living it.
I’ve got some healing to do as the pain of dysfunction is right in my face daily, as my kids grow up and show sarcastic patterns I’ve taught them.
The time for my lesson is now.
Oh, and Andy, I mocked the mullet in a fit of… of… fit.
I agree Dan, I hate it when people are constantly sarcastic – I can never tell if they are being truthful or not and sometimes, when viewed through a negative filter, that hurts…
Mullets are of the devil.
(that last bit was a joke)
I think mullets are from neptune. There was a satellite reading, years ago, that spotted a mullet, seemingly on the head of a comet shaped in the face of Elvis, speeding past neptune.
They could tell it was distinctly Elvisian in origin by the forehead on the comet, and the lick ‘o hair.
I like the idea of viewing individualism in the light of community.
Perhaps the most helpful lens for us is John 8 when Jesus invited anyone who was free of guilt to stone the woman caught in adultery or Matthew 7 when Jesus attacks hypocrisy. Jesus was blameless when convicting others of sin – whether with humour or not. That is not to say that we cannot be part of God’s process of discipline and conviction but at the same time we need to be careful that we avoid making hypocrites of ourselves.
On another note mullets are clearly designed by God for the purposes of humility in the recording of history…
mmm.
O man, what a topic!
Dan, I think I’m with you on this one.
What I find , is that if I’m around folks who
dialog on that level, I can easily get sort of sucked into it, and find myself being sarcastic right back.
I do not like the way I sound when I’m using that “mode” of discussion.
Here in Maine, I find a fairly large number of people who do use sarcasm as a means of dialog, and it’s almost work to not become overly sarcastic myself.
My wife hates it.
We hates it…nasty sarcasmses, filthy, false!
oh wait, I digress..
If the maritimes tend toward non-sarcastic discussion, that’s just one more reason for me to consider a church plant up there.
;-}
blessings….
i feel without sarcy comments ireland would be a much quieter place to be when in a bar or coffee shop but that does not make it a good thing but i could not rule it out from all cases even if you could be misuderstood your telling me no one ever misunderstooded jesus some people may have thought that white washed tombs, was a term of endearment
“But it is immortals whom we joke wtih, work with, marry, snub, and exploit – immortal horrors or everlasting splendours. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn.
We must play,. Bout our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people wh have, from the outset, taken each other seriously – no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption.”
C.S. Lewis, The Weight Of Glory
food for thought
Hi Dan
I’m way late in on this one but I agree with your original premise. I know of no good thing that has come from cutting jokes I have made. And I have seen the hurt they have caused. I can’t remember ever being “helped” by such comments either. Instead it has been another tone altogether that has made for changes in my own life. When some one has brought a challenge in love I have been able to hear it and be broken by it. With sarcasm, even though correct, I have only been wounded and become defensive. Since I spout sarcasm so much I hadn’t realized the Maritimes did it a little less than some other places. I have made an effort to eradicate sarcasm from my speech…but still fall into it for the sake of a laugh – especially if there is a crowd around. I don’t see it in Jesus. Elijah on Mount Carmel? Yeah, but not Jesus.
Tim D
well said Tim.
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