When I was a boy I remember in the early 90s it seemed like all of a sudden everything was about comedy, mockery, and humor. It seemed to me at the time the strangest, most unmanly thing in the world. I was still just a small boy at that time. It made me very much a fish out of water. My father was not a humorous man, and he didnt set before me frilly mockers. The men I knew were men. In my world knights, soldiers, Indiana Jones, brave Biblical heroes like David... these were the models of character I liked, aspired to, and they were the very men my father wanted me to be like. I knew they were what men were supposed to be. As I grew up, I was in the same environment as everyone else, and mockery never came naturally to me... even if I wanted it to flow naturally at times. Who doesnt want to be like his peers? Who doesnt want to make everyone laugh? It persists to this day. Not the desire to be a successful jester, or to be a mocker, but how easy it is in a world of fools to fall into their manner of jest and speech! Their coarse jesting... I find in my own struggle, as a man who works in a predominately male environment that it still catches me off guard. The vulgar, filthy joke that catches you like a net, just right. Despite your prayers, your pursuit for piety, and your resolve to be an ambassador for Christ... there you are, laughing at something you ought not, participating in sin by your approval, willing or unwilling. You fail to walk away because you cant or it would be too awkward. Suddenly, because they think it strange that you dont join them in their folly, even if you are silent, you are the object of ridicule, or you are holier than thou, or too stern. This is part of the struggle, and the consequences are 10,000 scars gotten in the combat. It is the very cause of the loneliness which one feels as a soldier of Christ. You know what is wrong to laugh at. You know when youve taken on their airs and started doing their same vulgarity. Its just a joke. Youre too hard on yourself. Youre acting the angel. What will it hurt? Youre enough of a man so that a little indulgence wont hurt you, wont set you back on the march to holiness. These are the things they say with their eyes, the things you tell yourself, the things the enemy whispers to your soul. And you end up listening. I read the other day here on Facebook that Kevin Sorbo recently said, Comedy is of course born of anger. (paraphrase) Too easy to assume he meant detraction, mockery, ridicule or the like. But I think that he meant exactly what he said, in light of my own experience. I also remember reading once that the Vikings, a very violent race, were said to have joked overmuch. I also read here on FB the other day a quote, which said that Satan wears us down, and weakens us by getting us to laugh at evil, desensitizing us to it. As a man, three things I have seen that affect men more than other sins. In fact, they nearly sum up all of the sins common to men: Coarseness and coarse jesting, lust, and anger. More and more I see that they are all interrelated. Its one thing to know a thing can harm you, its another to have been bitten. Thats what I mean by seeing: actually knowing with all certitude because of experience. I note prominently that Christ rarely ever made use of humor and never once laughed in the Gospel. The only time I can think of Christ using humor is when he said, Would any of you give your son a scorpion if he asked for a fish, or a serpent if he asked for an egg? If you then, being evil, know how to give good things to your sons, then how much more does your Father in heaven know how to give good things? (paraphrase) I can see him and his companions chuckling at the absurdity of the notion, but thats about it. Neither was David, or Joseph, or Abraham, or Moses, or any holy man of the bible given to jest. I think this is often the forgotten, unassailed element in our society. It may be that comedy is the exercise of anger, and at whom? God? Your fellow man? Circumstance? Yourself? In each case, a breach of character occurs and the passions are not bridled. Rather they are exercised, instead of exorcised. All this may seem a very stern notion to many, but I think anyone who is serious about holiness, and objective about what it takes to put on Christ must see that this is a dangerous snare. Laugh at sin, joke sinfully, and suddenly you are unprepared for the one who attacks at dawn. May god help us be men, and revile such coarseness, base jesting, and silliness of character.
Posted on: Mon, 24 Mar 2014 02:15:04 +0000