Growing up, there was always the kid who would roll his eyes at anything. If you liked Star Wars, he would call you a nerd. If you liked football, you were a dumb jock. Teachers were dumb, school stupid, and Christmas for babies. The vocabulary was limited, but mockery was there.
Mockery is humor for the humorless. Wit is not needed to mock, mockery being what is left to a wag past his day. Satire and puncturing the pomposity of politicians is a noble calling, but Swift and Nast were not merely making fun to cut up the target. They had something good, some truth, and a beautiful alternative in mind when they were harsh. So while we must avoid mockery, some are called to prophetic satire! Good satire comes from a love of something and pain that is offended the beloved has been harmed.
Mockery proceeds from contempt. This mockery may do harm to the target, though grace may help us resist the pain produced by contempt. The mocker will surely be harmed as he has decided to look at the world in a false way. He looks at a person created in the image of God and feels nothing but disdain. The satirist like the cartoonist Nast loved his nation and so wished to right her wrongs. He was passionate for the nation and so biting, like Jesus, toward hypocrisy and failure. He wished, however, not the destruction of the United States, but the fulfillment of the best calling of the United States.
Sometimes I hear “God will not be mocked” and this is true, but often the person saying this is mocking the opponent with a Bible verse. “Ha, Ha! God is going to get you mocker-man. Loser!” Thankfully, God does not wipe us out (immediately) for our sins. Instead, the warning against mockery is in a particular context. A wise teacher said:
6But let him that is taught in the word communicate unto him that teacheth in all good things. 7Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. 8For he that soweth unto his own flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth unto the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap eternal life. 9And let us not be weary in well-doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not. 10So then, as we have opportunity, let us work that which is good toward all men, and especially toward them that are of the household of the faith.
God is not mocked, we reap what we sow (generally). Let us pause and thank God for His grace that means we do not always reap what we sow. Sometimes by the grace of God and the people around us, we repent and life turns out better than we deserve.
Note, however, that Saint Paul is writing about people who ignore the process of sowing and reaping. They believe in God, but think that a failure to do good or that doing bad will not matter. They “sow to the flesh” and assume that nothing will come of it . . .like a man who smokes two packs of cigarettes a day and is shocked when his health suffers!
We should not mock God, because taking the Good, True, and Beautiful God and mocking Him is absolute folly. How could one reject the Good and not suffer? What happens to a soul that has contempt for the truth? Is it good to sneer at beauty?
The God mocker in this context is the believer who fails to do good to all (especially to to the household of Faith). The mocker is a man of words; the spiritual man of deeds. The mocker rolls his eyes at what the spiritual man does. The mocker sows contempt and reaps what he sows. The spiritual man sows in the Spirit, has a progressive vision that sees what God is doing even in bad times, and helps create a beloved community . . .a work that is good toward all men.
Sometimes I was the kid who rolled his eyes and made meaningless fun of things greater than I was. God help me to “sow unto the Spirit” and do good toward everyone, especially (but not only!) to those in the Church.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In