A Message for the Irony-Impaired
. . . awesome Basilea!
I am an interfaith peacemaker and a retired Presbyterian pastor. I’ve been reworking old sermons to share at Substack, not to proselytize, but to make what John Lewis called “good trouble” now that domination systems are surging. I write to bolster spiritual resistance to them. Whether or not you consider yourself a religious person, I invite you to eavesdrop on this message which was first delivered to a Christian audience. Glean from it what you can for your own walk in these times that try our souls.
Texts:
Jeremiah 17: 7-8
Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord,
And whose hope is the Lord.
For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters,
Which spreads out its roots by the river,
And will not fear when heat comes;
But its leaf will be green,
And will not be anxious in the year of drought,
Nor will cease from yielding fruit.
Matthew 13: 31-32
Another parable He put forth to them, saying: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field, 32 which indeed is the least of all the seeds; but when it is grown it is greater than the herbs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches.
My older son, who has a mind like a steel trap and little patience for opinionated people less intelligent than he, has coined a phrase for pitiful souls who in letters to the editor earnestly protest the work of some clever artist who has tried to express a truth by indirect and humorous means. He says of such wooden-headed critics that they are "irony-impaired."
Irony-impairment is no laughing matter. It is a pitiful affliction to take everything at face value, and so, to miss entirely that cleansing, rapier wit that can save us from idolatry by mocking someone who wants to be taken far too seriously.
I might as well come right out and say it, because this is where my sermon is headed: Jesus had a terrific sense of humor, an ironic sense of humor. He was fond of jibes, not merely to entertain, but to teach.
I pointed that out to someone in Bible class the other day, pointed out how, when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey—and not just any old donkey, but the colt of a donkey--he was making fun. Can't you see his legs dangling down to the ground as he barely managed to stay astride that miniature mount? Clowning, Jesus, was enacting a passage from the prophet, Zechariah (9:9). That passage speaks of a prince of peace riding upon the foal of a donkey. Jesus recognized good parody when he saw it, even in scripture. Miming this sacred text, Jesus mocked the Roman governors who were intimidating his people by towering over them on majestic stallions bred for war. Many Jews expected a military Messiah to rescue them from the Roman oppressors. Jesus mocked such a hope, to rescue his people from their misconception.
However, this interpretation did not sit well with a friend in Bible study. It bothered her to think of Jesus mocking anyone. Wasn't he too kind and gentle for that? Maybe not. I urged her to reconsider: "You mean, the man who called the scribes “whitewashed tombs," and old Herod, a fox? How is it that we Christians, who turned an instrument of torture, the cross, into a symbol of victory, have become irony-impaired? Is it because we think of Jesus as God? Any learned Jew would tell you; even God has a sense of humor! To make old Sarai and Abram parents in their doting old age-- What a hoot! No wonder they laughed. To make a tree grow up over Jonah and then zap it to make him whine--now that's almost Vaudevillian. We miss a lot of the Bible's earthy wisdom because our too stiff piety has rendered us irony-impaired. We are convinced that poking fun is at least frivolous and at worst mean spirited, that for Christians at least, satire and parody are strictly out of bounds. Surely Jesus couldn’t have deliberately made fun of people, could he?
Well, Walter Wink thinks so. For instance, Jesus said: "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's." Sounds like straightforward discourse, right? No, it's ironic says Wink. Jesus held in his hand a coin that bore the detested image of the Roman emperor who claimed to be divine. The people had to trade with that coin, but they loathed doing so, because it implied that they recognized the authority of an idolatrous ruler. Jesus was not honoring the emperor by saying he deserved that coin. He was saying: Here, take this minted dung and give it to the one who deserves it! But Jesus replied so cleverly, so ironically, that his response allowed for a respectful interpretation. Thus he escaped the clutches of enemies who were out to trap him in a dilemma of conflicting loyalties.
Another example: Consider Jesus's saying: "When someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other to him as well." Straightforward discourse, right? Jesus was telling us to bear all unwarranted reproaches without resisting, correct? No, says Wink. The saying is ironic and clever, and if we understand it rightly, we will see that Jesus was far from advocating nonresistance. In Jesus’s day, when big shots were lording it over lowly folk they would whack them with a backhand shot. That was the way to strike inferiors, with a backhand swipe that didn't bear one's full force. This was a way of showing that you were superior. By withholding some of your force you showed you were benign even in your wrath, and thus you shamed your victim. But Jesus called for his followers to resist this shaming. If someone strikes you on the right cheek--most people are right handed, and therefore, if they back handed someone standing before them, they would strike that person on the right cheek—then offer him the other cheek, said Jesus. To turn the other cheek, the left one, would make it impossible for your assailant to strike you with another backhand. If he were to strike you again, he would have to do so with a forehand blow, the way that equals fight. Turning the other cheek after being shamed by a backhand was a way of taunting your assailant: Come on! I'm your equal! Give me your best shot! I can take it. It was an ironic gesture of bold resistance.
All the gospel writers agree that Jesus' preaching was chiefly about the coming Kingdom of God. The Greek word for kingdom was Basilea. As far as we know, Jesus spoke Aramaic not Greek, but the Christian scriptures sometimes quote him, even in the same sentence, speaking of two kinds of kingdom, a Basilea of this world and a Basilea tou theou, a Basilea of God. Some scholars, wanting to make scripture more relevant to modern people, and aware that kings are mostly passe these days, have translated Basilea as "imperial rule." Think of the imperial rule of the dark forces that Darth Vader represents in the Star Wars movies, and you get a good idea of what Basilea meant to Jesus's contemporaries. Basilea was the imperial rule wielded by the Caesars. Basilea was the unjust and cruel tyranny of Jewish puppet rulers like Herod. But when Jesus spoke of the Basilea tou theou, the imperial rule of God, he was using ironic language, for the imperial rule of God was characterized by mercy and forgiveness. Under God's imperial rule, Jesus taught, people are treated as equals, and even enemies are loved.
Notice, Jesus did not engage in irony just now and then. The gospels report that pretty much everything he said related in one way or another to this imperial rule of God, which was already breaking forth. The awesome Basilea tou theou is at hand, he taught. It is in your midst already. Open your eyes! See how God is already supremely powerful here! This was supremely ironic language, uttered in the context of blatant oppression. Was Jesus deluded? Even some of his family thought so. How could Jesus talk seriously about the imperial rule of God when Caesars or their viceroys had their boots on people's necks?
To understand what Jesus was doing when he spoke of the amazing and awesome imperial rule of God, we would do well to keep in mind the personal perspective of Matthew, the gospel writer who included more of Jesus's Basilea sayings than any other gospel writer. Matthew was a Publican, one of those hated Jews who skimmed off money for themselves as they collected outrageously high taxes levied by the Roman occupiers. Jesus invited Matthew into his fellowship, along with other disreputable people such as prostitutes. Matthew was wowed by this unconditional love. The first thing he did was to throw a big party and invite other tax collectors and prostitutes to hear Jesus too. Matthew and these other despised people experienced the imperial rule of God, the awesome and amazing Basilea tou theou. They felt it deeply in the unconditional friendship of Jesus. In his presence God's imperial rule wasn't just a tenet of faith that would come true sometime in the future when God's Messiah would zap their enemies. No, God's imperial rule was right here and now, in the upside-down reality of a crazily loving community.
Considering Matthew's bio, I find it interesting that only in his gospel do we find Basilea sayings where the Basilea of God includes bad people as well as good people. As the Christian community aged, the Basilea of God became more and more futuristic and ideal. Accordingly, people came to believe that in the Basilea of God there would be no more weeping, no more suffering, no more injustice. But in much of Matthew's gospel the Basilea tou theou isn't an ideal projected into the future. The Basilea of God happens in the ambiguous present, whilst good and bad are still mixed, something that Matthew experienced for himself. In Matthew's thirteenth chapter the Basilea of God, or heaven, is compared to a garden plot where the gardener allows the tares to grow alongside the wheat. The Basilea of God isn't at the end, when the harvest comes and the wheat and tares are separated. Rather, the Basilea of God begins already, whilst the two are growing alongside one another. Another example: In the forty-seventh verse of the same chapter the Basilea of God is compared to a net which is cast into the sea, gathering fish of every kind. Later, God does sort out the good fish from the bad, but the Basilea of God is (present tense) the net that is cast wide and catches all, the bad and good together. Finally, in the twenty-second chapter, Matthew compares the kingdom of God to a wedding banquet. The host of this feast, a king, is disappointed when the preferred guests turn down his invitation, so he sends his servants out the hedgerows and by-ways, to bring in "both bad and good," says verse ten.
The awesome Basilea of God is awesome not because it is unearthly, but because it is a taste of heaven here on earth. The imperial rule of God--please, let's remember the irony--is so astonishing and wonderful because we don't expect the world's hierarchical, patriarchal, aristocratic rules ever to be lifted. But lo! and behold!, here and there a bit of heaven on earth does break forth. We experience an unexpected oasis of mercy wherever justice is done, even at great personal sacrifice, and where hospitality is extended to the "least of these," (Mt. 25), meaning not just the poor, pitiful, needy folk, but the despicable and undeserving folk most especially.
So, when you hear Jesus speak of the kingdom of God, listen for that transforming gospel irony about which I have been preaching. When we sing hymns like, "Crown Him with Many Crowns," and "He is King of Kings," let's remember Jesus' very frequent irony, often evident in his parables, and let's not slip into a messianic idolatry which he himself resisted.
One more example of gospel irony before I close. I've said that we experience the Basilea of God especially where hospitality is extended to the undeserving. One of my favorite Basilea sayings is the one read just before my sermon began, because it tells me that God is able to do so much, to extend so much redeeming hospitality, even with our miniscule resources:
Jesus said: "The Basilea of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field: Indeed, it is least of all seeds, but when it is grown, it is the biggest shrub of them all, and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches."
Sounds like standard metaphor, like that beautiful image from Jeremiah, where the faithful person is compared to a tree planted by water that sends down its roots deep, and is not affected by drought. But I wonder whether, with this humble image of the mustard bush, Jesus is poking fun at the pomp in Daniel's dream (Daniel 4: 20-22), where he says to King Nebuchadnezzar that in his dream he saw a tree whose height reached to heaven, and overlooked the whole earth, whose leaves were fair, and whose fruit was plentiful, such that it gave shelter to all the fowl of heaven. "That tree is you, King Nebuchadnezzar!" said Daniel.
Jesus seems to be saying with his mustard bush story: Oh please! Daniel, you do exaggerate the power of earthly potentates! The Basilea of God is truly awesome, for it achieves so much more with no fanfare at all.
This post is bursting with irony! Reading it I was thinking that the phenomenon of Donald Trump is living proof that God has a great sense of humor and doesn’t suffer fools without irony. For those who have eyes to see, Donald embodies the Basilea tou theou rather than the worldly stable genius Emperor he thinks he is. On the level of his fascist glory and undesirable character traits he fulfills the role of the “prosperous fool” Aristotle found so ironic. Based on the definition of irony — the use of words or an expression that indicates something different from and often opposite to the literal meaning, the manufactured, delusional myth of Trump the King belies the reality of Trump the lowlife scumbag. The compassionate Jesus probably would have perceived him in terms of Basilea tou theou and said “forgive him father, for he knows not what he does,” thus acknowledging that Herr Trump is just another flawed human being acting out of the psychological conditioning he was subjected to growing up in the household of a narcissistic father without empathy. Nevertheless, this asshole is doing a lot of damage to the Republic and he needs to exit the stage before things get too ironic.
This post demonstrates one key difficulty in ironic statements: the wider the audience is, the less likely they are to know one's underlying beliefs.
Probably the most famous instance of literary irony is Jonathan Swift's "Modest Proposal." Nobody ever misses the irony in Swift's proposal that the English eat Irish babies, because the taboo against cannibalism is both essentially universal and deeply felt. So the audience automatically seeks alternative interpretations of the text that don't violate this shared taboo.
Here, Jesus is speaking to Jews under occupation. This audience would share a revulsion toward Caesar's likeness on coins; they would share indignation over occupiers backhanding their fellows in the face. Thus, they would seek interpretations that feel compatible with these emotions.
But the Bible didn't stop with the Jews. It expanded, and continues to expand, its audience far beyond its original milieu. And in the process, the audience has come to regard some very sly irony, situated in a very specific time and place, as being timeless platitudes. It's perhaps unfair to regard the modern Biblical audience as "irony impaired." They simply lack the contextual clues that Jesus would have depended on to make the irony work.