Why mocking banter between friends is Godly
Over the years I have so much enjoyed participating in mutual banter
with friends, where you take it in turns to tease each other. This teasing can very fruitfully include mocking the other person for their character traits, physical
traits, circumstances, and even their
failures and weaknesses, after which you must, of course, let the friend do exactly the same to you. On a shallow
and up-tight interpretation of this activity it appears far from God – at best
irrelevant to enhancing God’s Kingdom, and at worst undermining the stereotyped
standards of kindliness and gentleness found in common representations or misrepresentations
of Christian love. However, for me, there is a deeper and more revealing interpretation
of this mocking banter between friends; that it reflects a profoundly valuable
aspect of what we all want and need from
love, and from God. We want and need to experience a love which allows us to mock, which gives this
potentially dreadful and harmful part of our natures, a safe place to unburden
and find expression. With our friends this mocking seems funny to us because we
are doing what we are not usually allowed to do in other less loving relationships.
Moreover, when we give friends the space
to mock us in return, we not only give them this safe place to unburden their mockery, we can also learn about ourselves as we hear, in
love, the view of ourselves from an ‘outside perspective’. In addition, the
closer the friend, the more kernels of truth the mockeries are likely to
contain, keeping us humble. Therefore, good friends, during their mocking banter,
guard us from the sin of self-exaltation (and see Mathew 23 and Christ’s
warnings against the religious hypocrites – after re-reading this passage it seems
to me that the Pharisees and teachers of the law would not have engaged in
mocking banter, as they took themselves far
too seriously!).
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Truth be told this article made me realise that this sort of teasing banter is not prevalent in the charasmatic movement (or atleast in my cirlces) however judgement and criticism is rife to and fro among Protestants and Charasmatics. Maybe... just maybe... I live too far removed from this sort of thing.
ReplyDeleteReally good insight Trish-Ann - for sure, one of the reasons I posted this was that I know that in certain Christian circles banter of this kind offends notions of politeness and assumes that it is unloving, when, in my experience it is the reverse in fact. I have to say too that a lot of my friends (close friends) would not describe themselves as Christians, and would banter like this very easily, and as a direct expression of the deep affection we have for each other. As I say in the post, there are other beneficial results too, relating not only to laughter (and see my post on Laughter and Christianity) but also in learning about yourself, and the guarding against self-exaltation.
ReplyDeletePS Trish-Ann - re your comment about judgement - again spot-on! The Mathew 23 passages too makes this point over and over regarding how the religious hypocrites spend so much of their time judging others, and taking themselves far too seriously as I say!
ReplyDeleteFirst of all thank you for the invite. Now concerning above blog...I have always maintained a level of such "banter" as you call it. Its never malicious nor intended to belittle. I just figured its one of my immature traits. Those that know me know my heart and my love for them.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment Lex - I am not sure though it is so immature; I think it reflects very well on your relationships with others for the reasons I have said - in other words, it is more deep than it is often given credit for.
ReplyDelete