A Serious Defense

Would you believe that some people have accused me of being too serious? I love play! Even so, in all honesty, I can’t say I blame them. This post shall be in defense of my seriousness!

Let me begin with the state of our culture. We exalt vulgarity, mock purity, reward edginess, and normalize the worldly repulsiveness we have been deceived into thinking is attractive and respectable. Sarcasm has replaced sincerity as our common language, and nurturers, those who serve unassumingly and do not attract the attention and praise on which our culture thrives, are virtually an extinct species. We do not take ourselves seriously or others, because we find it easier to self-protectively believe no one and instead rely on what we have conveniently termed “our truth.” A few clicks online, and no wonder we are so skeptical, cynical, passive-aggressive, reactionary, and defensively humorous. How else can we protect our flaws and embarrassing moments from becoming the prey of the next crude remark?

In addition, we have conditioned ourselves and our children—at least in part through distracted, preoccupied, or negligent caregivers—to believe that the world is untrustworthy and deaf to our cries for help. Why would we ever be serious when we don’t feel safe to be vulnerable? At a time when personhood and dignity are not given but earned, in addition to the fact that coveted attention is bestowed as a badge of honor upon the most entertaining, it should be no surprise that meaningless absurdity is in vogue, and that it is our most common and comfortable masquerade of choice. Seriousness would only too abruptly confront us with our deepest losses and longings, and suffering, according to society, is something absolutely without value. Who would guess that beneath such a facade lies only the most fatally crippling terror of that which is serious?

Finally, in our world where seemingly everything, from the skyscraper to the cell phone, is a shrine to man’s achievement, little reminds us of a greater good or points us to transcendent things. Romans 1:20 reads that “for since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.” How often do we come into contact with “what has been made” by God so that we are without excuse? If we live in a metropolis, ever beholding monuments to and reminders of us, and only considering the natural thing as we need or come upon it, like the tree planted in the middle of a cold, gravel parking lot, does it surprise us that there is so much rejection of God and so little serious thought about Him?

In my own assessment of the church, we do not need more people who can attack, assault, divide, and criticize. Rather, we need more selfless listeners, more models of those who are caring and warm, more who do not seek to be popular but who seek to be patient, not gregarious but gracious, not clever but kind. There may be a time for the well-placed zinger. However, never is there a God-ordained occasion for insincerity, crudeness, or folly, all of which in my experience seem not to be the exception but the rule.

Richard Foster, the Quaker theologian, calls superficiality the “curse of our age,” and I cannot help but agree. He continues by saying that the “desperate need today is not for a greater number of intelligent people, or gifted people, but for deep people.” Interestingly, one definition in Webster’s 1828 American Dictionary for “superficial” includes “shallow; contrived to cover something.” It does not reflect reality but rather exists to conceal it. The good news is that superficiality is not a personality trait but a character trait, which means we can grow.

Matthew Henry shares the story of a great lecturer and statesman from Queen Elizabeth’s time who when he retired gave himself up to serious thought. When his old colleagues came to visit him, they criticized him for being “melancholy.” “No,” he replied, “I am serious, for all are serious round about me. God is serious in observing us—Christ is serious in interceding for us—the truths of God are serious—our spiritual enemies are serious in their endeavors to ruin us—poor lost sinners are serious in hell—and why then should not you and I be serious too?” God is indeed gentle with us, but He does not joke. He is perfectly serious, and I for one dread the day when God stops taking me seriously.

As Charles Swindoll writes in Intimacy with the Almighty, “Deep things are intriguing. Deep jungles. Deep water. Deep caves and canyons. Deep thoughts and conversations. There is nothing like depth to make us dissatisfied with superficial, shallow things.” This makes me think of Tozer and his remark that we only call the “deep” Christian life deep because the average Christian life has become so pathetically shallow. We have low expectations, hardly fitting for our great God. Yet we are content with the silliness our world and the devil use to turn our eyes and thoughts from heaven and pave the way to hell.

The Christian life is serious, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t play. We must! It’s good for our relationships and good for our brains. For this reason, I would argue that the opposite of seriousness is not playfulness but silliness and folly, insincere, undirected, purposeless activity accompanied by a false joy and having no end but immediate, empty gratification.

Jeremiah 8 describes a scene where everyone has turned to his own way, clinging to deceit and refusing to repent. He then says that the wise men, shamed, dismayed, and trapped because of their greed and rejection of God, dress the wound of Israel as though it were not serious (v. 11). They proclaim peace, when there is none. They have no shame, do not know how to blush, and will fall among the fallen. They are people proclaiming that they are safe and free, while serious moral injuries go ignored. God forbid we ever see such wounds and treat them as though they were not serious.

Let me repeat that seriousness properly stewarded is not antithetical to play, humor, or fun. I enjoy all three. There is a time to weep and mourn and a time to laugh and dance (Eccl. 3:4). We are serious about our work and serious about our play and cannot be solemn all the time.

However, there are times to be serious. First Peter 5:8 calls us to be alert and of sober mind, for our enemy the devil is serious about looking for someone to devour. In Titus 2:7, Paul urges Timothy to set the young men an example in everything by doing what is good and showing integrity, soundness of speech, and seriousness. Let us rejoice as Christians that should the world ever be serious long enough, it would despair for lack of hope, for it would refuse to acknowledge the light of life that brings hope and sense to us. Indeed, when we read the ponderings of thoughtful but godless men, it is a dark and chilling tale. Blessed is the man who, in the spirit of the converted Athenians, courageously sits in his need, thoughtfully, and searches out the deepest places and finds in his humility and to his glory the depths of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of Christ.

Ultimately, I am inclined to think that all of us, in a way, are serious, for God has put eternity into the hearts of men (Eccl. 3:11). Some of us are just better pretenders than others, retreating into the abyss of superficial frivolity we hope will drug us and distract us from the void God seeks to fill. With all our talk around authenticity, it is tragic that our conversation would tend toward serious things (gender and sex, relationships, life, work, money, and marriage, to name a few) we take unseriously. Even so, God’s truth remains available to inform and direct us and shed not simply a light of seriousness upon our thoughts but the light of truth (Jn. 3:21).

Unto the calmly gathered thought

The innermost of truth is taught...

John Greenleaf Whittier