I Know

When Faith Becomes the Object of Ridicule

Indeed, I know their sufferings.

Know that on your account I suffer insult.

— Exodus 3; Jeremiah 15

Something curious has been happening to me lately.

For reasons known mostly to the algorithms, I've suddenly begun seeing a steady stream of posts on X from people who identify themselves prominently as atheists. Perhaps I caused it myself. I occasionally respond to something one of them has written, and the machinery apparently concludes that I would like to see more.

I don't particularly mind encountering atheists. I'm interested in what people believe, and disagreement doesn't frighten me.

What has struck me is the tone.

So much of what comes across my feed isn't an argument against Christianity so much as a taunt. Christians are mocked for believing something supposedly ridiculous. A Christian offers an explanation and gets a laugh emoji. Someone attempts an apologetic argument and receives “ROTFL” in response.

And I've found myself wondering why.

After thousands of years of philosophy, theology, science, literature and human civilization, why are we still so attracted to the insult? Why, when confronted by someone who believes something profoundly different from us, does ridicule remain such a satisfying response?

I've also noticed something happening inside me as I read it.

For perhaps the first time, I can understand a little of what some of the great confrontations in Scripture must have felt like.

Moses standing before Pharaoh.

Christ being tempted in the wilderness.

Even that ancient story of the Serpent asking, “Did God really say...?”

The comparison isn't that the atheist on my computer screen is Pharaoh or Satan. That's much too easy, and it lets me off the hook.

It's the experience I recognize.

Here is the confident argument. Here is worldly certainty. Here is the suggestion that faith is foolishness, that the believer is intellectually outmatched, that everything important can be demonstrated from what is immediately visible and measurable.

And here am I, trying to practice something Scripture keeps telling me is essential:

Humility.

Then along comes Jeremiah.

“Know that on your account I suffer insult.”

What wonderful candor.

Jeremiah doesn't pretend that ridicule doesn't bother him because he's a man of God. He doesn't respond to every insult with a serene smile and insist that nothing can touch his inner peace.

He tells God:

This hurts.

And more remarkably, he tells God that some of the hurt comes precisely because he's trying to be faithful to God.

That caught my attention because elsewhere in these readings, centuries earlier, God says something extraordinarily tender to Moses about the suffering of His people:

“I know their sufferings.”

There's almost a conversation across the Scriptures.

God says, I know their suffering.

Jeremiah answers, Then know that I suffer.

And perhaps those two statements belong together.

We've been thinking about shalom lately: peace as wholeness, completeness and proper alignment. We've talked about peacemaking rather than merely keeping the peace. We've talked about listening, looking and lifting our eyes toward God. We've talked about serving rather than becoming consumed by the battles of kings and benefactors.

But none of that means becoming impervious to pain.

Peacemakers get hurt.

Servants get hurt.

People who show up get hurt.

Sometimes the person trying hardest to reconcile two sides gets criticized by both of them. Sometimes patience is mistaken for weakness. Sometimes humility doesn't inspire humility in return; it merely provides somebody with an easier target.

And apparently God doesn't require us to pretend otherwise.

“I know their sufferings.”

That's an important sentence for me.

It means I don't have to win every argument in order to establish that the insult was unfair. I don't have to produce the perfect comeback. I don't need to make the person who laughed at me acknowledge that I had a point.

God saw it.

And Jeremiah gives me permission to tell Him that it hurt.

That doesn't give me permission to become what hurt me. If ridicule wounds me, perhaps I should become more careful about ridiculing someone else. If being dismissed makes me feel small, perhaps I should make certain that disagreement with me never requires another person to feel small.

Maybe that's another piece of peacemaking.

The person mocking my faith doesn't need me to become better at mocking his unbelief.

He needs me to remain faithful.

To listen.

To answer when an answer might help.

To remain silent when silence is wiser.

To be patient.

To show up.

And when doing those things becomes painful, I can take Jeremiah's extraordinary liberty and say exactly what happened:

“Lord, You know that on Your account I suffer insult.”

And perhaps, before I've even finished saying it, Exodus has already given me His answer.

I know.