I recently emailed someone and assured them that I would provide a brief summary of the meeting we had attended. As soon as I hit send, I thought, isn’t a summary … brief? Indeed, aren’t summaries often called briefs? My daughter regularly claims something is an over-exaggeration. We don’t usually disagree on her main point, but always quarrel about the use of “over.” Isn’t an exaggeration already excessive? How can you over-exaggerate an exaggeration? Tautologies abound. 

Don’t get me wrong. I love a good tautology, which is saying the same thing over again with different words, or where the logic of a sentence is necessarily true by virtue of its reasoning: “Tomorrow is another day.” There are many glorious types of tautologies. “Things are either repetitive or they are not.” That’s a logical tautology. “X=y or x≠y.”  That’s a mathematical tautology. My favourite tautology, attributed to Yogi Berra, was “It’s déjà vu all over again.” Of course, some of these could also be called pleonasms, which is unnecessary repetition of similar words: a burning hot fire. 

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None of them should be confused with my favourite literary device — oxymorons — arguably the opposite of pleonasms. Oxymorons conflate conflicting terminology: “Deafening silence” or “Act naturally.” A “brilliantly stupid idea” and “armed gunman” achieve the same discordance. The cruel example always given here is “military intelligence.” I refuse to editorialize on that one. It’s simply too complex. While we often use linguistic tools to complicate simple things, or to simplify the complex, an elegant use of these literary tools can help amplify meaning, make the point memorable, and create a richer context or effect. 

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A literalist might argue that Jesus is the king of oxymorons and tautologies, and for all the right reasons. Christ teaches us to sacrifice to gain, to give so that we might receive. In Corinthians we read, “For when I am weak, then I am strong.” In Matthew: ‘So the last will be first, and the first will be last.” Matthew again invokes Christ’s most contradictory yet most inspiring words: “For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.” 

The most beautiful sermon ever spoken, the Beatitudes, has often been referred to as a collection of inspiring oxymorons: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” The poor, here, are literally the richest. The beginnings of all the Beatitudes seem counter-intuitive: “Blessed are those who are persecuted”; “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst”; “Blessed are the meek.” When Jesus tells us, “Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account,” he also assures us, “Rejoice and be glad for your reward is great in heaven.” Later, He offers us what may well be one of the most difficult lessons: “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” While this may be among the most intuitively contradictory instructions we can receive, it is deep and filled with grace. 

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Equally counter-intuitive is the way these core lessons are so frequently ignored. How often do we hear a straight-forward teaching but perform the opposite of what it instructs? Love thy neighbour … but not if they’re different. Or we prescribe certain behaviours for others while failing to observe them ourselves. Isn’t this the point of the ‘cast the first stone’ parable? One powerful message of Christ’s teachings is that a prescriptive or performative faith life, devoid of grace and acceptance, is deeply wrong. Hence His anger in the Temple; forgiveness of the woman at the well; descrying of hypocrites who profess to sanctity but practice artifice. 

Taken at his word, Jesus is all about acceptance, first and foremost. Love thy neighbour as you would yourself. Be empathetic and caring, put the other above yourself, and never cast the first stone. In the Jesus playbook you don’t need to be perfect. You need to be fed … but not by bread alone. Another oxymoron reminds us of this: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for they will be filled.” What is crystal clear and plain as day, is that if you believe and accept His words in the here and now, an eternity of hope is offered to you, yesterday, today and always. And that’s no over-exaggeration.