Neglect it
Criticize it to its
face
Say how it kills the
light
Traps all the rubbish
Bores you with its
green
Continually
Harden your heart
Then
Cut it down close
To the root as
possible
Forget it
For a week or a month
Return with an axe
Split it with one blow
Insert a stone
To keep the wound wide
open.
[Poem by
Eibhlin Nic Eochaidh]
This poem was read in church yesterday, a reminder of how
deeply the brokenness extends into life and how easily I find myself part of
the process. Sadly, I can find reasons, good reasons, excellent reasons to
return with the axe. They attacked me and all I am doing is showing them their
criticism is mistaken—something is wrong within them and deep sores need to be
lanced. They don’t fit in because they just don’t try and unless their unhealthy
sense of entitlement is rooted out they’ll never get anywhere in life so I am
doing them a favor. They are different and so everyone feels so uncomfortable,
an unnecessary thing if people just try, which they don’t unless provided with
some loving motivation—which my carefully aimed blows are intended to be.
The image given in Scripture that the Almighty, the God of
heaven and earth notices the tiniest sparrow hopping and then stumbling as it
picks among the litter on the ground is not merely a record of divine
omniscience but a standard for compassion (Matthew 10:29). That just as Christ embraced
the cross I must absorb blows so that others may flourish more fully as the
human beings God made them to be. How can I know that and still prefer to cut
them down to size?
Source: graphic online (http://www.haryana-online.com/fauna/Birds/house_sparrow.htm)
Often others say something so well we would do best to
simply step aside and let their words be heard as widely as possible. So today
I offer two excerpts from the writings of thoughtful Christians.
Excerpt #1: John Stott on how to treat others:
In Colossians, chapter
3, St Paul gives us two general principles governing personal
relationships. Here they are: “Whatever
you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus.” The second is:
“Whatever you do, work at it heartily as to the Lord and not unto men” (verses
17 and 23). Now let me tell in my own words what I believe these two principles
mean. Firstly, I have got to learn, if I am a Christian, to treat other people
as if I were Jesus Christ. That is what it means to do everything in the
name of the Lord Jesus. To do something
in somebody else’s name, is to do it as his representative. When David stood on
the field of battle against Goliath, he said: “I come to you in the name of the
Lord of Hosts.” That is, I am not coming in my own name, I am coming as his
representative. So to the Christian, to do everything in the name of Jesus
Christ, is to do it as if he were Jesus Christ. I have got to learn, if I am a
Christian, to treat other people with the respect and the consideration, the
thoughtfulness and the graciousness with which Jesus Christ would treat them.
The second principle
is the exact opposite. It is to learn to treat people as if they were Jesus Christ. I must learn to do
everything as unto the Lord. The roles are now reversed and I must learn to
treat every person with the graciousness, the humility, the understanding, and
the courtesy, not now that he would give to them but that I would give to
him...
I tell you that these
two principles, to treat other people as if they were Christ and as if I were
Christ, are as realistic as they are revolutionary. This is not idealist
rubbish. This is practical advice about
personal relationships.
Excerpt #2: Garret
Keizer on naming enemies
The first logical step
toward loving an enemy is admitting that you have one. Like the first logical
step toward forgiveness—that of acknowledging that you have something to
forgive, that you have been wronged—this step comes as something of a
liberation. “You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” If the
word enemy seems too grotesque, then
the liberation consists of putting your hostile thoughts into some kind of
perspective. Lillian is not your “enemy”; she’s just a nosy pain in the neck
who sits at the computer next to yours. On the other hand, if the name fits,
the liberation comes from saying something true to oneself—possibly as a
prelude to saying something true to the enemy. In either case, the liberation
of naming the enemy can also be a partial liberation from anger. That is
because anger itself has helped liberate us from our denial. Spent in a worthy
cause, anger becomes less necessary.
The act of naming will
certainly make us hesitate. The word enemy is so strident, so devoid of the irony that we post-moderns take as a
form of spiritual consolation. Enemy
is a suspicious word to about the same extent, and for some of the same
reasons, that friend has become such
a debased word. It makes sense that in a society where half the people we know
count as “friends,” no one we know should ever count as an enemy. Aristotle may
have been too doctrinaire when he said, “He who has friends has no friend,” but
he may have been closer to the truth than many people ever come to friendship.
Perhaps he ought to have said, “He who has no enemy probably has no friend
either.”
For a religious
person, naming the enemy may come about as a result of praying on the enemy’s
behalf. This may well be one of the reasons Jesus enjoins the practice on his
followers. Praying for an enemy as an enemy amounts to an admission, to oneself
no less than to God, that one is seriously at odds with another human being.
Having confronted the truth before God, one is in a better position to confront
it with the enemy.
Of course, it would be
sweet to think that a confrontation of this kind always leads to dialogue,
resolution, closure. The truth is that where people have reduced the social
intercourse of human beings to the cant phrases of “dialogue,” “resolution,”
and “closure,” confrontation will in all likelihood lead to no such thing.
Telling someone he is my enemy is more likely to elicit amusement, a pretense
of incredulity, a supercilious show of concern. “I’m sorry that you feel that
way. I’m sorry that you have this problem.”
Sources:
John Stott in Langham Partnership Daily Thought, 29 August
2011, from “The Doctor—A Person” (Cape Town: Medical Christian Fellowship,
1959), p. 4. Excerpted from Authentic
Christianity
, pp. 221-222, by permission of InterVarsity Press.
, pp. 221-222, by permission of InterVarsity Press.
Garret Keizer in The
Enigma of Anger
: Essays on a Sometimes Deadly Sin (San Francisco,
CA:Jossey-Bass, 2002) pp. 253-254
: Essays on a Sometimes Deadly Sin (San Francisco,
CA:Jossey-Bass, 2002) pp. 253-254
Sometimes I wonder about my faith. Not in the sense of having doubts about whether Christianity is true—I settled that years ago after doubting so deeply that for a time I wondered if I would remain a Christian. Don’t get me wrong. Questions still arise that I have no answer for, but I’ve learned that my not having an answer doesn’t mean that there isn’t one, so such moments aren’t upsetting. I just say I don’t know, and begin to think it through.
My wondering about my faith comes, instead, on the relational side of things. Believing in Jesus is not simply an intellectual affair. The Christian faith does not consist of merely agreeing that a set of propositions about Jesus and life and death are true. Instead, the Scriptures reveal Christ as a living person, a resurrected Lord, a God-man fully present in his creation bringing all things to their appointed end. We believe a set of propositions (like the ones that make up the Apostles’ Creed) because we are convinced of Jesus. And being convinced of Jesus means being convinced about a person, about someone present in our life. It’s a relationship.
“The Divine Lover,” John Stott writes in Authentic Christianity (p. 301) “still sorrows when his love is unrequited, and pines for our continuing, deepening, maturing adoration. Love, then, is the first mark of a true and living church. Indeed, it is not a living church at all unless it is a loving church. The Christian life is essentially a love-relationship to Jesus Christ. ‘Jesus captured me,’ wrote Wilson Carlile, founder and ‘chief’ of the Church Army. ‘For me to know Jesus is a love affair.’”
This is the part I sometimes wonder about. How do I nourish this, be certain of it, enjoy it, and deepen it? What does it feel like, and when feeling are muddled what does that mean? Do I love him, really, or am I in love with The Story that is so profoundly satisfying, speaking to every part of life and reality? Or are these the same thing?
I suppose the cynical response would be to say, well, that’s a Presbyterian for you. But I’ve looked into the more mystical and more emotional and more demonstrable parts of the church, and though I’ve learned from them I find them wanting. And being Reformed is not the problem, as anyone who reads Stott, or The Valley of Vision will see.
So, my wondering continues.