Thy Brother's keeper....not!

Luke 6: 37, 41
"Stop judging and you will not be judged. Stop condemning and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven."
Why do you notice the splinter in your brother's eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own?"

How often do we pause to reflect on the unintended harm we have caused in our lives? I mean harm we might not even be aware of causing. The unintended insult, the scandal we caused that may still be leading others astray, the tactless way we speak the truth, etc. How often do we pray for all those we might have hurt or led into sin? I know that confession removes our guilt, but we must still deal with the temporal consequences of sin.

How often to we receive with gratitude correction of our wrong behavior? How often are we thankful when someone points out that we have failed? Do we pray for those who cause us the shame and guilt that comes with having our faults pointed out and our behavior corrected? I know we all say we want to follow Christ, but are we willing to be led?

I am reminded of an incident in my own life over a decade ago. I worked at a restaurant where a friend of mine was an assistant manager. I only worked there for a few months, but during that time, a young, unmarried co-worker of mine had miscarried and I said something to the effect of "its all for the best" by which I meant to offer her comfort in her loss. (Yeah, I now know how stupid I was.)

Now, I became aware of my COLOSSAL failure to give comfort nearly three years later when the manager announced that he had finally fired her because she kept refusing to serve anyone in my extended family when they went to the restaurant where she and my assistant manager friend still worked.

I quickly went to my friend, the assistant manager, who was also friends with this young woman. I asked her how long she had known that this woman was hurt and angry by what I had said. She replied that she had known all along and it was wrong of the manager to let me know about this ongoing saga. Of course I was hurt and embarrassed to find out that I had been accused of being mean and everyone knew about it except me. Which brings us to the above quotes.

Both of these quotes are well known and often cited, even if they are often incorrectly understood by our modern culture. My friend, the assistant manager, was being very "non-judgmental" in not "getting in the middle" of a dispute. She had not rushed to point out the splinter of "lacking empathy" in my comments. She did not condemn my insensitivity or the young woman's retaliation. She remained friends with us both and nothing changed as far as her relationships with each one of us was concerned. But was this a christian, or even a wise, thing to do? Her non-judgmental position required that she take two very unkind actions.

First, she did not seek to offer the young woman true comfort, hope, and peace. Oh I'm sure she said something to the effect of "don't let it get to you" or "what does she know". But she most definitely did not tell her friend "I'm sorry she hurt you, but I'm sure she didn't really mean what you think" or "she probably didn't mean it that way, she was probably just trying to make you feel better and did a very poor job of it." There is a world of difference between commiserating and seeking to bring peace and consoling to others.

The former means you let stand the interpretation of the person you are commiserating with, while the latter means that you must actively try to change their interpretation of what happened. The latter means we try to help others to see the good in everyone, give them the benefit of the doubt, or, if that fails, try to help them forgive the one who has hurt them. We do this not because we necessarily care about the person who caused the hurt but because we very much care about our friend and want to see them grow in holiness. We wish them to be at peace and not tossed on the ocean of unforgiving emotions. The path of un-forgiveness is ugly and we should not only strive to avoid it ourselves, but help others to avoid it as well. It is a path that stunts us and turns us into envious, angry, resentful creatures lacking in all empathy and concern for others. Such a path lets us see only the bad in others while seeing only the good in ourselves. Which brings me to the second part of the quote.

By "not taking sides" in the dispute, my friend left the splinter in my eye. She assumed that I meant to my words in the spirit in which they were received and I remained ignorant of the pain I caused. She missed the opportunity to help me to be a better person. I cringe when I think that I may have said something similar to other grieving mothers in an attempt at compassion. How many others did I hurt in my insensitivity? I will probably never know how much damage I caused in those three years until it was brought home to me just how insensitive my remarks were. Just because they were offered in the correct spirit, their damage is not excused. Further, our effectiveness in communicating requires that we have a good foundation in understanding our audience and how to say what we have to say in the manner most likely to be heard by others. I obviously failed to offer consolation in a manner which would actually give that young woman comfort. In fact, I did the exact opposite and hurt her when I meant to help.

I did apologize to the young woman and explain that I never meant to hurt her. Our mutual friend had denied both of us the opportunity to grow into better people. She had failed to help either of us develop greater empathy. She had let the young woman live with a bleeding wound on her soul for almost three years and let me go on remaining ignorant of just how unkind my words were. But her actions were not meant to hurt anymore than mine were. She acted as our culture teaches us to be: in a very non-judgmental and commiserating way.

You never see Oprah pontificating on the need for us to view the actions of other people in the best, most forgiving light possible. You never hear about anyone actually going to an offending person about something they have done wrong because they care about the person and want them to become better people. Instead the culture around us encourages us to take offense and view what was said/done in the worst possible light. Conversely, that same culture tells us that we cannot "judge" other people even if that means we must ignore, or even accept, their bad behavior.

So my friend, acting in a very "non-judgmental" way, did not try to change the young woman's interpretation of my comments. Nor did she confront me about my insensitive behavior. Instead she was exactly the kind of friend the world encourages. And it breaks my heart because I so desperately need friends who will lead me to forgiveness and correct me in my ignorance. We all do.

Choose you therefore life!

Deuteronomy 30:15-20
"Look, today I am offering you life and prosperity, death and disaster. If you obey the commandments of Yahweh your God, which I am laying down for you today, if you love Yahweh your God and follow his ways, if you keep his commandments, his laws and his customs, you will live and grow numerous, and Yahweh your God will bless you in the country which you are about to enter and make your own. But if your heart turns away, if you refuse to listen, if you let yourself be drawn into worshipping other gods and serving them, I tell you today, you will most certainly perish; you will not live for long in the country which you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess. Today I call heaven and earth to witness against you: I am offering you life or death, blessing or curse. Choose life, then, so that you and your descendants may live, in the love of Yahweh your God, obeying his voice, holding fast to him; for in this your life consists, and on this depends the length of time that you stay in the country Yahweh swore to your ancestors..."

The book of Deuteronomy doesn't get a lot of respect in todays sophisticated age. It seems to be the book everyone turns to when they want to demonstrate that belief in the scriptures as the inspired word of God leads to a whole host of stupid, irrational, brutal or silly things that believers used to believe in but now we moderns "know better" and can just put all those rule things to rest once and for all.

It speaks of a different age and for many it might as well speak to a different age. What with all the accursings and the stoneings and the dos and don't, it just comes across as so intolerant. But looking deeper we can see that human nature has not changed. We still fail and fall and must be constantly exhorted to do the right thing.

When I first opened a bible over fifteen years ago, I was captivated by the passage quoted above. I had long believed that we chose almost every action we took in life. We may not like the choices we were faced with, but to my mind, that did not negate the fact that we had a choice. Becoming a practicing Roman Catholic has altered my ideas about what a good choice means, but my underlying belief in our affecting deliberate and conscious decisions has not.

Of course, I have since come to realize that not everyone (hardly anyone) really spends all that much time analyzing their actions and determining the points where they choose one path over another and trying to determine the motivations behind choosing one path over another. But its my blog so I can analyze to my hearts content.

Back to the quoted passage. It struck me then that God did not say "I put two really good options out there for you to try', nor did he say "You have one good choice and one bad choice". Instead He first tells us that He is offering us life and death (salvation or damnation). Then He points out the criteria for receiving life: love God and obey Him; and the criteria for receiving death: refusing to listen to Him and following other gods.

Then, after laying out what choosing life entails (loving God and obeying his commandments) and what choosing death entails (loving other gods and not obeying God) he FINALLY offers us a choice and even gives us a hint on the correct answer (choose life). Can't get any clearer than that.

And indeed you can't get any clearer. But that doesn't mean we can't get murkier. It depends on what the definition of sin is. And we decide that choices made in less than ideal situations aren't really exercises of free will. Pretty soon we forget our purpose on earth and our eternal homeland.

Deuteronomy isn't the first time in scripture that God calls us to love Him, to choose Him, and it isn't the last time, but it is a particularly poetic reminder of our choices... and their consequences.