Rational Words, Irrational Love

I wrote the majority of this post a few days ago but hesitated in publishing it.  My pastor's message yesterday morning was about the mission of reconciliation that all believers have, and it also was about allowing the Holy Spirit to guide our interactions with others, rather than vehemently and passionately witnessing - without BEING a witness.  It is with that encouragement that I decide to share my thoughts here.

Christianity is not a "rational" faith.

We hold to the belief that there is a force beyond ourselves that created the universe, yet sees humans as individuals worthy of infinite love.  We believe that the Son of said force (we call him God) was born from a young virgin, that He performed crazy miracles, taught people to love each other and love God, and died on a cross.  We believe that He came back from the dead and gave His believers the power to perform miracles greater than His.

Yes.  It sounds totally, completely, insanely nuts.  NUTS.

Yet it is the foundation for an entire faith claimed by millions of people.

Can people who even believe this stuff be considered rational?

I hope so.

I'm one of them.

I try to keep hot-button topics off my blog and other social media outlets.  With all the big stuff out there (Planned Parenthood, homosexual marriage, the Duggars, Bruce Jenner, etc.), it's so easy to misinterpret facts (or miss them, or leave them out completely), and voiced opinions quickly get passionate.  And ugly.  I'm on the verge of swearing off clickbait articles altogether and refusing to read comments on any other more "credible" new sources, too.  So often, reader responses overshadow the content in the story, and range from passive-aggressive Scripture quotes to hateful diatribes laced with atrocious accusations and even more atrocious grammar.  Frequently, the comments are aimed at other commenters, and not at the article itself.

With such venomous mud-slinging covering all people groups these days, Christians find themselves in a unique position.  At least in name, we were once the "ruling class" in America - especially white, middle- and upper-class Christians.  We suddenly find ourselves having to defend our beliefs in the face of a dramatically changing political and moral landscape.  As few as twenty years ago, a great many Americans identified as having mainstream Judeo-Christian beliefs.  Now, those same beliefs are considered by many to be outdated, intolerant, and bigoted.  The beliefs haven't changed but America has.

How do we continue to be heard - and actually listened to - in a country that frequently mocks our faith and denies our God?

Simple.

We speak quietly.  We choose gentle, respectful words.  

We let our actions speak for themselves.

We love more loudly than we talk.

This revelation hit me hard this week, when I posted my first comment about the Planned Parenthood scandal on my Facebook page.  A rather liberal friend from college noted - with great respect, I must add - that my source was mistaken.  Admittedly, I did not fact-check, because I respected the source of the article.  What followed was a careful, deliberate conversation about faith, facts, and - surprisingly - forensics.  Forensics as in debate, that is.  

When Christians - especially conservative Christians - choose to share their values, whether in a public or private setting, it is imperative that we fight fair.  People like to cite Jesus flipping over the moneylenders' tables at the temple (Mark 11:15) when they talk about an unfair status quo that needs to change. They forget, though, that the vast majority of His ministry was spent preaching, teaching, and healing.  He taught with stories and parables.  He knew the Scripture, inside and out.  He loved God, and obedience to God was His first (and only) priority.  Jesus always had His priorities and His facts straight.  He spoke with love to the people who were truly curious about what He was saying .  He ignored the naysayers and refused to chase them down with Scripture after Scripture, citing why they should follow Him.  Instead, He answered them simply, with the Truth (Mark 2)  I have a hard time believing that He, were He walking the earth today, would hashtag his status updates with #sorrynotsorry and #justsayin.  I'm thinking He wouldn't spend hours trolling controversial news topics and making snarky comments at other people.  I don't even know how much time He would spend picketing abortion clinics.  Yes - I went there.  I'm not saying He wouldn't oppose them (He stood by the Law, which forbids murder, so I don't think there's a question there), but instead of ranting and raving about injustice, He spent hours teaching the people who wanted to learn.  He spent most of His time with people who "got" Him (even though Scripture tells us that none of them ever really did until He had been resurrected).  He poured into them so that they could teach, preach and heal others.  

I throw down the gauntlet - a challenge for Internet-savvy Christians - particularly American ones, and particularly conservative ones.  Can you be as deliberate as Jesus in your next social interaction online?  Can you refrain from name-calling?  Can you do more than just post a verse and wait for others to bite?  Can you stand up for the disadvantaged without shaming them or others?  Can you enter into a debate with collected thoughts, respect for your opponent, and the desire to rationally represent a totally irrational faith?  I am not saying that we should sit quietly by while our country falls apart.  Being collected and rational does not mean that we stop sharing our beliefs.  Not at all!  But it means that we acknowledge that we won't get anywhere by handing out religious tracts and side-eye at the same time.  We can't say that we love others while we force fear down their throats, while we call them disgusting and obscene.   With double-talk, we play into the title of "hypocrite" that they have given us, even as we drive them farther and farther from the Truth.

Or have we forgotten that we were saved from our own sin by the One whose name we have taken - not by any act of our own?

"Then we will no longer be immature like children.  We won't be tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching.  We will not be influenced when people try to trick us with lies so clever they sound like the truth.  Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church." - Ephesians 4:14-15

The verse above indicates that becoming more like Christ is a result of acting out of love - specifically, speaking the truth in a loving, respectful way.  It contrasts this behavior with the chasing of new ministry fads and ways of thinking, encouraging the readers - early Christians - to stick to the simple truth of the Gospel and not get caught up in how to make it cooler, more relevant, or prettier.  Sometimes, I think the circus that is social media makes it very easy for aspects of our faith to be blown out of proportion, or to easily bury the simple truth of God's love in piles of controversy, quotes, statistics, and half-truths.  A verse, taken out of context, can incite riots.  We have become a deeply sensitive people, ready to take offense at virtually anything.  We are ready to take up arms to fight a war born of misunderstanding.  We are willing to scream about injustice and morality at the top of our voices, yet we refuse to listen when the Holy Spirit leads us into quiet conversations, meditation, prayer.  We have become unreasonable in every way.

I love what the Lord says in Isaiah 1:18.  He is speaking to his beloved, but rebellious people.  They have trampled his commandments time and again, and been out from under his protection as a result.  They have chased false idols and wooed other gods, they have disobeyed him, disregarded him, mocked him.  Yet he is patient and he invites them back into his arms: "Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool."  He then simply asks for obedience and promises great blessings - unseen and unimagined blessings.  He promises Jesus, Whose blood - in the years to come - will make them clean again.

If God sets forth the invitation to be reasonable, cannot we, as Christians, follow suit?  Let us share that beautiful, irrational, ridiculous, extravagant, endless love that saved us from hell.  But let's do it with clear minds and careful words.  Let the sparks we ignite be the flames of revival - not flame wars.

On Second Thought...

Although I cannot recall the attribution, I recently read somewhere that the first thought that pops into your head about a person or situation is the one you were "trained" to have.  The second thought is the one that defines you as a person.

The idea fascinates me.  As a practicing Christian, I want to be more like Jesus - more loving, more patient, more honest, more encouraging.  Yet I'm appalled, sometimes, by the thoughts that seem to jump into my head.  Seeing a young woman use food stamps while she's pulling out her brand-new iPhone and clicking at it with freshly manicured nails while her three half-dressed children are screaming in the grocery cart.  Obviously she's abusing the system, right?  How could she afford a nice smartphone if she had to apply for government aid?  And for goodness' sake, WHY isn't she taking care of those kids?!

Maybe the phone was a gift.  Maybe her best friend works at a salon and did her nails for free.  And the kids - who knows?  Maybe it was such a nightmare getting them out of the house that one lost a shoe and mom didn't have time to grab it.  Now that I'm a parent, I'm beginning to understand that kids are unpredictable.  They have tantrums at the most inconvenient times.  And sometimes, trying to find an effective method of discipline takes time and lots of trial and error.  I didn't "get" that before Ronen was born.

During my time at Starbucks, I learned a lot about relating to people.  I wasn't the perfect employee, but there were at least a few instances where I seemed to get along with "problem customers" better than some of my peers.  It might have been because, each time a guest treated me rudely or dismissively, I forced myself to think: "Maybe he had a really ugly fight with his wife this morning and he's still shaken about it" or "Maybe she has a meeting at work today that she's not ready for" or "Maybe his kid is failing out of college".  I learned - very slowly - not to take criticism or bad attitudes personally.  I learned to separate what was being said from how it was being said.  

This was incredibly useful, too, later, when I worked for another company in a totally different field.  There was a woman there who was very good at her job, but very abrasive.  She never got that "praise sandwich" memo - you know, where you offer negative feedback to an employee by first encouraging them or reinforcing their positive qualities, then give them the "bad news", and finish with something uplifting?

Image from www.alexanderchrisostomou.co.uk

Yeah, it was like that idea had never crossed her mind.  Most people in the office disliked her, and many outright hated her.  One even asked me, flat-out, "How do you get along with her?"  I replied to this person that, when the woman criticised me, I tried to evaluate what she was saying, rather than how it was coming out of her mouth.  If what she was saying was valid - for example, I'd made a mistake while calculating something - then I accepted it for what it was worth, worked on the problem and moved on.  If it was something without merit - just a lady in a bad mood lashing out - then I dropped it and also moved on.

It wasn't easy and it wasn't something that happened overnight.  I'm also sad to say that it is a skill that never fully translated into my personal life from my professional one.  That's the reason I find myself having the "first thoughts" I mentioned above.  Thoughts of defensiveness.  Of judgment.  Of derision.  Most of them, ultimately, are related to pride or vanity.  "I'm better than than person - in some way."  "I would NEVER make that kind of decision."  "What a stupid thing to say; I'd never comment like that."

This even came up in customer service training at my current job in a pediatric office.  The lecturer spoke about "self-talk", which is in essence, the same thing.  He taught that we might not be able to control how we WANT to react when something happens, but we can "talk ourselves down" to a reasonable place.  It's the same thing as allowing your initial reaction to exist, acknowledging it, and moving on to a more humane or compassionate conclusion.

So I'm trying to be far more conscious of that first thought, and decide what I want to do with it.  Am I going to keep it and make it a part of me?  Or am I going to release it and replace it with a thought that expressed more compassion, more patience, more forgiveness?

The Bible has a lot to say about our thought life, too.  It tells us that God knows our thoughts (1 Corinthians 2:11), as did Jesus when we walked the earth as a man (Luke 9, Luke 11). The best advice the Bible gives about our thought life in regards to others, I think, is in Romans.  Chapter 14, verse 13 admonishes believers to "stop passing judgment on one another.  Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in the way of a brother or sister." This is useful advice that reminds us that we choose to pass judgment and it can cause others to second-guess themselves, as well as make us antagonists.  Are we not supposed to encourage and build up instead of tear down?  Are we not supposed to be a united front for Christ?

Instead of "that driver is a major jagoff" I can choose to give the benefit of the doubt.  Consciously thinking,  "I hope he's not in an accident" or "I hope there's no emergency" allow me to see other people as I'm learning to see myself: flawed, but with potential.

We're all human after all, no?