Bread for Your Journey

Some devotions, sermons, and essays to feed you on your spiritual pilgrimage.  You can receive a weekly Bread for the Journey devotion, written by one of the pastors at Luther Memorial by sending a request to luther@lmlc.org.

 IF HE WERE A JERK...

  It would be a lot easier if he were a jerk.  Over the past few days I have been engaged in an e-mail exchange with someone over the issue of healthcare reform.  I will not bore you with the specifics of our positions; suffice it to say that I am interested in a much more radical solution than he is.  I think the patient is critically ill and needs extraordinary measures stat; he fears a governmental cure more than the disease.  As I said, I will not bore you with merits of our arguments, because the healthcare debate is not my main focus here.

Rather, think about how you tend to regard those with whom you strongly disagree.  Perhaps you are a better person than I, but my great temptation is to attribute either stupidity or malevolence to those who are not instantly persuaded by my brilliant insights and stand unmoved by my eloquence.  That is why it would be a lot easier for me (if not as growth producing) if Ed were a certifiable jerk, a callous bore who gazes with unmoved heart on the suffering of the uninsured.  Then I would feel less need to take him seriously; after all “what can you expect from that sort of person.”  But I know that is not so.  In point of fact, Ed is a genial spirit, respected in his church, and well known for his compassionate community service.  So I dismiss his concerns only by creating a dishonest caricature. 

It is extraordinarily painful when folks like Ed stretch us, a bit like having the physical therapist push muscles where they are not accustomed to going.  But just as stretching tight muscles makes us stronger and healthier, so we benefit from being taken out of our comfort zone and forced to see the world through the eyes of those with whom we disagree—but still respect.

When we disagree with another our natural impulse is to regard them as an enemy.  We have the choice to regard them instead as a holy gift which keeps us intellectually and spiritually alive.  I am not so naïve as to deny that there is real evil in the world, but I increasingly believe that the greatest danger is imputing corrupt motives to those who simply see the world a little differently than I do.  When we do that we create enemies where there were none, and sow rancor where there could be common cause in facing great challenges.

I make no apology for being passionate in talking healthcare reform with Ed, but I am trying to remember what the writer of Ephesians says about Jesus’ work—and thus the spirit I am called to embody as his disciple:

 “For he is our peace, who has made us one, and has broken down the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law of commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby bringing the hostility to an end.  [2:14-16]