The internet has my sensitivities on high-alert these days. I can’t go anywhere without reading an opinionated post about someone who vehemently disagrees with something.
What is the state of racism and prejudice in contemporary America? Should the Confederate Flag be removed? What is the difference between identifying with something other than your biological gender and identifying with a race other than the obvious one dictated by your ancestry? What does the Bible say about transgender or homosexual people? What should the consequences be for a teenager who molested teenage girls twelve years ago? How are smart phones and technology affecting our society?
The list is seemingly endless, and the only way for one topic to die down is for another to take it’s place.
I have found myself caught in this weird trap lately. I seem to be sensitive to all of these posts. All of them make me cringe. All of them make me want to talk some sense into people. None of them are satisfying to me.
Even the people with whom I “agree,” people on “my side” are, well, offensive.
First of all, let’s take a step back. People are people. We all have these opinions, and hopefully some kind of convictions about morality and what it takes to live a meaningful life. Those convictions are different, and suffice it to say, I believe that some of those opinions and convictions are wrong. This post, however, is not to establish my side on current issues.
It is to establish my side on how people are communicating their side on current issues.
I believe a lot of our character is revealed in how we treat and talk to or about people who disagree with us.
We seem to have gotten to this place where we are correct, the people who agree with us are worthy, and the people who don’t agree with us are ignorant, blind, or close-minded. And as your social media may portray, a clear waste of oxygen, though not a waste of time to mock or sub-tweet about.
We have forgotten that people who disagree with us are people covered under the same blood as we are.
It doesn’t matter which side you are on. I think we have gotten to the place where we read things, things trying to bring the hypocrisy to light, and we apply it to the other side. We apply it to the people who disagree with us.
But I want us ALL to step back for a moment and consider three things:
Who are we? Who do we want to be? How can we be those people?
I am a child of God, covered in mercy and grace by the salvation purchased with the powerful blood of Jesus. That’s my identity.
I want to be someone who tries to get the plank out of my own eye before contemplating a clever way to highlight the speck (which may in some cases be quite a plank in itself) in someone else’s.
I want to be someone who seeks first to understand. I want to be able to entertain an idea without accepting it (Aristotle, anyone), who is willing to entertain something rather than reject it out of fear. I want to be someone who can reject ideas with integrity and grace. I want to be someone who, after entertaining, can see the lost and broken as people who are lost and broken, people who won’t be “fixed” by my scolding or arguments or backlash or tweets or likes or shares.
We are never going to change anything by mocking people. We are never going to change anything by drawing lines between ourselves and others, even the people we perceive to be living in a web created by false prophets and faulty beliefs.
We are not going to build the Kingdom by sub-tweeting about ignorance or sharing memes on Facebook.
We will only invite the lost and broken into completeness through the love of Jesus, the love of the one who ate with prostitutes and tax collectors and disciples, not to condemn them, not to share a list of their offenses or praise their good works, but to welcome them into a personal relationship with himself.
