Wednesday, May 1, 2013

2x4's , Shoes, and Mirrors









There is this discourse Jesus gives that is often referred to as the Sermon on the Mount or the Sermon on the Plain, depending on which version you are looking at, where Jesus is essentially discussing the very essence of the God's Kingdom. What it looks like, who it is for, how it works, and how it doesn't work. And, interestingly, in giving us this picture, Jesus shows us that this whole Kingdom thing has a lot to do with how we are to interact with one another. Jesus' whole progression of the discourse revolves around the very nature of a community that exists in God's Way for the world and Jesus ends it all by saying this:

 "So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Torah and the Prophets."

One of the most loaded sentences Jesus utters.

Yet it is also one of the most thrown to the side quotations of Jesus that never really gets a whole lot of thought to what he actually means.


Because Jesus is claiming that this way of relating to the people around you, it captures the entire substance of what is communicated in Torah and what is voiced by the prophets. This simple idea is the very thing God has been trying to get God's people to do throughout human history; that anything you go and read in the Hebrew Bible, this is ultimately what it is trying to get people to do.

And it seems relatively easy.

Whatever you would desire to be done to you, whatever you think is how you should be viewed and treated and regarded -

Do that to everyone else.

Treat people in the same way you want to be treated.

And I'm guessing that you want to be treated in the way you want to be treated right?

Then that means treating other people how they want to be treated.

Basically, treat everyone as a human.

Give everyone the same view and regard and substance that you assume for yourself.

Maybe we could say that what Jesus is talking about here is empathy.




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Back to the beginning of this whole "how to interact with each other" thing.

When Jesus begins talking about how this community of God's world should exist, Jesus starts by saying this:



"Do not judge, or you too will be judged.
For the same way you judge others, you will be judged,
and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. 

Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in someone else's eye and pay
no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say, 
'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a 
plank in your own eye? 
You hypocrite.
First take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see
clearly to remove the speck from the other person's eye. 



At the heart of this talk of how the community of God's world is supposed to relate is this picture of judging that many of us have heard over and over again. 

Now, in the Greek language there are three words that could potentially translate as "to judge". There is one that captures the meaning of a legal judgment like the judging that would go on in a court session. Then there is a second word, the one we usually think of when we talk about "judging" people that means to evaluate. When we say, "Don't judge me," we are often talking about this word of judging where you look at and make judgments about a person based on their presence or what they say or do. The analyzing kind of judging. 

But Jesus doesn't use either of these words here.

And if you have three choices of words to use then whatever one you end up picking is probably a bit intentional. Jesus wasn't just thinking, "You know, all three of these words will translate into English the same, so I guess I'll just pick one." Rather, Jesus wants to capture something, and the first two words that have to do with judging aren't what Jesus is looking for. The third one is. 

It is the word "krino". 

And krino better translates as "condemn". 

It is the kind of judging that makes decisions about the worth and value and identity of another human being. 

It is dehumanizing another as less than human, as an inferior, as unworthy. 

This is what Jesus is talking about. He is saying, "Don't make judgments about another's identity as a human." 

And this is why Jesus goes on to talk about the plank. 

When you begin making someone out to be bad or questionable or evil, where they are all wrong and you are better and right, where you make a caricature out of them and view them as inferior and less than human. 

Where you begin talking about the speck of sawdust in their eye. 

Doing this sort of condemning and krino is, in itself, worse than anything that person could have said or done. Your condemnation of their value and identity is a much bigger problem than whatever may be going on with that person. 

Which is part of the reason why when you judge, you, too, will be judged. Because when you do krino someone, you've made the world worse than whatever you are upset with them about and now we have to begin talking about your issues, too. 

It is almost like you see the speck of dust in their eye and you go to confront them or expose them or make a point on their speck and, at that very moment, your condemnation of their worth and identity as a human is like a 2x4 jutting out of your own eye. Your judging in this way is the very plank that makes their problem look like a speck of dust compared to how you are handling it. 

And we have to be honest that there is a difference between going after healing and restoration in confronting others and dehumanizing their soul and identity. Jesus later goes on to say that in a wholesome and beautiful community, people are sounding boards to one another; that there has to be this sort of genuine interaction that helps resolve conflict and restore one another and help everyone progress together. 

But when your confrontation or thoughts or approach is rooted in a sort of separation that makes this other person into some distant object or alien, it makes it easy to start doing a little krino. You depict them as this distant "other" and it creates this ladder where you are able to stand above and do this sort of thing. Krino is simple once you've stopped seeing them as a human; when they are diminished and depicted as "missing something" that you have. When they aren't on your level. 

This is what krino is all about. It keeps you from seeing past that speck to the human being that is behind it and allows us to do and say a lot of things that we certainly wouldn't otherwise. You take away their inherit worth as a person simply based on your opinion and self-righteousness. They become evil and bad. They become this inhuman "other". 

And it is this very thing that becomes the plank sticking out of our eye socket. 

This is what Jesus is talking about. 

He is trying to get us to put the 2x4 down. 



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It is this that has a lot to do with empathy. 

There is a term called "perspective taking" that coincides with the experience of empathy and means exactly what it sounds like. You take someone else's perspective. It is the suspending of the world as you see it from your eyes and, in turn, taking the perspective of the very world around you. 

Essentially, it is the opposite of egocentrism. 

Instead of only seeing through your eyes, you begin to see the world from all sorts of different eyes. 

But an important thing to note is that in order to experience someone else's world, you first have to put yours down. 

And so you come across another and, instead of separating yourself from them or distancing and detaching yourself and creating all of these different distinctions by describing what is wrong with them and what you think they need or deserve, you, instead, stop looking at them from only your point of view and begin looking at the world from theirs. 

This is what perspective taking and empathy are all about. 

There is a man named Jeremy Rifkin who described it this way:

"Real empathy for another requires feeling and responding as if you are that person. It is interaction that transcends distinctions." 

Because the easy thing to do is create this image of a person and what makes them different and what separates them from you and how "at least you aren't like them." We create this caricature of a human being that begins to define them in this two dimensional way and, all the sudden, we have missed the fullness of their humanity and failed to see them in their proper depth. 

Empathy and perspective taking is the way out of a world so full of krino. It is the alternative to the self-centered, egocentric, and small world that we so often try to live in. 

Because it is difficult to judge and condemn someone else when you experience their world. 

In a writing titled Avot in ancient Jewish literature, a famous rabbi named Hillel says this:

"Do not judge a person until you have put yourself in their shoes."

Basically, he is urging us that, when we find ourselves trying to krino somebody, we need to stop and put on their shoes for a minute. You get in this place where you are about to shove a 2x4 in your eye and you just need to stop, put down your perspective, suspend your self-righteousness for a moment, and get a little empathic. Get in their shoes. Get in their world. Feel it. Experience it. See them with the same depth and complexity that you see yourself. Find their story that has made them who they are and brought them to this place. 

And then, after you've done that, you can see if you want to continue on to krino them. 

But, chances are, the experience has now made judging them in this way quite impossible. 




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Imagine the people that you view as the most different from you. The people that you have the most stereotypes for, the people that you understand and appreciate the least, the people that you assume the most about, the people with the most separation from you. 

And imagine if you experienced their life and world and perspective. 

Our superiority and the intense focus we put on all of these various obstacles and differences that keep us from properly interacting with our fellow human beings - imagine if we could just put that down for a moment. 

What would that look like?

What would that kind of world look like?

Where you come across someone that you have absolutely no connection to and absolutely nothing in common with and you see this whole speck thing going on in their eye, but instead of taking up your plank and doing the whole krino thing, what if we just did the whole empathy thing instead? 

Instead of the 2x4, what if we chose to put on their shoes?

In the book of Ecclesiastes there is this interesting insight the writer gives us:


"Do not pay attention to every word people say,
or you may hear your servant cursing you; 
for you know in your heart that many times you yourself have cursed others."



Now, if you are a master, someone with a lot of property and pull and status and you hear one of your servants behind your back slandering and complaining about you, you are most likely going to be a little pissed. 

Just like when someone you don't like or have very little respect for calls you out. Or when the person or group of people that you vehemently disagree with does the very thing that you are so adamantly opposed to. Or when you get slandered or rejected or dismissed or demeaned. 

It can really set you off. 

And it typically leads to this spiral of negativity where you find more and more wrong with them, they begin to look more and more dark, and eventually the idea of krino is simply the natural thing to do. They become inhuman, you demote their identity, and the chance of entering into their world and properly interacting with them is most likely a very distant possibility. 

It is this that the writer of Ecclesiastes is trying to confront. 

Because you hear your servant curse you, this sort of thing that leads to krino happens, but how many times have you cursed all sorts of other people, including your servant?

How many times have you done the very thing that you are so upset about somebody else doing? 

And when you did this very thing, you probably felt justified. You probably had a reason or argument for why you said or did what you said or did. And if some other person would have responded with an attack on your identity or by getting pissed off and doing the whole krino thing to you, I'm guessing that you would have your defenses ready. 

But now your lowly servant has cursed you behind your back and, chances are, you aren't giving them the same benefit of the doubt you would have given yourself if you were in their position. Yet your servant is doing nothing different than the very thing you tend to do all the time. 

And when we become aware of this, it is much harder to get mad and upset and disappointed. It is much harder to stand starkly opposed to people when we know exactly what it is like to be them. 

This is what empathy is capable of opening us up to. 

Taking their perspective and experiencing their world simply makes it harder to krino someone that you see in the very fullness that you see yourself. 

What this insight from Ecclesiastes is showing us is that we all really aren't too much different. We all do the same things, we all have the same messed up tendencies and the thing you are so against in them can probably just as easily be found in you.

One author says that we exclude others not because they are different, but because they expose the other-ness in ourselves. We all find ourselves cursing others relatively consistently. 

We have been there.

We know that side of things. 

Which means that when you hear someone else cursing you, it makes it a lot harder to not to just simply say, "I know exactly what you mean..."

Maybe, when we come across the very people we want to separate ourselves from and condemn and reject and take away their value and worth as a fellow human being in the world - 

we simply need to just put on their shoes. 

And maybe we will begin to see that their shoes are actually a bit like a mirror. 

Because when you start seeing the world from their eyes. When you enter their body and mind and see and feel and experience what they see and feel and experience. 

You begin to see yourself in them. 

You begin to realize that they aren't that different from you. That their world is the exact same world that you find yourself in every single day. 

This is what Jesus is trying to show us. This is the picture Jesus gives us of what it looks like to interact with one another in the world as God created it to be. This is how the community of God's Kingdom is meant to function. 

It is a posture where, instead of ending up with a plank stuck in our eye, we put the 2x4 down, we step into their shoes, and we take a look at the mirror that is our fellow being. 

Relating to one another as we relate to ourselves. 

This is what Jesus had in mind. 














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