Lakeside Visitor June 2010

 

Last month we talked about how our speech should be graceful and lift others up. But this month we’re going to acknowledge that hugely unhealthy elephant in the room: we can use the sweetest words to cover up a heart of ill will toward others. Do you see the angry trunk rising up in you in protest? “I don’t do that! That would be wrong, and unchristian, and a sorry example to others, and….” <hiccup> Oh wow, I’m so sorry. I always get the hiccups when I try to talk, breath, and eat crow all at the same time! Now, back to the elephant. We all have done it, but more importantly, we all still do it. Even in our moments of disagreement with this idea, we picture the people we know who speak falsely as though this turns God–and us, for that matter–off the trail of the truth.

Read the parable of Jesus in Luke 18:9-14–I’ll wait. Good, now a couple questions: why do you think Jesus wanted to pit the hoity-toity against the IRS auditor? What would be the ‘Vegas odds’ you’d get on betting the religious type would be admired by God? Better yet, why did Jesus address the Pharisee’s laundry list of good deeds and self-aggrandizing belittlement of another out of all the things he could have used in his story? Like it or not, this is a timeless story that reads like a kidney punch. We often want to bring the good we do to God in hopes that our bad will slip through unnoticed, or at least be far less consequential when seen in perspective. And this is why it’s so easy to see the wrongs of another and have to rebuke ourselves for plotting ‘ME’ a little higher on the Goodness Graph than them. A weird sentence, yes, but there’s an example there when Jesus says no one but the Father is good and, besides, our good stuff looks like filth compared to God’s standards.

It really is a hopeless lesson, isn’t it? And one that we have to learn repeatedly. When we hear Jesus’ rebuke in Matthew 12:34-37 we know that even a little looking into ourselves can send us all into a tailspin. We could land on the couch eating Bon-Bon’s and Cheetos, watching The Biggest Loser, and remarking to no one in particular, “No, I’m the biggest loser.” But thank you Jesus that we don’t need to put ourselves through all that. We are to learn from the Pharisee vs. IRS agent. Instead of using sweet words to cover the death that boils up from the heart, the Holy Spirit can–and will, in time–drain such self-serving perspectives from our hearts, minds, and mouths.  Each time we fight the negative flow, the next battle gets a little easier. Though the gift of guilty gab never fully disappears, our successes will make rejecting those thoughts easier, if not unnecessary (because you stop having them, you follow?). As for me, I’m still on the road to improvement in that area. Which direction will you find yourself pointed in this month?