Healing Wounds or Scoring Points--September 7, 2020
[Jesus said to the disciples:] "If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If the member listens to you, you have regained that one. But if you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses...." [Matthew 18:15-16]
Somewhere along the way, we religious folks made a grave error when talking about the S-word, "sin." We got it in our heads that sins is primarily about score-keeping, rather than about wounding a relationship in some way. That makes a huge difference, because score-keeping is by definition competitive, which means we are taught to see things in terms of "winners" and "losers" with high and low scores, respectively; but wounds aren't competitive--they are simply something that needs healing.
Here's why that's important: if I am constantly playing the score-keeping game, I will be constantly scrutinizing whether this action or that action technically "count" as sin or not, fussing about doing better than someone else, and trying to keep my mess-ups from other people's eyes--I don't want them to see me lose points, right? And here's the other thing about seeing sin in terms of score-keeping: I am going to be really defensive any time someone tells me that I have caused harm to them, especially if I didn't realize I had done anything, because I don't want to lose all my positive points. I'm going to dismiss or shrug off any time someone else, "When you said that, it really hurt me..." or "When you made this particular choice, I felt really attacked," because we don't want to lose our points or have more de-merits on our record. We like to imagine we are all good and decent people, who are all maintaining very respectable scores in our holiness-versus-sin tallies, and we want to keep it that way. In other words, if I think of "sin" in terms of keeping a record of red-pen X-marks on my Permanent Record, I'll be predisposed NOT to face up to a full reckoning of ways I have harmed other people.
On the other hand, a wound simply calls for treatment. The focus isn't on assigning blame or punishing, but in healing, in preventing future harm, and finding an end to the activity that caused the hurt in the first place. I don't have to be threatened or insecure or defensive when someone else tells me about how I have caused harm to them--even if it's some way I had never realized or thought about, and even if it's a learning experience for me to see how I caused the hurt. I don't have to be afraid of getting more demerits on my heavenly report card--I can just focus on relieving the pain I have caused and on how I can avoid causing more again in the future. I don't have to be racked with guilt over messing up, but rather, I am free to help repair things, to restore what my choices have done damage to, to help mend what is broken, and to help renew and rebuild what has fallen down in the relationship. The score-keeping approach is always looking backward and past actions with worry about punishment; the wound-healing approach is focused on how we stop the source of the hurt, and how we restore what has been damaged between us.
I think something like that needs to be in the background when we hear Jesus talk about confronting someone when they "sin against" you--when someone causes harm or hurt to you. We need to have the notion of healing a wound in mind, otherwise we are going to see this all in terms of score-keeping. If it's about score keeping, I'll be defensive if someone comes to me to tell me about how I've messed up--I'm likely to dig my heels in and ignore what they are saying, because I don't want to face up to my mess-ups, and I don't want to lose face by being shown to be a "bad" person or a "sinner" or a rule-breaker. I don't want to lose points, right? If I'm stuck in score-keeping mode, I'm likely to dismiss your claims that I hurt you, and more likely to say things like, "I can't believe you're complaining about THIS..." or "That's not a big deal; you didn't feel that bad about THAT, did you?" or "It's not solely my fault, so I can't be held responsible for making things better!" And when someone comes to us to honestly address what we've done to harm them (knowingly or not), we are going to want to dodge, deny, or deflect what they have to say. I know it--I wrestle with that kind of reaction myself all the time, and it's a struggle not to feel defensive when someone approaches me just like Jesus taught them to do.
This is another piece of the puzzle I'm not sure we're very good at--we don't want to imagine there's a scenario where I'm the one who has caused hurt to someone else. I want to imagine I always do right, and that others may wrong me, but surely I'm not going to upset or hurt or offend someone else. But it happens. And I need to be ready to respond, to repent (to use an old-fashioned sounding word), and to repair what damage I have contributed to. That means being aware that someone may approach me on an ordinary day and tell me that I'm the source (or one of many sources) of a problem they are dealing with--and instead of deflecting or denying, I'm called to listen. If they have a wound, the focus needs to be on how we help them heal, not me trying to avoid losing points. There are no points.
All of this teaching of Jesus' seems really important for this moment and time. For one, as a follower of Jesus, this is why it seems essential that each of us be willing to listen when someone whose perspective--and maybe their social location--is different from my own approaches me and needs to tell me about a way they have been harmed. I know so often my gut impulse is to deflect or ignore, especially if I have a hard time relating to them or seeing things from their perspective. And I know once I get in that mindset, it is terribly easy to just dismiss what they are saying with defense mechanisms like, "That's not really a problem," or "I didn't cause that," or "You're not allowed to feel that way!"
There are times when I have to own that I have done or said something that caused harm to someone else, even if I didn't see it at the time, or even if I struggle to understand how it could be hurtful once they tell me about it. I don't get to be the judge of whether someone else does or doesn't feel pain or not--the person feeling the pain gets to tell me what they are experiencing. If I roll my cart over the toe of another shopper in the cereal aisle at the grocery store, I don't get to tell the other person, "That doesn't really hurt," because I'm afraid of causing a scene--no, the person whose toe has been run over gets to tell me if they are hurt or not.
Well, the same is true in all sorts of other ways. So, for example, if colleagues of mine who are women in ministry tell me that I've come across condescendingly, I don't get to say to them, "No, I didn't," or, "You must have interpreted me incorrectly," or "You don't really feel that way do you?" No, if someone else has felt hurt, they get to tell me that. I can reply and try and explain my thought process, sure, but I don't get to tell them they don't feel how they feel. I'm not allowed to gaslight someone because I'm uncomfortable with what they have to say about me.
It's the same with my need as someone who is White, to listen to voices--especially Black voices, but surely also indigenous voices, Latinx voices, and other people of color--who speak of having experienced harm because of the color of their skin or the assumptions lobbed at them by folks whose complexions look like mine. I don't get to say to those voices, "You haven't been hurt," or "You haven't been wronged," or "You don't really feel that," the same way I don't get to tell the person with the stubbed toe in the grocery store that it doesn't really hurt, or that it's really the cart's fault, not mine. If someone else feels hurt, I need to listen--yes, even when I have a hard time relating or understanding what their hurt is like because my experience, or race, or gender, or marital status, or tax-bracket, or what-have-you is different from theirs. In fact, it's all the more important for me to listen precisely in those times when their perspective is different from mine, because I may not be attuned to recognize the hurt without their help to recognize it!
So instead of running away from those voices because I'm afraid of feeling bad or being attacked, I need to stop and listen. Yes, it will be uncomfortable sometimes--being a grown-up is about being able to do what you have to do even when it is uncomfortable. Yes, it will mean seeing and owning the ways that I have contributed to problems, or benefited from the way things are, even if I didn't intend to. Yes, it will mean owning responsibility for things that are both bigger than just me but which also include me and my choices. And yes, it will mean the ongoing commitment to let others help me to see what I, from my vantage point, cannot see. Maybe I actually thought the cart didn't clip the other person's toe in the cereal aisle; maybe the Cocoa Krispies and bag of carrots blocked my view. So I need to trust that if the other person says, "Yes, you ran over my foot," that I did.
What I don't get to do is to ignore or discount the validity of people or perspectives that make me uncomfortable just because they make me uncomfortable. I don't get to turn them into "the problem" because their experience of pain makes me feel guilty. And I don't get to try and make them into the villains because they are forcing me to come to terms with the ways I have "sinned against them," whether through my direct actions or through the bigger patterns I am entangled in. Running away from our mess-ups is what children do, and Jesus keeps calling us to be spiritual grown-ups.
It is so easy--so diabolically easy--to launch into an attack on the voices that reveal where we have caused harm to others. That is especially true if we are stuck thinking that "sin" is primarily about score-keeping. But maybe when someone says to me, "When you say this, it really hurts me," or "When this happens, it really makes it difficult for us..." they aren't trying to hurt my points total; maybe they are telling me to stop running over their toes in the cereal aisle. Maybe this is about healing. And healing is about making things right--both stopping the activity that is actively causing harm, and then doing what is necessary to repair the damage or pain that has been caused. I don't have to be afraid of facing that. The end-goal isn't just for me to feel miserable out of guilt, but to bring healing all around. It's about restoring life.
That's what Jesus is always about--restoring life, bringing resurrection, and mending what is broken, both inside us and between us. That doesn't have to be something to run away from anymore--as long as we're clear this was never about points. It has always been about healing one another's wounds.
And that--well, that is something worth spending your day on. Maybe even our whole lives.
Lord Jesus, help us where we are afraid to come face to face with the ways we cause hurt to others, and give us the courage to acknowledge our role in harming others, so that we can change our actions and bring healing to others. Bring us all to life, Lord Jesus. Resurrect what is dead inside us... and between us.
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