On Not Getting the Last Word--July 5, 2022

On Not Getting the Last Word--July 5, 2022

"We are fools for the sake of Christ, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are held in honor, but we in disrepute." [1 Corinthians 4:10]

I read someone recently who said, "I am practicing the spiritual discipline of not needing to get the last word."  And that has been reverberating in my soul ever since, because it is simultaneously very difficult to do sometimes and also deeply necessary.  That is especially true for the followers of Jesus--we are called sometimes to choose not to keep chasing the chance to win an argument, because we are more interested in being like Jesus than in being seen as "right."

And yes, that is hard. It means we will intentionally, knowingly, risk that others will assume the reason we don't keep arguing with them is that we have "lost" or have been proven "wrong" or that we are surrendering to their superior logic or intellect.  And it means sometimes we will have to be prepared for other people to gloat about their "wins" when in fact we have simply chosen not to engage on their terms.  It means taking the chance that others will think we are foolish and weak, while they are smart and powerful, because we have really just refused to throw good after bad any longer.

While that is a worthwhile, if difficult, personal discipline in any era, it is especially important (and that much harder) in the age of social media.  I'm sure it was hard for the apostle Paul to try and strike the right tone with his readers in Corinth, who had become so focused on being seen as intelligent, important, and successful, in a wider culture of over-inflated self-importance. But Paul never had to deal with internet trolls or incendiary comments lobbed on Facebook or Twitter posts like hand grenades.  In our time and place, it really has to be a conscious decision whether we will, or will not, let give power over our identity to the impressions of others, and whether or not we need to be seen as "smart" or "strong" in their eyes.  Ours, too, is a culture of puffed-up egos, where many think the goal of life is to seen as a "winner"--and that cannot dare to afford letting someone else get the last word, less you be judged a "loser."  It happens especially in the faceless forms of communication in which we are increasingly entangle, where we are instantly notified when someone has offered their own comments to your thoughts, and where you can just tell sometimes that another person is spoiling for a fight.

I don't mean to get all nostalgic here, but I can remember as a college student first reading the Socratic dialogs from Plato and being surprised at how ancient thinkers used discussion to try to arrive at truth, even if that meant they learned something new, changed their mind, or had their old assumptions forever challenged.  You read these long exchanges between Socrates and a student or another philosopher, and there is a courage there that we rarely find these days in our public life.  You see people willing to consider new ideas, and instead of seeing it as a "defeat" or a "loss" when the other person makes a point they had not considered, those moments were something to be celebrated.  By contrast, when I watch a contemporary political debate between candidates, whether of the same party in a primary or between two opposing parties, I am almost always disheartened that the spectacle is framed virtually always as a contest to be won or lost, not even in terms of who had the best ideas or whose logic was the most well-thought-out, but who got the best five-second sound-byte that will play well on TV later that night, or instantly on the internet.  We seem incapable, at least in our public life, of having conversations that are genuinely open to learning, or even that are left open-ended, without a decision for a "winner" or a "loser."

And while there are certainly places for having a rigorous logical argument all the way through to a conclusion or a verdict, those moments are actually pretty rare in daily life.  More often, in our actual lived lives, we need to decide if we are willing to blow up a friendship or collegial partnership because we need to get the last word every time.  We need to decide if every conversation is grounds for scorched-earth tactics, or whether we are willing to hold our tongues at some point, not in surrender, but because we will not be drawn into unnecessary meanness.  We need to decide if we will let others provoke us into playing by the rules they set, or whether we can accept a potential blow to our respectability not to launch into a counterattack every time someone says (or posts) something stupid back at us.

Paul's own strategy here writing to the Corinthians seems to force them--and us--to decide what we want our default posture to be.  Are we really so delusional to insist that God's glory hangs on MY need to answer back every internet troll or commenter?  Am I starting from the assumption that I must attend every argument I am invited to?  Or will I risk whatever impressions others may form of me by not engaging... by "going high" when they "go low"... by sometimes letting another person's nonsensical comment just wither from being ignored rather than drawing more attention to it by fighting back?  It is instructive, after all, to consider that in the Gospels, Jesus seems constantly open to good-faith conversation with seekers and sinners alike, but when he can tell the other person is just spoiling for a fight, he is OK with not responding on their terms.   Jesus is comfortable enough in his own skin, and grounded enough in his belovedness, that he doesn't have to prove anything to anyone else.  That is worth remembering in this age of social media-fueled arguments.

Today, let's make the choice to be OK with letting someone else think we are foolish, rather than letting someone else think we want to be right more than Christ-like.  Let's make the choice to think before we speak, and sometimes to let that extra thought lead us just to keep our mouths (or keyboards) still.  Let's be so comfortable and grounded in the unshakeable assertion of God that we are beloved, that we don't need to worry about looking wise or foolish, weak or strong, in anybody else's eyes.  Because we don't.

Here's to the spiritual practice of not needing to get the last word.  It could take us a lifetime to do it well.

Lord God, make us so sure of your unfailing love that we no longer have to let ourselves be baited into contests with others.