I know I said I wasn’t going to blog for a bit, but I had some thoughts I wanted to share.I watched the new Cormac McCartney movie this week. It’s called ‘The Road’ and I was really affected by it. Somehow they managed to put ‘human beings’ up on the screen with astounding clarity, and even though it was a thoroughly bleak and depressing watch for much of the duration, it affirmed the human spirit in a way few movies do.
The basic premise, without giving anything away, is that there has been some kind of global catastrophe which has wiped out all animals and trees. All that’s left are a handful of human beings wandering the landscape as it buckles and moans with earthquakes, fires, storms and the relentless cold. As the earth is breathing it’s last, the story follows one man and his son making their way towards the coast. It seems pretty clear all along that there will be no help for them there either, but the father has chosen to give them a goal to work towards so they have some kind of purpose; some reason to keep going.
As with all the best stories, human beings are thrown into the bleakest of circumstances to see how they react, and so show us what we’re really made of. In ‘The Road’ they have polarized into two types; those who’ve resorted to cannibalism because of a lack of food, and those who live on the run from these roving bands.There is a beautiful scene in the movie where, huddled under a ruined bridge, we see the father telling the son stories of justice, sacrifice, and heroism to remind him of what human beings should strive for. In the midst of all this chaos he tells the boy that they are the ‘good guys’, but the world is full of ‘bad guys’ and he has to be careful. The boy takes this to heart, but he always seems concerned that perhaps he and his father are becoming ‘bad guys’ with some of the decisions they have to make to stay alive. For example, should they share what little food they have with a struggling old man, or should they leave him to die to ensure their stores last a little longer? What would the ‘good guys’ do?
Surely they would help, reach out, care for, love?
What is the difference between the ‘good guys’ and the ‘bad guys’? Perhaps we haven’t polarized into ‘cannibals’ and ‘those who chose to help others’, but in our interactions we know the difference between a good person and a bad one. We don’t like to talk about it for fear of sounding judgmental, but we will happily say, after just meeting someone, that ‘he is a good guy’, or ‘she seems like a great person’, so the inverse must be true as well.
I get it all the time while waiting tables. You get all different types of people coming in to eat and you can quickly tell whether you are going to enjoy serving them, or whether you are going to be praying for them to leave in a hurry, and it’s often down to something far more fundamental than them having ‘a bad day’; they just aren’t nice people.
So how do we all know the difference? I thinks it’s a vital question for those of who actually want to be ‘good’ human beings, and I think the answer is painfully simple.
‘Bad guys’ are their own center.
‘Good guys’ care about things outside themselves.
And I think it all comes down to how we deal with ‘our wound’.
As one of my Seminary lecturers used to say; “We all have this wound.” We’re born with it in fact, but people tear it open more and more with destructive words and deeds. The choice we are left with is how to deal with this ‘wound’. Will we protect it by wrapping it in more and more bandages, fending off the outside world and holding people at a distance in case they hurt us more? Or will we have the courage to air it, and let it heal?
I remember this same lecturer at Seminary reading one of my particularly ‘ranty’ assignments and calling me in to have a chat about it. He told me afterwards that there was a lot of anger in there and he felt I had to ‘Grieve Humanity’. Processing this phrase I realised he was talking about coming to terms with the human condition. “I’m not perfect, I’m just muddling my way through life often just, hoping someone doesn’t tear that wound even wider.” And the comforting truth is; so is everyone else. They are as wary of me as I am of them. We’re all in the same boat. It’s really difficult to be defensive and aggressive towards everyone else when really we’re all dealing with exactly the same wounds. Just understanding this releases you from a lot.
So I believe that the way we deal with this wound, and whether or not we acknowledge everyone else’s, determines what kind of person we will be. Will we hurt others to protect ourselves, or will we help them? Will we be self-centered or others-centered?
The best definition of ‘sin’ I ever read was by a German Theologian named Reinhold Niebuhr. He said that ‘sin’ is ‘selfishness’. It’s choosing ourselves. It’s hurting someone else to protect our wound. It’s choosing to become a ‘murderous cannibal’ so you have food to eat, instead of banding together to sacrificially help each other along the journey. Think of the things you really consider sin and try and find one which doesn’t come from a desire to put yourself first while hurting someone else.
Murder.
Adultery.
Theft.
Cheap sex.
Deceit.
Gossip and Slander.
Pride and Hubris.
All of them come from a desire to help yourself while hurting someone else.
Again, our infantile definition of sin doesn’t help. We have this warped idea in our churches that the ‘good guys’ are the ones who don’t do the things on the ‘naughty list’.
That’s rubbish!
There are plenty of people who speak perfect ‘Christianeze’ and impress all the church goers with their piety and self discipline, but they are just toxic, destructive people leaving hurt and pain in their wake because they haven’t dealt with their own wounds. They just do it with their own brand of condescension and judgementalism, because it helps them to feel better about themselves whilst hurting the person standing in front of them. This stuff is no less sin. I think it’s what angered Jesus so much when he interacted with the Pharisees, and they just couldn’t see what He was talking about. It has nothing to do with the list of ‘naughty things’ we do or don’t do. It has to do with how we interact with the rest of humanity.
Don’t believe me? From what I can see Jesus did. His resounding message was not a list of ‘naughty things’ to avoid, but it was to ‘love God’, and ‘love others’. Simple as that. Everything seems to fall into place from there. Jesus didn’t protect Himself from us, but reached out for us in ways which cost him everything, showing us how to be fully and properly human.
Check out the stories we tell. Hero’s are always people who care about others more than themselves. They are the ‘good guys’. Those we hold up as heros in our culture are those who lived for others, or even who died for others.
So question is: “Will I protect myself from you or reach out to you?”
You shouldn’t need to protect yourself from me, because I should be taking care of you. Imagine a world where that was always true. Sounds heavenly:)
I think the journey to becoming fully human is a journey away from yourself as the center, to putting your center in God and others. I was chatting to someone the other day commenting on how it seems we become more of what we already are as we get older. We polarize. By the time people hit old age it is even easier to see which they have chosen. Are they protecting the wound and not dealing with it, still bitterly fighting off the rest of the world? Or are they peaceful and secure individuals who have acknowledged their own wounds but given their time and energy to loving others? There doesn’t seem to be much in between at that life stage, so I thinks it’s important to choose which road we are setting off on now.
I walked out of ‘The Road’ sad because I felt like we are doomed to always be the kind of species who ‘hurts’ more often than ‘helps’. But it also affirmed for me that Jesus message is more vital, more relevant than ever.
Love God.
Love others.
Period.
