Sit Down

             Do not rebuke an older man harshly, but exhort him as if he were your father. Treat younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, and younger women as sisters, with absolute purity. (I Timothy 5:1-2)

Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” (Matthew 22:37-39)

Jesus called them together and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant,  and whoever wants to be first must be your slave— just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Matthew 20:25-28)

We interrupt the regularly schedule blog post for this rant. Tomorrow, we’ll resume our exploration of Proverbs. Today, however, a couple things have come together to create a need to explore these verses. Without going into details, I’ve been thinking about some events that hurt. Then, something happened that my mind tells me fits into the pattern in question. A good chunk of it may simply involve the differences between a male’s and a female’s perspective. For the guys involved, the situation is X, the solution is A, and as a result, there’s no need to consider anyone’s feelings or include anyone in the decision-making process. This is what must be done. This is the attitude everyone should have. (And I am fairly sure I’ve dismissed others in the same way.)

And in the various situations, either there was no other real choice or the guy was right about the attitude we should have, but that doesn’t mean that the situations were handled in the best, or even in the only way possible. This morning, today’s passage came to mind. Undoubtedly, when the words were written, society was more authoritative. Most people had no rights, and women were barely a step above children in that regard. But the general point of all the passages above is that hierarchy and authority are not the mechanisms on which the Church is to be built.

Now, the discussion in which this came up had to do with giving, but it could have been about loving, serving, encouraging, or building up. We should all do all of these things, I agree. But I disagree that what “we should all give” implies that we should sit down, shut up, and pull out our wallets. That’s how the male side feels to me.

If the book I read on the subject is right, the female side is all about building relationships, but there’s also a concern that our generosity will be misplaced or do more harm than good. At least some of us don’t tend to want to sit down, shut up, and pull out our wallets. We want to be involved in the process of spending the money.

As I think about all this, I find myself thinking about a potentially similar situation, in which someone is upset or frustrated about a situation and I have said, in effect. “Yep, people are jerks. Get over it.” People can be unreasonable jerks who take out their frustration with situations that aren’t as they want them to be on cashiers, employees, or innocent bystanders. It doesn’t do any good to ruminate on it and tell everyone you meet for the next three days about what a jerk that customer was. But I find myself wondering if there’s a better way to respond to the upset/frustrated person than “sit down, shut up, and get over it.”

Certainly, the “sit down, shut up” response is not consistent with Scripture.