Just Church (22)

Chapter 7: What to Do With ‘The Nice Lady’

“See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many become defiled.”

Bitterness.

The word literally means “acidity”, and refers in scripture to wicked covetousness or wicked resentment. It is associated with cursing and anger. A related adjective is used in James 3:14 of wicked jealousy. What’s clear is it speaks of bitter hatred against others felt to be justified by their advantages.

The result? The defilement of many. That means their being stained so as to be rendered unfit for sacred service. This angry, resentful spirit between Christians can defile them in their relationship with God. The writer to the Hebrews says we are vigilantly to watch over the congregation, and make sure this doesn’t happen.

Because it can. So easily. Especially today.

The Root of Bitterness

Nothing keys so much on bitterness as Social Justice does. Its whole ideology is one of resentment by those who see themselves as victims, and guilt on the side of those whom they perceive as privileged. The burning sense of injustice and the anger that fuels it is the dynamo of their whole program. If Social Justice comes into the church, that will be what comes along with it.

Not that the “nice lady” necessarily knows that, though. She may not. It’s quite possible that she is focused on making things right, on being inclusive, receptive and loving to those she perceives to have been slighted, and she’s simply zealous to change that. A person can be passionate for good things and simply be oblivious as to where she’s getting her ideas from, and a little naïve about how she’s going about them. That’s possible.

For that reason, we must not jump to unkind conclusions about her even if she’s started to be a sort of flashpoint of trouble. It’s true that good intentions are not enough, but she could just be making a mistake. As Christians, we ought always to give each other the benefit of the doubt unless we have good reason to do otherwise. So let us start with the charitable assumption that she’s simply misguided and well-meaning. What are we to do?

Restoration

Fortunately, the prescription in scripture is clear:

“Brothers and sisters, even if a person is caught in any wrongdoing, you who are spiritual are to restore such a person in a spirit of gentleness; each one looking to yourself, so that you are not tempted as well.”

Who is to take charge of this situation? Whoever is spiritually mature. The goal is restoration, and the attitude is one of humility and caution about oneself: none of us is immune to arrogance, error or resentment. Perhaps the offender can be helped to see where she’s gone wrong, and will repent and can be brought back to a right attitude. We should start there.

Still, her problems may be complex, and it may not be easy to help her see the truth. Social Justice propaganda is highly indoctrinating, and is more and more prevalent in the world around us. Increasingly, it’s throughout things like our education system or our business world. As for the media, it’s everywhere; it’s even buried not-too-subtly in our entertainments. Those who are soaking in it during the week don’t necessarily find it easy to shed their programming when they stumble though the church doors on a Sunday morning. It comes with them, of course.

It’s going to take some deliberate teaching to set right the thinking of those who have been poisoned by their exposure to Social Justice. That means we’ve got to be deliberate about teaching the Christian alternative to Social Justice.

For well-meaning people who have been toxified by exposure to Social Justice, the remedy is a better vision of what the church is, and how people in her relate to each other. That can be done with good doctrine. Provided the nice lady is a person of genuine good will, she will respond to such teaching and change her ways. However, she is also likely to have some serious spiritual problems, and part of a proper restoration is going to require that somebody addresses these with her, and helps her to see she has to change her thinking.

Reconciliation

One thing that has to be emphasized to her is that she has been using an ungodly strategy to deal with resentment. There is quite simply no place for grudge-holding in the church of God. It’s not an attitude that the Lord even allows. Knowing that in a fallen world it is inevitable that human beings would, from time to time, cause each other offense, he gave his people definite directions as to what is to be done when a relationship has been harmed in some way.

It’s to be dealt with immediately. No questions, no pauses, no excuses.

The offended one is to go to the offender immediately(1) and tell the offense, and give him or her a chance to understand and repent, and then to offer forgiveness and restoration unconditionally. Here’s how the Lord put it:

“Now if your brother sins, go and show him his fault in private; if he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen to you, take one or two more with you, so that on the testimony of two or three witnesses every matter may be confirmed. And if he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, he is to be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.”

Of course, here the Lord is talking to Jewish folks; and “the church”, in its present form does not yet exist. However, the principle of conflict resolution clearly applies universally. You will remember that he also tells his disciples:

“If you are presenting your offering at the altar, and there you remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your offering.”

Bitterness and hostility toward one another impede sacrifice. You can’t be right with the Lord if you refuse to make things right with your brother. Grudges ruin fellowship. That principle carries over into the epistles, of course. For example, Paul says:

“So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience; bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so must you do also. In addition to all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity.”

Refusing to Forgive

You also probably recall what Christ says about those who refuse to forgive. Think of the parable of the unrighteous debtor in Matthew 18, for example. You remember it’s about a man who was forgiven a big debt by the Lord, and then refuses to have mercy on somebody who owes him a smaller debt. He feels no compulsion to respond to the Lord’s forgiveness by exercising any himself. The parable ends on this rather ominous note:

“His master, moved with anger, handed him over to the torturers until he would repay all that was owed him. My heavenly Father will also do the same to you, if each of you does not forgive his brother from your heart.”

The minute that the nice lady first detected (or just believed) that she had been slighted by a brother or sister, she owed it to make the offender aware of the offense, seeking restoration and offering forgiveness. If she hasn’t done it yet, she should do it immediately.

There is absolutely no excuse for her to do anything else.

What if she perceived an offense on behalf of another Christian brother or sister? None of the above verses even consider that case, and little is directly said in scripture about any such cases. But the first thing she should have done is to have found out whether or not the offense was actual. After all, it is really not her issue; and if the incident or situation offended nobody, then what business was it of hers to stir up trouble between people? But if there was an offense, then she should have sought to bring about peace between the offender and offended, immediately. “Blessed are the peacemakers.” If she did not do that, what has she being encouraging?

There is no place for grudge-holding or nurturing resentment among the Lord’s people. They are a community that is supposed to understand forgiveness and seek the unity of Christ. This nice lady has not done that. She is sinning. So she needs to repent of her ungodliness, and when she goes to the offender, she should admit her own offense as well, and ask the forgiveness she needs for having stirred up bitterness in the congregation.

The Secular Pattern

Needless to say, this is not the way of operating modeled for us in the secular world. The church can only cripple itself if it treats itself like a secular corporation, and follows the general procedures of modern human resources departments instead of scripture. In secular contexts, what usually happens is that the two conflicting parties are instructed never to face one another. Instead, the complainant makes his or her appeal to the HR department directly, and the HR officer meets with the proposed offender and dispenses “justice” according to what the HR officer thinks has gone on. The focus there is on protecting the organization against lawsuits, not on reconciling the conflicting parties — or on creating justice.

If the nice lady has learned her procedures from secular human resources practices, she will expect to be able to complain against her brothers and sisters without ever being called to account for it. She will think that complaining will effectively weaponize the authorities against anyone she accuses, and she will not ever have to face the accused, far less to reconcile.

So this is going to be a bit of a shock for her: you don’t get to slander your brothers and sisters and then walk away. You have to stand behind your accusations, and involve yourself in reconciling. That in itself is enough to make her think twice about alleging anything hurtful without real cause or without intention to be part of the solution, if there is a problem.

Dealing with Contentiousness

Secondly, if the nice lady has been talking to other people about the offense instead of dealing with it in the godly way, then she has been behaving as a gossip, a busybody, and a troublemaker. She should have addressed and dispatched the problem immediately with the offending parties. She did not. Social Justice, since it runs on resentment and the ginning up of guilt, delights in stirring up factions and sustained anger, has taught her to sustain grievances instead of dispatching them. She needs to be awakened to the evil of what she is doing by fomenting bitterness among the Lord’s people.

What kind of atmosphere should she have been cultivating? One like this:

“All bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and slander must be removed from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.”

Or, as Peter puts it:

“Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander, and like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation, if you have tasted the kindness of the Lord.”

Put more positively, instead of harboring bitterness, we actively “pursue the things which make for peace and the building up of one another”.

Get rid of bitterness. Do not nurture resentment. Forgive. Focus on building up, not tearing each other down.

Also, do not accuse one another. As James says:

“Do not speak against one another, brothers and sisters. The one who speaks against a brother or sister, or judges his brother or sister, speaks against the law and judges the law; but if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge of it.”

And again:

“Do not complain, brothers and sisters, against one another, so that you may not be judged; behold, the Judge is standing right at the door.”

Moreover:

“Live in peace with one another. We urge you, brothers, admonish the unruly, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with everyone.”

These are the values of the Lord’s people. And it does not matter how big the offense may be, or how many people have been involved, or how long it may have gone on: the only godly procedure for responding to injustice is to deal with it immediately, offer repentance, grant forgiveness, and restore unity. Anybody who does not do this gets two warnings; after that, they are rejected.

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(1) We might wonder why the offended one should be the one to do this. The answer is because he’s the one who knows the offense has happened. It’s quite possible the offender is oblivious. So God has ordained that the one who detects the offense is the one who must initiate the solution.