“Again, anyone who says to his brother, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell . . . You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also . . . If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles” (Mt. 5:22, 38-41).
A number of years ago I accessed YouTube to introduce my children to The Muppet Show. When I searched the site, the old men in the balcony, Statler and Waldorf, appeared. Someone had strung about two minutes worth of insults together. We laughed till our stomachs hurt and tears flowed. Poor Fozzy Bear who absorbed the blunt of the humor, heckling, and harassing. Such bantering was scripted and all in fun, evident by my children’s reaction to the video. But in the real world such mocking is rude and lacks respect. The danger is that such incivility in the real world threatens the social fabric that weaves us together.
We live in an informal society, where people “speak their minds” at the expense of other’s feelings, who address seniors by their first name instead of “Sir” or “Ma’am,” and where Casual Friday includes jeans has extended to most parts of the week and social occasions. The comfortable, laid-back environment seems to allow far more intimacy, where people can be themselves. However, it also seems to spawn rudeness, disrespect, and selfishness.
We turn on the TV and the panelists on the talk shows attack each other instead of discussing the issue. The more sensitive the issue, the more passionate the panelist justify their insults. We tune into talk radio and the host of the show spends his/her three hours on air demonizing anyone who disagrees with his/her position. We open up FaceBook only to find angry and disruptive arguments, leaving us wondering why we’re even friends with them? Without face-to-face interaction, we feel the freedom to say anything unfiltered and the result is a lack of civility in our society.
Do we get along with people? Are we being neighborly? How fast do we seek retaliation instead of forgiveness? Do we respect boundaries and are boundaries enforced? Are we a people characterized by decent behavior in all situations? Civility is about public restraint, by controlling ourselves for the greater good of the community. Without civility, society leads to civil unrest, and chaos soon follows, and the fabric holding us together ends up frayed.
Jesus addressed civility when he spoke of turning the other cheek, avoiding name calling, blessing those who curse you, widening the definition of “neighbor,” and forgiving those though they were executing him. Even “shaking the dust off one’s feet” was a civil way of leaving an uncivil environment. So discipleship forces us to act with civility even when those around us are uncivil.
Have we lost civility? If not, it’s almost gone. If civility is restored to our society, it will only happen when people of faith begin acting like people of faith. When we treat everyone with dignity and respect, we’ll begin restoring civility. When we engage others with listening ears, we’ll begin restoring civility. When we stop making blanket statement on groups and try to understand individual plights, we’ll begin restoring civility. When we start adopting Jesus’ policy of love and shut down the rhetoric of hate, we’ll begin restoring civility.
Soli Deo Gloria!
(i.e. only God is glorified!)