That Was Stupid

I hope you all have a friend who will tell you when you're being stupid. This is a necessary person, if you desire to survive life for long. There are friends that will love you and want to be around you, but will never confront you. They are friends, but not the kind that are close enough to really know you. No, the friends who call you on your stupidity are deeper friendships. They have earned the right to comment on your life. Their judgment of your actions is rooted in a desire to make you better, to hold you accountable...to keep you disciplined.

For a while now- longer than I've been alive, at least- the assessment of Christians is that they are judgmental. I think this comes from the fact that we are always seen as telling people what NOT to do. Does this in itself make Christians judgmental? I don't think taking a stand and saying, "No, I don't agree with that," makes us judgmental. In fact, it is something we need to be stronger in.

In truth, a lot of people who feel judged by Christians probably feel that way because of an underlying guilt. They, too, know they are wrong, on some level. But, alas, we are in fact, more often than not, pretty harsh towards people.

Here is what I mean. Let's say you are walking down the street. You reach into your pocket to answer your phone, and a piece of trash falls out onto the sidewalk from said pocket. You don't notice it, but Mr. Green Police does. He proceeds to yell at you, about how you are disrespectful to the planet, how you are insensitive to the ecological effort to clean up the place, and how you generally just kind of tick him off in your complete ignorance of your (unintentional) littering. Now, you don't know Mr. Green Police, and he doesn't know you, but his sensibilities and his worldview have been offended, so he reacts. Harshly.

As Christians, we often see others, people we don't know, doing something we know contradicts the teachings of the Bible. We may not run up to them on the street, but we picket them, we blast them from books and letters to the editor and blogs (pauses to check to make sure I haven't done this same thing in my blog). We attack with our words people who are in fact sinning. Why is that wrong?

Because we haven't earned the right. If you develop a bad habit, say, smoking, and a dear friend of many years or a stranger in a restaurant expresses their concerns, who are you going to listen to? Both may state clinical facts, both may state how they are personally bothered, but chances are, the stranger is just going to piss you off a bit, while the friend may also irk you- but they will make you think.

What I'm getting at is that judgment as it is defined in today's world implies distance. It's like sniper accountability. We don't get blood on our hands, and they never see us (read: Know us) so we can shoot our opinion off and run.

So rather than judging others, I advocate accountability. It is grows out of established relationships, it is mutual, and it is hands on. If I see someone sinning that I don't know- how can I judge them if I don't know their circumstance. They may not know it is wrong. They may subscribe to a belief that it isn't wrong. They may not care. But we need to know them to confront them.

I've known, and I've been the kind of person that took the lazy way of making the world a better, less sinful place. I shouted from the rooftops that certain things were wrong, and anyone who did them deserved what they got. Then people I knew got caught. And it became real, and personal, and up close. Suddenly, I wasn't so hard line. Suddenly, I wanted them to know they were wrong so that they could know grace and seek it.

We ARE judgmental toward others when we want them to know they are wrong to prove that WE are right. Accountability comes when we love the person enough to get our hands dirty not only telling them of their error, but helping them get over it and through it. Being judgmental doesn't make a person agree with you, and neither does accountability- but accountability opens them up to hear your views because you are willing to listen to theirs.

The beauty of the Church is that she is potentially full of those kinds of friends who will tell you when you are stupid. So let us invest in each other, get to know each other, and earn each others trust and respect. Those are the signs of true, deep friendship, the kind that can call you on your mistakes with love.

I can't wait for you to tell when I've done something stupid.