Criticism

Cutting the grass around the manse is a three hour job. If you’re ever short of something to do on a sunny afternoon, just let me know!

But in all honesty I don’t really mind – it’s good exercise and I load up with podcasts on my iphone and the time usually goes in pretty quickly.

Sometimes it’s talks or sermons I listen to – and sometimes it’s comedy shows or movie reviews.

But last week I’d only got 15 minutes into the podcast I was listening to when I had to stop and take the headphones off because I was so fed up with it.

It was a comedy show hosted by Richard Herring, and Eddie Izzard was the guest; and the first 15 minutes of the chat was all about what a lot of nonsense faith is. Why doesn’t God come down? said Eddie. Why does he always send a lackey – the son of God, or the prophet of God, or the postman of God? Why doesn’t he just come down himself and settle all the arguments?

And if God wrote the Bible, how come it never says that the world’s round? He’d know that, wouldn’t he? But the Bible never says it!

And if he’s there at all, why didn’t he just flick off Hitler’s head in 1939 and put an end to all of that stuff before millions of people got murdered.

And on and on and on. With all the enthusiasm of the newly enlightened.

I had to switch off. Came in for a drink, left the headphones in the kitchen, and went back out to finish the job in quiet. But I wasn’t quiet in my heart. I was disturbed.

And something the next day made me pick up the iphone and start listening again because somehow, I knew that was the right thing to do.

And when I talked about that with a wise friend later in the week, she said – Paul, you need to try and understand why you reacted in those ways, because God might be saying something to you through them.

Why did you feel you had to turn that podcast off? And why did you feel you ought to turn it on again?

She’s the kind of friend who asks those sorts of awkward questions. Everyone should have one.

Food for thought. And food for a sermon too, methinks.

Why did I switch off?

Well, I’m tired, to be honest. I’m tired of swimming against the tide. It’s not the done thing to believe anymore, at least in any kind of conventional sense. Pick and mix religion is broadly tolerated in our part of the world, but poor old church is getting a right kicking these days from all quarters. And as a representative of the church, dare I say it, an employee of the church, I tend to feel those kicks more keenly than most. We’re all fools. We don’t live in the real world. We’re anti-science. We believe in a meddling sky-fairy who we think can kiss everything better.

And being the human creatures we are, there are two basic reactions to that kind of scorn – fight or flight. And I’ve done both in my time.

I’ve argued back. I could argue back quite easily to Eddie Izzard. I could tell him the story attributed to St Francis, that when a friend asked him to show him God, Francis took him outside and asked him to look full into the noonday sun. “I can’t do it” said his friend. “Well, if you can’t look one of God’s creatures full in the face, what makes you think you can look the Creator in the face?” said Francis. Maybe it’s necessary for God to come to us in another guise.

I could remind Eddie that the Bible’s a divine book, but also a human book; one that reflects the understandings and culture of its day. God seems to be prepared to work with the limits of our understanding, even as it grows and matures. That’s how people learn – slowly and progressively. You don’t jump into quantum physics in primary one. You learn how to count. You take people at the level they’re at and you help them take the next step in their learning. It took us 15 centuries after Christ to figure out that the sun’s at the centre of the solar system, not the earth, and even then people weren’t ready to hear it. Would they have been ready to hear it in Abraham’s day? Or Moses? Or Jesus’?

And I could ask him how he accounts for the hardness of heart and wilful ignorance that allows a man like Hitler to rise to power and do the things that he did. We have a term for that in the church – it’s called ‘sin’, which is really another way of talking about our innate selfishness.

When we turn from God and start placing ourselves, or our kind, first, all manner of things go wrong. Is that God’s fault?  Should we blame God for not magicking-up food for the starving when we live in world that’s already got enough food to go round? Isn’t the essential problem located in the human heart? What would Eddie say about that?

So I’ve made those arguments, and will continue to do so. I’ve fought. But you know what, sometimes it’s easier just to flee. Fight or flight. Sometimes the temptation is just to take off the headphones and stop listening. Or do an ostrich and bury your head in the sand simply because you’re tired making the arguments.

Who wants to live with constant criticism?

The American humourist Franklin Jones just about sums it up when he says “Honest criticism is hard to take, particularly from a relative, a friend, an acquaintance, or a stranger.”

In other words, nobody likes criticism, wherever it comes from.

And so we’re tempted in the church, to stick our fingers in our ears and stop listening, or sing the hymns and choruses twice as loud to drown out the dissenting voices.

Fight or flight – those seem to be the only options available to us.

But what if there’s a third way to deal with criticism, corporately but also as individuals?

What if rather than fighting or fleeing, God wants us to stand our ground and stay engaged?

Don’t advance to attack; don’t retreat and avoid. Stand your ground and stay engaged.

I can think of several reasons why that might just be the right way to go.

Firstly – what if buried in the criticism that’s being levelled at you is a truth you need to hear?

It takes a man or woman of real maturity and faith to hold on to the criticisms that come their way and say ‘Lord – I’m not enjoying this, but is there something here I need to learn? Some grain of truth that can help me become a better person?’

There’s an old story about a monastery in Italy that had a sign in it, outlining the basic rules of the community.

First, if a stranger comes to this monastery, you will share with him what you have

Second, if he criticises – listen – He may be sent by the Lord

Third, if he becomes obstreperous, he shall be dismissed.

Fourth, if he refuses to go, four strong monks shall explain to him the will of God!

Real wisdom in that second point. If he criticises – listen – he may be sent by the Lord, bringing a truth you need to hear.

Secondly, we need to remember that the criticism is coming to us through a person whom God also loves.

We do not know what is going on in their lives. We do not know the full story. We do not know what forces have worked upon them to shape them into the people they presently are. But God knows. We are neither good enough nor wise enough to judge them. Only God is. The criticism may well have far more to do with them and where they’re at than anything you’ve done.

And when we see our critics not just as protagonists putting forward an argument, but as fully formed people living a life, we might well find ourselves wondering what lurks beneath the criticism? What wounds, losses, anger or disappointments are there, just below the surface?

Why is Eddie Izzard so incensed at the possibility of belief? What’s he actually railing against? Ignorance? Prejudice? Abuse of authority? What’s his story? What forces have worked on him to bring him to the place where he now stands?

God, I believe, sees people in the round because he loves them. Can we do any less?

And lastly, in terms of standing our ground and staying engaged, it’s good to remember that living well is the best argument of all.

The German writer and statesman Johann Wolfgang von Goethe says “Against criticism a man can neither protest nor defend himself; he must act in spite of it, and then it will gradually yield to him.”.

That’s the whole tenor of our passage from Romans this morning -

Bless those who persecute you, says Paul.  Bless and do not curse.

Don’t repay wrong with wrong. Do everything you can to live at peace with everybody.”

And then this strange conclusion, which is paraphrased in the GNB, but which literally reads

“If your enemy is hungry, feed him;

if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.

In doing this, you will heap burning coals upon his head.”

Hooray – being kind to my enemy is going to set his head on fire!

No – that would be very out of keeping with the rest of the passage! The commentaries say there are two ways of thinking about what that phrase means.

Apparently, there was an Egyptian ceremony around this time where someone would show penitence by carrying a bucket of coals on their head; it could be that Paul’s alluding to that.

But more likely, and in agreement with many of the early church fathers, it just seems that Paul’s saying ‘if you treat your enemy with kindness you’ll make him burn with shame for the way he has treated you.”

And that chimes with much of Jesus’ teaching elsewhere, doesn’t it? His brand of non-violent resistance.  Turn the other cheek; go the extra mile; love your enemies and remember to pray for them. It all sounds very insipid and weak until you remember that kind of thinking was at the heart of Ghandi’s resistance, and Luther King’s resistance, and Mandela’s resistance.

Don’t be overcome by evil, says Paul. But overcome evil with good.

I think, deep down, we all know that though that’s hard, it’s the best and most redemptive way to be. Avoiding the gut reaction to fight or take flight, and instead, standing our ground and staying engaged, even as the criticism comes.

I’m going to finish with a story from Donald Miller which I think illustrates that stance very well.

Don went to Reed College in Portland, known as one of the most hedonistic and irreligious colleges in the United States. But it’s also one of the smartest and most socially engaged. There are people there who have a genuine passion for issues around injustice, the environment and global inequality. But no time for what they see as the inward looking piety of the church.

Every year at Reed they have a festival called Ren Fayre, and things get really wild. There are a lot of drugs taken, a lot of parties, a lot of promiscuity. All actively encouraged on campus.

Over the years, the Christian students, who were a very small minority, tried to engage with the event in different ways, but nothing had worked very well because the students were so antagonistic to anything even remotely Christian.

Don’s group didn’t want to play the moral majority card and come out fighting. Picketing the campus with placards saying ‘down with this sort of thing’. But nor did they want to stick their heads in the sand for the weekend and pretend it wasn’t happening.

They wanted to stand their ground and stay engaged. And as they thought about it, one of their number, Tony, had a brilliant idea. They would build and staff a confessional that they’d place right in the middle of campus. They would dress up as monks and make themselves available on campus for confession all weekend.

“But here’s the catch” said Tony. “We are not actually going to accept confessions. We are going to confess to them. We are going to confess that as followers of Jesus, we have not been very loving; we have been bitter and for that we are sorry. We will apologise for the crusades, we will apologise for the televangelists, we will apologise for neglecting the poor and the lonely, we will ask them to forgive us, and we will tell them that in our selfishness we have misrepresented Jesus on this campus. We will tell people who come into the booth that Jesus loves them.”

All of us sat there in silence, says Don, because it was obvious that something beautiful and true had hit the table with a thud. They were terrified, but they felt it was the right thing to do.

And so they set about it. The confessional was built on-site and that piqued some curiosity. It opened by torchlight on the Friday night and the first couple of students rolled in for a laugh at first, assuming it was there so they could confess everything they’d been getting up to that weekend. But when they found out it was the Christians confessing to them, they were totally hooked. And it opened up all kinds of conversations.

“When the first guy left the booth” says Don “there was somebody

else ready to get in. It went on like that for a couple of hours. I talked to about 30 people and Tony took confessions on a picnic table outside the booth. Many people wanted to hug when we were done. All of the people who visited the booth were grateful and gracious. I was being changed through the process. I went in with doubts and came out believing so strongly in Jesus I was ready to die and be with him. I think that night was the beginning of change for a lot of us.

Out of those conversations came work with the homeless and the poor, and four different small groups where people who didn’t believe could start exploring what it means to be a follower of Jesus.

The antagonism at Reed college could so easily have provoked fight or flight among the Christians. But they stood their ground and stayed engaged, and found a third way.

May God help us, wherever we need to, to do the same.

Amen