Table Talk

It has recently become very easy to jump on the bandwagon of lament, crying, “The world is so divided!” While the lament may be true, getting stuck in lament is not helpful. As a follow-up to my last contribution to this column, “A Different Conversation,” today I’d like to go beyond lamenting.

To begin, let’s name a big problem we tend to participate in: dehumanization. We dehumanize one another so often, we don’t even realize we’re doing it. When we so easily use words like “hate” to describe our feelings for someone, we have already made them less than human in our hearts. When we do this, it becomes much easier to disregard them, ignore them, think we’re better than them, blame them for our problems, hate them and justify killing them.

This is exactly the kind of thing Jesus is talking about when he takes the commandment, “Do not kill,” one necessary step further in Matthew 5. Jesus says that when our hearts are so full of anger about someone, we will be liable to the same judgment as if we had killed them. That seems a bit steep. What’s Jesus getting at?

Through Jesus, we begin to see how important all relationships are to God. It is through relationship that God’s essence - which is love - is best exemplified. So, when we harbor hatred in our hearts for someone (no matter what they have done), we’ve killed the possibility for any meaningful relationship with them. Jesus was all about wholeness in our relationships, honesty and integrity lived out, forgiveness and transformed lives.

Anger - and its snarky cousins, bitterness and resentment - usually arises from an offense, whether real or perceived. Jesus is not talking about an initial kind of anger here but an anger that fosters a hate-filled rage to grow inside a person’s heart.

Over time, when we allow this kind of hate to fester in us, it becomes easier to blame, to think of the person or people group as less human than one’s self. It’s quite a subconscious happening, really. The evidence, however, is in our self-centered negative internal dialogue, those conversations that linger in our hearts, replaying over and over how we been done wrong.

After our recent local elections, I imagine there are some hurt people, some confusion, some bitterness. For the health of our community I want to offer an opportunity for a new way forward together.

Rather than wallowing in bitterness, throwing our hands up in disgust, or entertaining thoughts of revenge - what might it be like if we take the gloves off for an evening? What possibilities could we imagine together if we gathered together for a shared meal around a common table?

As a pastor, I know the power of this kind of sacramental gathering. I’ve seen it happen before. The pleasing food offers a sense of comfort, safety, of willingness to let our guard down. The table and open conversation invites the capacity to be challenged, to tell one’s story, to be heard, to forgive and be forgiven, to begin the process of healing. We’ll allow some difficult important questions to guide our conversation. My hope is that this becomes a practice in re-humanization, a practice that can then be replicated throughout our community.