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Psalm 123 1 To you I lift up my eyes, 2 As the eyes of servants look to the hand of their masters, 3 So our eyes look to the Lord our God, 4 Have mercy upon us, O Lord, have mercy, 5 Too much of the scorn of the indolent rich, This year, Monday Matters will focus on wisdom conveyed in the treasures of the book of Psalms. We’ll look at the psalms read in church before Monday Matters comes to your screen. |
Have you had enough?
Sometimes I get the impression that the psalmist was watching cable news. Again and again, there’s timeliness and timelessness in that ancient poetry. Case in point: the psalm that appeared in the lectionary for yesterday, a psalm printed above. It includes this line:
We have had more than enough of contempt.
I’m inclined to respond: You can say that again. It is not simply the language of candidates who seem to find political success in unbridled expressions of contempt. It’s a broader trend in our culture.
David Brooks wrote an article for the Atlantic magazine (September 2023) in which he addressed two questions. First: Why have Americans become so sad? The rising rates of depression have been well publicized, as have rising deaths of despair from drugs, alcohol, and suicide. More than half of all Americans say no one knows them well. The percentage of high-school students who report “persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness” shot up from 26 percent in 2009 to 44 percent in 2021.
The kind of sadness Brooks describes leads to his second related question: Why have Americans become so mean? He’s not just talking about politicians. He cites a restaurant owner who said he has to eject a customer from his restaurant for rude or cruel behavior once a week—something that never used to happen. A head nurse at a hospital told Brooks that staff are leaving the profession because patients have become so abusive. Hate crimes rose in 2020 to their highest level in 12 years. Social trust is plummeting. In 2000, two-thirds of American households gave to charity; in 2018, fewer than half did. Brooks says: “We’re enmeshed in some sort of emotional, relational, and spiritual crisis, and it undergirds our political dysfunction and the general crisis of our democracy. What is going on?”
The advent of social media is no help, as people express contemptuous thoughts in ways they would never share in person.
One of the challenges is that contempt breeds contempt. I realize I can’t control what other people say or do. I can only work on myself. But here’s the rub: I want to answer contempt with contempt. My response to expressions of contempt, especially from politicians and cult-like followers, is to think and convey contemptible thoughts. I need help here folks.
Let me go deeper in my quandary. Contempt is no stranger to church life. I have often thought about writing a book on why it is that Christians can be so mean. Folks that speak a lot about grace often seem to have a hard time showing it. As Gandhi noted: I like your Christ but not your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.
I’m holding out hope that the antidote to contempt can be found in a closer look at Jesus. A closer walk with Jesus.
Look at what Jesus taught. In the Sermon on the Mount, he made the point that an angry (contemptible) thought, for instance calling someone a fool, comes from the same place as murder. It’s a matter of the heart. He asked disciples to think about where their hearts are. He called for people to forgive each other, breaking the contempt cycle. It’s a call for a new heart, a clean heart.
Look at what Jesus did. When met with the most virulent contempt that resulted in his arrest, torture and death, he extended grace and forgiveness. I’ve never faced contempt like that. As a Jesus follower, could I follow him in this regard?
Look at what it means to be part of his community, part of the Jesus movement. We find a way to break the cycle of contempt as we make promises in baptism. In that liturgy, we commit to respect the dignity of every human being as we strive for justice and peace. I wonder this: Can respect overcome contempt? It’s not easy. It may be one of the ways Jesus spoke about a narrow path. But it may just break the cycle. And then it frees us to work for justice and peace, to address contemptible acts (e.g., recent judgments to criminalize homelessness) with the way of love.
If you agree with David Brooks that life has just gotten meaner, think this week about how you can show another way. What would Jesus, our teacher, have us learn? How can we break the cycle?
-Jay Sidebotham
