The author
of Ecclesiasticus writes:
“Before each person are life and
death,
And whichever one chooses will be given.”//
He is
echoing the words the Lord spoke through Moses
in Deuteronomy centuries before:
“I have set before you life and
death . . . . Choose life.”//
Every moment
of every day,
each of us is given the choice between
the way to life and the
way to death.
We have a
chance to speak to each other in a way
that invites life-giving
relationship
or in a way to offend, to put
someone on the defensive,
to wound and distance.
We have the
choice to greet each new day as a fresh start
or to spend our days rehashing all
that went wrong in the past.
We have the
choice to open our hearts or to close them.
It is our
choice – ours alone.
But we are
creatures of habit
and our habits are shaped by the
culture we live in.
If we live
in a family, a neighborhood, a society
that habitually chooses the way of
death
in any of its many
forms,
then our first impulse is apt to be
the way of death.
The Bible is
a rich guide to the ways of life and death.
Those ways
are all about how we treat other people
both in the big ways and the small
ways.
In our
Epistle lesson, Paul says the Corinthians are not ready
for the solid spiritual food that
could give them life.
Why? Look at
it. “There is jealousy and quarrelling” among them.
Jesus says
if we cling to anger against someone,
we are liable to judgment;
if we insult someone, we will be
held accountable
by the community where
we live;
and if we call someone a fool, if we
shame them,
if we demean them, we
put ourselves in hell.
Strong talk,
isn’t it?
But Jesus
isn’t threatening us with punishment from God for being bad.
He’s just
telling us how life works.
And he’s
right.
There’s a
new field of study called social neuroscience.
It
clinically proves what we have always known.
Emotions are
contagious.
In his book,
Social Intelligence, Daniel Goleman
says,
“Our brain’s very design makes it sociable,
inexorably drawn into an intimate
brain to brain linkup
`` whenever we engage with another person.
That neural bridge lets us affect
the brain
-- and so the body – of everyone we interact with
just as they do us.”
This isn’t
just the preacher talking.
It’s a
medical fact.
What we say
to people, how we look at them,
how we listen to them affects their
total being
– body and mind, thought and feeling.
Sometimes
that isn’t a kind thing.
Goleman
says, ,
“When someone dumps their toxic
feelings on us
-- explodes in anger or threats,
shows disgust or contempt --
they activate in us circuitry for
those same distressing emotions.”
So what
happens when we treat each other with disrespect
or suspicion or hostility?
It tweaks
cells in their brains called mirror neurons.
So the
people we interact with
feel about us the way
we feel about them,
think abut us what we think about
them,
and one way or another, sooner or
later, they hit back.
Jesus said,
“Do not judge if you don’t want to
be judged.
The same judgment you dish our will
be the judgment
that gets laid on you.”
He’s not
making that happen to punish us for being bad.
It’s just
how it works.
People adopt
the same attitude toward us that we adopt toward them.
The good
news is that works for blessings as well as curses.
I can’t
guarantee this will work every time.
But on the
whole, when we are kind to people,
they teat us better.
When we
respect people, we get more respect back.
And you know
what happens then?
Our brains
produce more natural dopamine and we feel happy.
Our T-cells
get stronger and stay healthy.
It’s the way
of life.
The most
important thing a church can do for its people
is to be help them to form the habit
of living
by being a culture of life.
But not all
churches are cultures of life.
Far from it.
The great
Catholic novelist, Walker Percy, asked,
“If Christ came to give life, why do
the churches smell of death?”
Churches choosing
death is all too common.
I never
cease to be amazed at how worked up we church people
can get over small
matters.
Churches can
hang up over a single word in a contract with their priest.
I have seen
a church lose a third of its membership in squabbles over bylaws
that once they were passed would be
ignored until the next time
they felt the need of a
blood letting.
It’s a rule
of thumb in church life that the less there is at stake
the hotter the negative passions
will burn.
“If Christ
came to bring life, why do the Churches smell of death?”
Walker Percy asked.
Moses said,
“I set before you life and death. Choose life.”
Does our
squabbling matter? I say “yes, it matters.”
It matters
because when churches choose the way of death,
they instill in their members the
way of death.
But churches
can also instill life in their people.
You know
what it’s like to be in a meeting, a party,
a class or a social gathering.
If certain
people walk into the room,
the energy level goes up.
If other
people, walk into a room,
the energy level goes down.
The test of
a church’s mission is what happens
when its members walk into a room.
The living
church recharges people with life energy
that they share with everyone they
meet.
They make
the world a better place, a more godly place.
A church is
a Christian training ground.
This is
where we practice the arts and disciplines
of smiling, listening,
caring, and respecting one another.
We use the
neural bridge to bless and not to curse.
There is an
gracious exception to all this neuroscience.
By the grace
of God we can overcome our mirror neurons.
If someone
treats us badly, we can choose not to respond in kind.
We can
surprise them by treating them well.
By the grace
of God, we can be the game changers,
like Jesus turning the other cheek
and forgiving from the
cross.
But usually
it isn’t that hard.
Usually we
meet people on fairly level ground
and can start the tone of the
relationship on the right foot.
This is when
we remember to “do unto others as we would have them
do unto us” – because 9 times out of
10 they will.
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