Canceling Cancel Culture

The scriptures referred to are Romans 12:9-21.

You don't hear the word “shibboleth” much any more. In the 12^th chapter of the book of Judges, the people of Gilead under the leadership of Jephthah are at odds with the tribe of Ephraim. And we are told, “The Gileadites captured the fords of the Jordan River opposite Ephraim. Whenever an Ephraimate fugitive said, “Let me cross over,” the men of Gilead asked him, “Are you an Ephraimite?” If he said, “No,” then they said to him, “Say 'Shibboleth!” If he said, “Sibboleth” (and could not pronounce the word correctly,) they grabbed him and executed him right there at the fords of the Jordan. On that day forty-two thousand Ephraimites fell dead.” (Judges 12:5-6) Both groups were Israelites and distinguishable only, apparently, by regional accents. And so people lost their lives because of a lisp. And the word “shibboleth” came to mean some small difference in custom or belief that people in one group use to exclude people of another group.

And we are seeing that today. On the internet, you must now use certain buzzwords and phrases or face the wrath of those in charge of “cancel culture.” Just this week we saw the premature death of Chadwick Boseman, a talented and charismatic actor who has played Jackie Robinson, James Brown, Thurgood Marshall, and the Marvel superhero, the Black Panther. He died from colon cancer at age 43. And tributes to him filled social media both from fans and from his costars. And evidently some people were not so affected by grief that they weren't taking a head count of who made their sorrow public. When Elizabeth Olsen, who also plays a Marvel superhero, did not immediately post a tribute to Boseman, she was attacked by these self-appointed guardians of public speech and she had to deactivate the Instagram account she rarely used.

When my mom died, I didn't take time to make lists of who offered their condolences and who didn't. Nor would I have welcomed such an accounting from a third party. One colleague was on vacation and got to me a week later when he belatedly heard the news. It didn't bother me that he wasn't one of the people who immediately called me. I appreciated the sentiments he and other people shared and never kept a tally.

What bothered me about the attacks on Olsen was that these self-righteous folks have gone from shunning those who have done bad things, like Harvey Weinstein, to people who say the wrong thing, like J.K. Rowling, to people who say or do nothing, like Elizabeth Olsen. And it's not like she kept silent about something like Nazis. She simply didn't immediately get on her phone and add her tweet to the thousands of others expressing sorrow. Yet different people mourn in different ways. Not everyone keens and wails as did my older relatives in Tennessee when the family matriarch was buried, though she had almost reached a century in age. Nobody either commended or rebuked them for the way they expressed their grief. It was their mother and their right to react however they did.

In any community people are going rub each other the wrong way. And sometimes people react in a manner all of of proportion to the offense. In one aunt's family, we had people who hadn't talked to each other in decades and no one could remember precisely what had set things off. And the church isn't immune to this. I've seen members leave the church over a poster on the bulletin board and over reimbursement for postage stamps. I've had people walk out because I uttered the heresy that devout Christians could take different stands on a particular issue and make a valid case for each. Sometimes people get over it and come back. Sometimes they don't. Which may explain why there are more than 200 Christian denominations in the US.

In Jesus' day there were many schools within Judaism: the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Essenes, and the Zealots. Each had issues with the other branches of the Hebrew religion. All of them held to the essential statement of the Jewish faith, the Shema: “Listen, Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one!” (Deuteronomy 6:4) Where they differed was in other areas, like whether or not the oral law was as inspired as the written law, or whether there was an afterlife or not, or the extent to which one should separate from society to stay pure or whether or not to violently oppose the Roman occupation.

Their lack of unity must have pained Jesus. So in today's passage from Matthew, he gives us a way to deal with rifts between believers.

He starts out saying, “If another member of the church sins against you...” And I want to stop right there for a moment. Notice that Jesus doesn't say, “If another member of the church annoys you or doesn't agree with you in every particular...” Jesus is talking about sin, an actual transgression, presumably one that causes some injury to you, not just to your sensibilities. Someone appearing to be rude or insensitive is not necessarily a sin. It could be a matter of momentarily not thinking, such as when you express a thought that you should have kept to yourself. Or it could be true ignorance which results in someone doing or saying something that offends. Like someone reflexively making a joke about Covid-19 in the presence of a person they didn't know had lost a loved one to it. There was no malice intended. Still if you did something like that, the right thing is to apologize when informed of the other person's situation. And the right response is to forgive someone who truly didn't mean to hurt you, as you would someone who accidentally treads on your toes. That's just basic politeness.

So I don't think Jesus is talking about a faux pas but an act in which the person meant it. How do we resolve that? He says, “...go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone.” Notice that Jesus is telling the person sinned against to go, to take the initiative. Don't brood about it. Go to the person responsible and talk to them, alone.

You can, I hope, instantly see what is wrong with the way people usually deal with such things. They tell others. They make it into gossip. Today they put it on the internet and let everyone in the world know, rather than discuss the matter with the other person privately. For all you know, the person who sinned against you didn't know how badly they injured you. Or they may feel bad about it now and are willing to admit it and apologize and make things right. But you will never know if you don't go to them first and handle the matter in private, person to person.

And don't forget the purpose of this meeting is to reconcile with them. Jesus says, “If they listen to you, you have gained a sibling.” (my translation) The idea is to regain the person who is your brother or sister in Christ, not to score points or win an argument. You are not talking to them to humiliate that person but to win them back.

And that remains true even if the sin is not directed at you. In some ancient Greek manuscripts the words “against you” do not appear, making the saying simply about a person sinning. Which means it might be a sin against another person or against themselves or against God. That makes it trickier. If the sin is against someone other than yourself, you had better have witnessed it yourself and not just have heard it on the grapevine. Gossip and slander are also sins, so you should not go after someone merely on the say so of someone else. If the source was an eyewitness or the injured party, encourage them to go to the person who sinned and talk it out privately.

In some ways it's easier to spot someone sinning against themselves, especially if the behavior is self-destructive. And even so, this can get sticky. If the self-destructive behavior is an addiction, you have to remember that addiction is an illness. So the first part of your interaction may be to help the person acknowledge that the behavior is beyond their control. Then help them get help. And that's where the ethical dimension comes in. It's not your fault if you are susceptible to addiction. But once you realize that, if you do not get help, like go to a doctor or therapist or support group, then that lack of action is your fault. It's kinda like criminal negligence, where the person didn't cause the problem but knew about it and did nothing to fix it or protect others. Or it's like being a type 1 diabetic, what used to be called juvenile diabetes. That is not something that you asked for or did anything to cause. But once you have your diagnosis, if you don't modify your diet and don't take your medication, then, yes, you are at least partially to blame for the consequences. In nursing we often have to deal with non-compliant patients, people who won't help themselves or let you help them. Again the reason you would go to the person is not to condemn them but discuss the problem and help them come back.

I would be very cautious about going to someone that I perceived committed a sin against God. It can't be merely that they take a controversial stand on a belief or practice that other good Christians disagree about, or on a political issue that doesn't in fact cause harm to others. No, you can't be a Christian and a Nazi. But however you feel about the electoral college, it is not an offense against God to be for it or against it. Such issues may be important but they are not essential to the faith. Besides you can always to talk to someone about such things and see if you can change their minds. You just can't invoke God on your side. In fact, doing so might constitute using God's name in vain.

What would definitely be a sin is using God's name to justify harming or killing people. That's what the people participating in the crusades and the Spanish inquisition and the witch trials did. Yet in the very first covenant God makes, the one he makes with Noah, he says that shedding human blood is forbidden because “in God's image God made humankind.” (Genesis 9:6) Killing a person is symbolically killing God. And that goes for every form of harm short of murder. Torturing a person is torturing God. Starving a person is starving God. Letting a person with a treatable disease go untreated is mistreating God. Jesus said whatever we do or neglect to do to the hungry, the thirsty, the threadbare, the sick, the imprisoned and the immigrant we do or neglect to do to him. (Matthew 25:34-46) In fact, Jesus said this principle extends to verbal abuse. Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said to an older generation, 'Do not murder,' and 'whoever murders will be subject to justice.' But I say to you that anyone who is angry with a sibling will be subjected to judgment. And whoever insults a sibling will be brought before the council, and whoever says 'Emptyheaded fool' will be sent to fiery hell.” (Matthew 5:21-22, my translation) There's a reason why, when asked for the greatest commandment, Jesus gave two: to love God and to love our neighbor, which to him meant anyone we encounter. (Matthew 22:36-40) The two are inextricably linked.

But to get back to today's gospel, Jesus continues, “But if you are not listened to, take one or two witnesses along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses.” Again if your private discussion doesn't resolve things, don't broadcast your complaint to everyone. Get one or two trustworthy people to approach the person with you for a second try. Jesus' stipulating there must be 2 or 3 witnesses is a reference to the fact that in the Torah the testimony of a single witness is not enough to establish guilt. (Deuteronomy 19:15) There was no such thing as forensic science back then and Moses was quite aware that innocent people can be accused out of spite. It's not clear in our gospel passage, however, that these people be witnesses to the original offense or not. The problem with that is anything done to someone when no one else is around could be dismissed. So these additional folks may just be there to witness your good faith attempt to resolve the matter with the person.

Only if this attempt to deal with the sin using 2 or 3 people fails are you supposed to bring it before the larger community. The idea is not to let the word of what the person did be spread around unless attempts to deal with it privately do not work. “...and if the offender refuses to listen to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile or tax collector.” In other words, excommunication is not done at the whim of any one person. The church as a whole should hear the matter and deal with it. Usually the way most denominations deal with really egregious sins is through a process set up by church law.

And notice that at each step there is the possibility for the offender to repent and be forgiven. There was a problem in the church at Corinth that was so scandalous that even the pagans were disgusted. A man was living in sin with his stepmother. In one letter Paul tells the church at Corinth to expel the unrepentant church member. (1 Corinthians 5:1-5) And apparently that was enough to make the man change his ways. So in another letter Paul tells them to readmit the repentant man to church. (2 Corinthians 2:5-11)

Of course, what you should do in the case of a crime is different. You must follow the law. And our denomination has a clear set of rules and procedures to follow if you witness or come across evidence of child abuse or sexual abuse or sexual harassment or the like. The Jehovah's Witnesses are being sued for trying to handle child sexual abuse in-house and requiring a second witness to an act which, of course, the abuser commits where he can't be seen. Our denomination's rules to protect children and report abuse to the authorities fall under the next verse where Jesus says, “Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven...” In Jesus' day, reporting these things to the legal authorities would do no good because such things were not illegal. But given that Jesus said of anyone harming a child “it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and be drowned in the depths of the sea,” (Matthew 18:6) I think he would be happy we finally have made laws against this.

So if someone does something wrong, first discern whether it is a crime or a sin. Not all sins are crimes and vice versa. Then figure out if it was a sin or a faux pas. Let's not jump all over people who makes non-injurious very human mistakes. Not wishing you a happy birthday maybe be thoughtlessness or it may be a snub. It isn't a sin. And with the rapid evolution of the language today, someone using a term that didn't used to be offensive but has just become so because it's out of date is not a sin. A feminist once admittted that trying to makes a statement that is politically correct for everyone and not offensive to anyone is like mapping out a battle strategy. Don't be shocked if someone steps on a hidden verbal land mine.

But if someone does sin against you, talk to them privately. See if you can get them to apologize and make things right. Only involve others if necessary and then as few as possible. And remember the idea is to get people back. Just before this passage Jesus tells the parable of the shepherd who goes out of his way to bring one lost sheep back into the fold. Our job is not to look for excuses to kick people out of the church but to bring them in and to bring them back into harmony not only with you but with Jesus.