Welcome to our third attribute listed by Paul in Philippians, whatever is right or just. “Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.” (Philippians 4:8, NASB95) Please welcome today’s guest author Kyle Benefield, be sure to check out his bio below. Today’s topic is Kyle’s passion, and I think you’ll find that his voice causes us to rethink things we thought were settled. – Dale
If I approach an elderly woman crossing the street and roundhouse kick her to the side of the face, that action alone would be frowned upon by the majority of all cultures on the Earth today; rightfully so. This begs the question then, why is it that we as human beings have formed these values in modern society? What makes the simple act of kicking an elderly woman in the side of the face something inherently wrong or unjust? Is it solely the fact that she is elderly? Is it the fact that she is a woman? Is it possibly wrong because she is crossing the street and is in a compromised setting? Would it make it better if she was on the curb and not on the street? Obviously, we know the answer to all of these questions: no, it’s not right. There must be something else at hand.
The Golden Rule
We are taught as children the difference between right and wrong, just and unjust. The golden rule, “Do unto others as you want them to do to you,” is drilled into our heads as early as kindergarten. I still remember the golden rule hanging as a banner in my kindergarten classroom. I likewise distinctly remember Mrs. Messier, my kindergarten teacher, placing me in a corner behind the piano for breaking said rule too many times. Thinking back though, I was never really punished for breaking the actual, verbatim rule. There is only one way to truly break that rule: inaction. Simply put, what sane kindergarten teacher is going to reprimand a classroom full of students that are keeping to themselves?
Consequently, while we are taught the golden rule as a guiding principle from early on, what we are rewarded or judged upon is actually the inverse of this rule – “Don’t do unto others as you wouldn’t want them to do unto you.” The real reason I was scolded and banished to hours behind that old Kimball piano was not for being a child of inaction, rather the opposite. Instead of learning the true lesson of the golden rule, to DO RIGHT to others, what I actually learned was to NOT DO WRONG to others. That is exactly what we are exploring in this reThink48 series.
reThink
How often while reading this passage in Philippians have I thought the exact opposite of what it says? I read with my mind exactly what the words say, yet deep down inside, I consider it to mean the inverse. Don’t think about this. Don’t do that. I wonder what the world would be like if we all actually took these verses at their face value?
In 4th grade, I remember that we were at a school-wide assembly where all the students sat on the floor of our elementary school. There was a student in our class, who we’ll call Mark that came from a family that rarely had enough to get along. They were poor. Let’s be honest, on its own, 4th grade is brutal, especially if you are in a mostly white and upper-middle-class school. There is a game that kids like to play called “pass it on” where each child passes a message around, person to person. That particular day, some of my classmates had started saying something about Mark, about how he smelled funny and always had holes in his pants. I remember that when the message got to me, I simply couldn’t pass it on. Mark was my friend. I remember the peer pressure of my friends who were now looking at me and laughing, “Come on Kyle, pass it on…what? Are you chicken?” One of the other well-meaning female children told the teacher that all of us had been picking on Mark and pointed out the entire row of us, including me.
That evening, while I was working on my homework, the phone rang, and my mother answered it. I could see her countenance fall as my teacher proceeded to tell her the details of the assembly. Then I remember her locking herself in the bathroom. I could hear my mother crying; it was not a pretty sight. She hadn’t raised her kid to make fun of poor people. I remember trying to plead with my mom, “but mom, I didn’t do anything. I didn’t pass it on!” I’m still not certain that my mom believes me. However, that isn’t the point. In my 4th grader mind, I hadn’t broken the golden rule as I had been led to believe. If all I was supposed to do was, “don’t do unto others what I wouldn’t want them to do unto me,” then I had succeeded. I didn’t pass it on. I was innocent; practically a saint! However, if I were to take the words of Philippians 4:8, Micah 6:8, or Jesus’ version of the golden rule in their simplest form, I had actually failed miserably.
Whatever is Right
By rethinking Philippians 4:8 to be in the affirmative instead of the negative, and looking back at this event through that lens, it shows me that I was every bit as wrong and unjust as my friends who were actively bullying this kid. Nobody wants to think they are a part of the problem. Nobody wants to consider themselves the bad guy in any situation. It would be really easy, especially while thinking about themes likes justice, to get defensive and feel the need to acquit myself from all guilt. I think it would be more helpful, when we realize we were wrong, to humbly apologize and live the rest of our lives trying to do right by the people we wronged. The only person that provided justice and acted rightly in my 4th-grade class that day was the girl that told on us. I hated her at the time. She made my mom cry. She made me feel bad. She saw injustice at hand. She saw someone being picked on and degraded, and she stood up for them. I saw someone getting picked on and marginalized, and I was silent. Martin Luther King Jr. famously said this: “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”
Maybe, for whatever reason, we find ourselves as one of those stuck on the margins of society. Perhaps because of money, culture, prejudice, or religion, we find ourselves on the outside looking in. Dwelling on “whatever is right” still applies to us as well. For this, I think we need to look to the likes of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Harriet Tubman for inspiration. Bonhoeffer lived under the Nazi regime, arguably one of the most oppressive dictatorships of all time, yet he constantly used his faith to continue doing right, even when doing right was against the law of the land. He used his voice and provided a moral compass to those around him to rise up against the unjust Hitler. He paid for it with his life. Tubman, a US hero, lived at a time when the law of the land said that it was morally ok to own black people. Tubman didn’t just hunker down and hope/pray for better times, she acted. She escaped slavery, a crime in itself, and then proceeded to break the Fugitive Slave Law over 300 more times by helping slaves escape to freedom. Tubman was a black woman, which at the time, was about as marginalized by society as you could get. Yet for followers of Jesus, even in times of hardship and duress, we band together, we provide hope for those around us, and we continue to be that moral compass that always points toward the justice of Jesus.
Imagine what the world would be like today if William Wilberforce had chosen inaction rather than persistently fighting against the unjust slave trade in England. Imagine what the world would be like today if Archbishop Desmond Tutu had chosen inaction instead of actively pushing back against the injustice of apartheid in South Africa. Imagine what the world would be like if Rosa Parks had chosen inaction rather than actively sitting in the front of the bus instead of in the colored section determined by the racist segregation laws allowed in the United States at that time? Simply put, Christians throughout history have been led by their faith in Jesus to rise up against the status quo of injustice and challenge the systems, the laws, and the prejudices that belittles and harms the lost and the least. There are questions we should all be asking as followers of Jesus. Who are the least in my world and those stuck on the margins of society? Where and how is Jesus asking me to speak out or act out against injustice? What is my own blindness and sin concerning those lost, least, and marginalized?
- ABCs of Faith – Mustard Seed Faith - October 2, 2017
- reThinking48 – Whatever is Right - July 12, 2017
