1 Peter 2:18-24, doormats? [1]
A reader and I have been both struggling with the issue
of injustice and abuse. It’s an extremely complex issue and you don’t
read or listen long before you hear phrases like, "But on the other
hand" or "But I don’t mean by that". I suppose we talk about the matter
to keep from saying nothing or because someone in their pain and
bewilderment asks us what we think.
How much should a Christian
take? Are there no limits? Does "turn the other cheek" (see Matthew
5:38-44) mean we’re supposed to see ourselves as doormats and act
accordingly? That tough passage in 1 Peter 2:18-24 seems easy enough to
understand until somebody starts sticking it to you. When that happens,
we don’t say it isn’t the word of God, but we’re inclined to read all
the different versions and commentaries to make sure it means what it
looks like it says.
It makes for a hard life if you’re daily
suffering injustice and being abused and someone says to you, "God
called you to this so take it patiently." See 1 Peter 2:20-21. It makes
for a hard life if someone abuses you in this way and you’re told to
offer yourself as the object of abuse in another way (compare Matthew
5:38-44).
We can’t function in life without generalisations but
we’re idiots if we’re not fully prepared to accept that there are many
exceptions to our generalisations. Bearing that in mind, I tend to think
that Western Christians—generally speaking—whine too much and want too
much and expect too much. Setting aside—as hardly worth even talking
about seriously—the sinful and sickening lunacy of the "prosperity
gospel" preachers I think it’s true "in general" that when Western
Christians ask for "more" that something is badly out of whack.
Nevertheless
I personally know people—lots of people—and you do too, that go through
daily purgatory. It’s bad enough that the emotional or physical abuse
is severe and painful and enduring, what makes it worse is their
uncertainty about how they should to respond to it. Are they supposed to
just take it?
My impression is that it’s only the very sensitive
believers that go on enduring daily and marked injustice. Those less
devoted to God (I’m guessing) will quickly walk away from the situation
"no matter what the Bible says." That makes sense at one level; "don’t
delve into scriptures to see what they say, if it gets where you think
it’s too much just walk away and don’t look back!"
Sounds like
good advice. Sounds like the kind of advice that society at large
operates on (compare marriage vows). But it leaves untouched the kind of
texts cited above. What are we to make of them? Should we go through
the scriptures and take what pleases us and dismiss the rest? Can
sensitive Christians consciously do that kind of thing?
That’s
the major problem with the advice but there’s also the question, what’s
"too much"? For some of us it would appear that even a criticism is "too
much". And you hear of marriages foundering because "my emotional needs
were not being met" or "I have a right to be happy and he/she wasn’t
making me happy." It seems clear that there are people whose
every other sentence is something like, "Damn ‘community’ what about my
rights?" Friendships collapse because the expected "gush" of gratitude
wasn’t always forthcoming. That kind of thing, while others have the
skin stripped from their bones by a merciless tongue day after day. That
kind of peevishness about minor dissatisfactions, while others are
deliberately and consistently mistreated and/or physically abused by
those who swore to provide the reverse. I think it’s fairly easy for us
to spot what we would call the "extremes" but it’s that broad area in
between that’s hard to define—isn’t it? Even the sufferer has a hard
time convincing him or herself about the meaning of "too much". The
definition of that would depend in part on the nature and make-up of the
sufferer so those that are on the "outside" offering advice need to be
confident that they have a good grasp of the situation.
But what
about those texts—the kind we mentioned earlier? Do those not deal with
extreme situations and still they call the sufferer to stay and endure
as part of his or her life for Christ? I don’t think it’s that simple.
I think we should make a distinction between what we can’t alter and what we’re at liberty to alter.
Take
the case of the slaves in 1 Peter 2:18-24. That’s not a text about
"employees" who can change their jobs if they aren’t satisfied with the
boss or the prevailing conditions, so we mustn’t use it as if it were.
We can’t tell employees that 1 Peter 2 teaches that they can’t change
jobs but that they must endure the injustice and abuse heaped on them by
the bosses. The text isn’t dealing with a relationship shaped and
sustained by mutual commitment so we mustn’t use it as if it were. Peter
isn’t writing to people that have been rescued from an oppressive
society that owned slaves the way people own shoes so we mustn’t use the
text as if it were.
Peter speaks to people as they find themselves,
in a situation they can’t change and calls them to live out their lives
in that situation as people that belong to Christ. The passage says
nothing about the evil of the "slavery system" but as sure as God made
little green apples the gospel of Christ is the death of all such
tyrannous arrangements. The passage works within the existing circumstances
and doesn’t forbid a free man or woman appealing to the proper
authorities about injustice (compare Paul’s appeal to Caesar—see Acts
25:10-12).
I would say if a Christian can change an oppressive
situation that he or she has the right to do so. How that change might
be effected depends a lot on the situation. And I’d say that given the
right set of circumstances that a Christian would have the
responsibility as well as the right to work to change the situation. The
oppressor might need something more than another cheek turned to him.
In a case such as that, the sufferer is no "doormat". To rebuke
oppression and protest against it is no crime—we learn that from Christ
and some overturned tables. It’s true that in that temple incident Jesus
was standing for someone other than himself but injustice is injustice!
And if it turns out that the one that needs the cup of cold water is
oneself the need is still real.
Of course it’s perfectly
acceptable from someone who has the power to escape injustice to choose
to forfeit his or her right to do it. Christ could have called for
divine aid and put a stop to the injustice being heaped on him but
refused to do it because the will of the Father was better served by his
self-denial. And don’t we all know people who, for reasons best known
to and understood by themselves, refuse to walk away from an oppressive
relationship?
Relationships are rarely simple and for the sake of
others or with certain goals in mind, or moved by commitments made,
those that are being hurt choose to remain. When you choose to remain the "doormat" notion vanishes. If you choose to endure abuse to gain something more precious to you than an abuse-free existence it doesn’t matter how it appears to others.
I’ve told (page 149) of C.S Rodd’s rehearsal in The Expository Times
of a wife who’d run off every so often and live for extended periods
with some man and then come back. The husband received her back every
time it happened. A friend tried to bring it up to the husband but he
whispered with intensity, "Not a word! She’s my wife." She came back
after her final absence, sick, and wouldn’t get better. The husband
gently nursed her until the day she died in his patient arms. Rodd
mentioned this in a sermon and on his way out of the building a
psychologist said to Rodd that "the psychological problems of the
husband need to be looked at."
Maybe, maybe not. Had the husband
been firmer would the wife have lived differently? Should he have given
her an ultimatum? God knows! But I find it interesting that a family
counsellor who knew no more about the situation than you or I do, was
willing to conclude that the husband was a disturbed man.
The one who gladly paid the awful price needed therapy?
©2004 Jim McGuiggan. All materials are free to be copied and used as long as money is not being made.
Many thanks to brother Ed Healy, for allowing me to post from his website, theabidingword.com.