How to Engage Someone Who Has Harmed You
INTRODUCTION
You must "judge" to see that the person who has hurt you, DOES have a speck. The whole pint of this teaching that begins with "Do not judge" is that Jesus calls you to judge other people -- and to judge them well.
He is more interested in being provocative than being clear.
When Jesus says, "do not judge or you too will be judged," he is using the word judge to a posture of condemning the other person ... and condemning another person is very different from naming their or identifying their speck.
You need to judge accurately:
1. Normal Garden-variety sinners
2. Wicked people
3. Evil people
You must first come to see: What kind of person am I dealing with? You will be called to engage each of these categories of people differently.
WICKED PEOPLE need to be shamed. Luke 13 "You hypocrites! Doesn't each of you on the Sabbath untie your ox or donkey from the stall and lead it out to give it water? Then should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her?"
And then in Luke 13:17, "When Jesus said this, all of his opponents were humiliated." (Very similar to shame.)
Why does Jesus treat people differently? This is not how he treated the woman at the well (who has done a lot of bad things.) Why is he kind and welcoming to her and shaming to these religious leaders in Luke 13?
He engages with a person based on the condition of that person's heart. Jesus knows if the person is wicked or just a garden-variety-sinner.
Your calling is to be shrewd as a snake or wise as a serpent and innocent as a dove. Matthew 10:16
Most of you know that you are supposed to be as innocent as a dove? But are you aware that you are supposed to be as shrewd (showing sharp powers of judgment) as a snake or as wise as a serpent.
What happens if you engage a wicked person the same way you talk to a normal sinner? At best, you are going to feel like you keep running into a wall. Your words will bounce off a wall and nothing changes.
"Do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet and turn and tear you to pieces." Matthew 7.
Some of you are being torn to pieces by people in your life who do not mean you well. People are taking the pearl you offer and tearing you to pieces. You say, "Ouch, that hurt." And the person just tears you to pieces. They don't deserve your pearls.
So you must identify: what kind of person are you dealing with? The woman at the well? Or a hypocrite religious leader? How are you supposed to know?
Remember: You can never judge another person with finality. There is no person whose heart is beyond redemption.
The purpose of today is NOT so you can go out into the world, start pointing at people and saying, "She's wicked, he's a normal sinner, and that person over there is evil." You want to know who you dealing with or you will hit your head against a wall over and over and over again.
HOW DO WE IDENTIFY WICKED PEOPLE?
You may do wicked things but not be a wicked man. Have you repented? And do you have a pattern of scapegoating people? There has to be a persistent pattern of wickedness before you say to yourself, "Okay, my dad is wicked."
In Jeremiah 8:6 God judges Israel by saying, "No one repents of his wickedness, saying 'What have I done?'"
The essence of wickedness is the refusal to look honestly at your own words and actions and say, "What have I done?"
Wicked people refuse to suffer the guilt feeling of guilt.
Wicked people flee the light of self-exposure and the voice of their own consciousness. Wicked people will not bear the voice of their own conscience. They have hardened their hearts and consciences. They have silenced it.
Wickedness is not about the magnitude of the harm you do. It is the refusal to acknowledge the harm.
If they can feel the harm that they have done and can acknowledge it they are not wicked. They must also actually FEEL that harm.
"The central defense of wicked people is not their sin but the refusal to acknowledge it. Wicked people are characterized by their absolute refusal to tolerate the sense of their own sinfulness. " Scott Peck, PEOPLE OF THE LIE.
You may be the best community member ever and ONLY harm your three children. If they are not repenting, they are more than a garden-variety sinner. They have hardened their conscience and can't feel what they have done.
They won't claim to be without sin. They aren't stupid. They will often admit (especially if they are a Christian) to being a sinner. But they won't be able to tolerate a sense of their own sinfulness on their heart. "Oh my gosh, what have I done to my three daughters. What have I done?" They won't feel genuine sorrow and remorse.
Since wicked people can't bear to have their sin brought into the light, they are impervious to feedback that doesn't feel good. Your words of hurt do not land. Your "ouch" does not affect them.
If you say to a wicked woman, "I was hurt when did X," she will not feel compassion for your hurt. She will not feel sorrow that you are hurt. They will deny intentionality. They will say, "I didn't mean to hurt you."
Wicked people are unwilling to compassionately empathize with the pain of anyone who says, "Ouch, you hurt me!"
Psalm 17, "They close up their callous hearts, and their mouths speak with arrogance." The wicked have made a thousand choices over many years to slowly but surely harden their hearts. And so their heart is calloused.
YOU WILL NEVER FEEL THAT THEY ARE HURT THAT THEY HURT YOU! THEY CAN SAY, "I AM SORRY," but the words are empty.
1. SCAPEGOATING
Scapegoating is about projecting your own sin and failure onto another person and then punishing that other person for it. The goal of all scapegoating is to separate the scapegoated person from the family, from the church, from the business, from the community ...
They will accuse you of the very things they do themselves. It isn't random. So a son says to his father, "Dad, growing up, you ever wanted to be with me or spend time with me." The son is saying, "OUCH!" And their father, "I'm sorry you feel that way, but it felt like you never wanted to be with us. You always kept your mother and I at arms-length." That is scapegoating.
When you accuse a wicked person, a wicked person will accuse you back. A wicked person does not listen to rebuke.
A daughter says to her mom, "You leaned on me too much when I was a kid." And then the mother says, "Well you wanted the burden. You told me you wanted us to be close and wanted to discuss things."
Another example. Daughter says, "Can we talk about some of the ways that you hurt me when I was growing up." She is just asking for a conversation. The mom says, "Oh sure, what horrible thing did I do know?"
Scapegoating is the beginning of being cast out of a family.
Psalm 38:20 "Those who render me evil for good accuse me because I follow after good."
"Prophets and priests alike, all practice deceit. They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious. 'Peace, Peace,' they say, when there is no peace. Are they ashamed of their loathsome conduct? No, they have no shame at all." Jeremiah 6.
Dan Allender say, "We all fear to some degree being cast out of another garden -- be it a tightly knit family or an authoritarian church -- yet to defy a wicked person results in sure banishment." It's a huge fear of us as humans to be cast out. And if we defy a wicked person, they will begin the process of banishing you from the family.
2. INTELLECTUAL DEVIOUSNESS
This is the second characteristic of wicked people. "His speech is smooth as butter, yet war is in his heart; his words are more soothing than oil, yet they are drawn swords." Psalm 55:21
The Bible is full of language about being spun around by the words of wicked people. Psalm 64: 3 says: "They sharpen their tongues like swords and aim their words like deadly arrows."
Psalms 109:2 says, "Wicked and deceitful men have opened their mouths against me; they have spoken against me with lying tongues."
Are you beginning to get a feel in your body for what it is like to talk to a wicked person about how they have hurt you? You may enter the conversation feeling clear in your heart about what you want to say. But as the convo unfolds, you start to feel confused. You will often feel confused during and after the conversation.
"Wicked people routinely portray their motives and behavior as innocent. They are never the perpetrator of harm, but always the victim of it. They are very gifted in making the victim of their abuse feel like the perpetrator of it. If you expose the darkness of their behavior, you will be accused of being troubled, unreasonable, too sensitive or even cruel: 'How could you think that about me?'
A wicked man will portray himself as the real victim -- you simply misunderstand his intentions and then falsely accuse him. Because wicked people see themselves as the real victims, they feel justified in making you pay for what you have done to them." -- Allender and Longman
The result of the spinning and shifting, you'll often come away wondering if you are the one with the problem. A lot of self-doubt. The wicked are brilliant from diverting attention away from the issue you raised and highlighting the problem with you.
3. WEAPONINIZING FRAGILITY
They use their tears as a weapon to keep you from speaking. #1 and #2 are when people use power against you. This one is power that operates under a disguise of powerlessness or weakness.
Are they pretending to be not smart or not strong enough? Weaponizing her fragility is a very powerful and sophisticated move. You think of her as weak, but she is actually far more powerful than you realize. Just the possibility of her tears keeps you, a grown man or woman, keeps you from speaking a sentence to her. And you aren't a timid person. You'll risk saying hard things to others -- but not your mom.
This isn't true of all wicked people. But it is common. Wicked people are essentially cowards. Wicked people despise the cost of growth. The cost of growth is repentance. You have to own your sins and failures and take ownership of them.
Hopefully, you see, it is not always easy to spot a wicked person. The temptation is to think, "If I saw a wicked person I'd know it."
"The wicked are most ordinary. They live down the street. They may be rich or poor educated or uneducated. There is little that is dramatic about them. They are not designated criminals. More often than not they will be 'solid citizens' -- Sunday school teachers, policeman, or bankers, and active in the PTA." -- Scott Peck, People of the Lie
Wicked people do not stand out as bad people. They can be incredibly kind and compassionate. They can be up front on stage at church and sing worship songs with uplifted hands. In fact, it is likely that a wicked person will treat you with kindness and compassion as long as you don't threaten their self-image by confronting them about something.
2 Corinthians 11: "Such people are false apostles, deceitful workers, masquerading as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. It is not surprising, then, if his servants also masquerade as servants of righteousness."
EVIL PEOPLE
Evil people add a commitment to destroy you and humiliate you. Wicked people won't seek to destroy you as long as you play the game the way they ask. Evil people also want to humiliate you and eventually destroy you. They will use mockery geared to your humiliation. You will know the feeling in your body of being humiliated.
HOW TO LOVE PEOPLE WELL
If your relationship with, a parent for example, hasn't changed in the last five years, you haven't loved the person well. Love always, always disrupts the status quo. Love disrupts the current state of the relationship.
Honor Your Father and Mother:
#1 -- Much of what you think of as honoring your parents may not be honoring at all.
#2 -- Much of what you think of as dishonoring your parents may actually be the beginning of a heart to do them good.
Often times the desire to speak truth to your parents comes from a longing for a deeper, more honor relationship with them.
Part of you is actually wanting more goodness with your parents. More closeness. More authentic, genuine, real relationship.
Are you able to take a risk with someone and say, "Can we talk about the ways you harmed me growing up."
HOW DO YOU LOVE A WICKED PERSON?
Direct confrontation will not work with a wicked person.
You can offer a pearl and see what they do with it. Telling someone else how you've experienced them and see what they do with it. Give the boss that hurt you a pearl and see what they do. If their response indicates that there is no curiosity about how he harmed you, then you are most likely dealing with a wicked man with a hardened heart.
"The key to loving a wicked person is judicious, well-planned disruption. The key is insightful preparation, clear boundaries, and courageous consequences." Dan Allender
INSIGHTFUL PREPARATION
You have to tailor your words to the kind of person you are dealing with.
"An enormously good gift to give a wicked person is to foil their effort to win, to frustrate their attempts to dominate. Wickedness can never be overthrown through rational, reasonable argumentation." Dan Allender
You can't engage with a wicked person the way you would with a regular garden-variety-sinner.
Asking questions that disrupt the status-quo.
The goal is to expose and invite.
"Sometimes what is called for is a cunning strategy in which you outmaneuver the enemy for the purpose of rendering her powerless so that you can offer her opportunity for restoration." Dan Allender
Where are you editing what you really want to say deep down. Status quo = bondage.
Some of you can't even broach the subject. Way too scary and painful to even contemplating doing it. There is something overwhelming about saying a sentence or two like that.
Those words are a pearl that you are offering her. You can see how she responds.
Your task is not to tell them what they did wrong. It is to tell them how you have experienced them and are experiencing them.
When you are committed inside to convincing another person how they have harmed you, you have become connected to them in an unhealthy way. You shouldn't NEED that the other person to acknowledge it for it to be real.
DO NOT TRY TO CONVINCE OR COMPARE. IT IS TO OFFER A PEARL.
If the wicked person continues to make comments that are inappropriate and they won't stop doing it, you may have to offer CLEAR BOUNDARIES and COURAGEOUS CONSEQUENCES. You say, "I'm sorry, you keep saying this thing about me that I have asked you not to say. If you do it again, we will have to have a consequence."
"At some point it i snot loving to continue a relationship with a person who consistently and perniciously sins against you without some sign of repentance and change." -- Dan Allender
A wicked person will not repent until they feel pain. So what is the consequence you are putting into place?
In Hosea, God turns from his people. They won't admit how they have harmed God. Their hearts have hardened and they feel shame. Severing
a relationship for a season can be a very holy and loving God-like thing to do. But he also speaks about this in the New Testament too.
"Do you think I came to bring peace on Earth? No, I tell you, but division. From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three. They will be divided ..." Luke 12
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