June 6, 2004

Eph. 4:25-32

The Buddha explained that in the dark, you see a snake, you scream. But when you have a light, you see it is a rope. Sometimes we see a person as a snake, whereas she is only a rope. When I change my perception of the situation, my anger is transformed.—Sr. Chan Khong

I want to share 4 brief vignettes with you today, all true experiences though not mine, shared with me by Sister Joyce Rupp. They are so familiar to my own experience. I had a hunch these experiences will sound familiar to you too! I will give you a moment after each one to think about your own experience.

Vignette #1

At 6:00 am on Saturday morning the seventy-year-old across the street gets on his riding lawn mower and begins the noisy back and forth trips across the growing grass that he has carefully nurtured. My ears feel relieved when he gets to the far edge of the front lawn and heads toward the back of the yard for a minute. Then, around he comes again with another affront to my ears. The worst is the weed cutter that follows with its persistent buzz. This is followed by the leaf blower’s whine as he pushes the cut grass off of the sidewalk. All this, while I am at meditation thinking, "that idiot can’t wait ‘til later to do this?" Only long after my non-loving response do I learn that his wife was dying in a hospice where he went early to be with her all day.

Vignette #2

I braved the ice, sleet, and snow to meet Sally at a café where we had met once before for lunch. I waited thirty minutes, silently blaming her for not showing up. She never came. I thought to myself, "Typical. She’s so space-y. Always late. Often forgets." I ordered and ate my lunch and left. As I left, I said to the waitress: "Well, she’s notorious for being late." When I returned to my office I had a phone message waiting for me. It was Sally. She was still waiting at another café, the one where we had mutually agreed to meet and that I had forgotten to write on my calendar.

Vignette #3

The man who was our host was cold and inhospitable at the conference. I thought I could not stand another minute of his rudeness. I complained to a friend of his. I learned that our host had just been through a year of being falsely accused, lost some trusted friends, nearly lost his job and his mind. He was still trying to recover his balance and had no idea how distant and aloof his manner was.

Vignette #4

We were negotiating a contract for my future facilitation of an event. She sent me a message with hostile innuendoes. It seemed strange, given the circumstances and the facts. I wrote back and questioned why I felt attacked and misjudged. Then the truth came out. She was worried sick about the organizations’ finances and was afraid to say so. On top of that her mother was very ill and she felt she should have flown home to be with her. She wasn’t the harsh director I had imagined, just a woman with too much on her mind and heart.

Snakes and ropes. Sadly, we often mistake one for another. We judge people too quickly and too harshly. What we thought was a snake turns out to be a rope.

This saying contains a great deal of truth. On the other hand, there are exceptions! I told my husband about this saying from the Buddha, how "in the dark you think you see a snake and scream, but when you have a light, you see it is a rope." His response was, "Yeah, but sometimes it really is a snake. What if it bites you and then you’re dead in 3 minutes."

I have to admit, he has a point. Everyone of us has been bitten by someone we trusted to be a rope, but who turned out to be a snake—a dishonest businessman, an unfaithful partner, a co-worker who maligns you unfairly—a snake who looks like a rope to most people. It’s no wonder that some people develop the attitude, "I’ll stick it to someone else before they stick it to me."

But this is not an appropriate attitude for Christians. Jesus told the people to forgive each other, not 7 times, but 77. He wasn’t telling them to let people abuse them, but he was wise enough to know that we often misjudge situations and people, so we need to always give people the benefit of the doubt. We need to err on the side of grace, giving others undeserved favor, just as God gives us grace upon grace that we have not earned.

Developing an attitude of grace is key to a happy life. If we can consistently resist the urge to judge and be angry with folks, we are blessed with far less anxiety and anger in ourselves. It helps us be more optimistic about people, and that helps us approach life more cheerfully.

There’s an old joke that my husband is fond of telling and, in fact, it was a favorite of Ronald Reagan’s. A little boy was walking down the street when he came upon a vacant lot with a huge, tall pile of manure on it. The little boy grabbed a nearby shovel and began digging excitedly, laughing and squealing with delight as he threw shovels full of manure this way and that. A fellow walking past said, "Why are you so happy about a pile of manure? To which the little boy responded, "With all this manure, there’s gotta be a pony in here someplace!"

Our general attitude toward people colors our own experience of life. If we approach others with distrust and anger, they will respond accordingly. If, on the other hand, we can give people the benefit of the doubt, assuming their goodness until proven otherwise, we will act in more positive ways toward them and they are much more likely to respond in kind. If we treat each other like ropes, we are less likely to act like snakes.

If we can continue, even in the face of mistreatment, to try to understand why they do the things they do, our more sympathetic responses to them might be just what they need to heal. It doesn’t always work out, but it behooves us to try, for we have been given countless gifts of forgiveness and patience by a God who continues to bless us in spite of our shortcomings. May we endeavor to do the same. Amen.