A pang of guilt registers in your heart. You see the lonely kid at the cafeteria table by himself and are left with what seems like an obvious choice: enjoy yourself with your friends or do the morally good thing by sitting awkwardly with the kid who has no friends. The phrase I use for this encounter and relationship is the "Pity Friendship". To be honest, I don't know how to feel about this relationship. I have been on both the giving and receiving side of pity friendships and never have known how to feel. Because, after enough time, the receiver figures out that the relationship was never really there to begin with and either satisfies himself on the crumbs he has, chooses authentic solitude over fake friendship, or eventually finds real friends that he connects with.
This seemingly trivial and passing occurrence has some import to me, however, as I consider Jesus' teaching in the Sermon on the Mount, specifically in Matthew 5:43-47:
"You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you... For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?"
If we are called to love our enemies, how much more our Pity Friend? How does that even work? For a helpful tool, I would like to refer to relationships in the terms "Positive" for true friends, "Neutral" for pity friends and other one-way relationships, and "Negative" for one's relationship with one's enemies.
I find that Jesus' words crack my paradigm here and, I know this may sound surprising, but I don't know what paradigm to replace my old one with. Yes, you are reading a blog about a topic that I have know idea what to say about. No solution. I was kind of hoping you, the reader, might have something to contribute since I am actively working through these thoughts myself. To give you a better idea of why I find myself stuck, let me tell you more about myself. I find myself very comfortable with the intersection of religion and psychology. I have a passion for growth and specialized in growth for my MDiv work. To be honest, I even stretched my degree a bit to replace as many normal classes as possible for discipleship/spiritual formation classes. In all my experiences so far, formation and psychology are pretty great at being roommates. In fact, a lot of my confidence and passion for the gospel comes from seeing how well they get along with one another. My training and background puts "Positive" relationships as among the highest prizes in life (and I am sure they still are). However, my idea of this pedestal and its pursuit means weeding out neutral and negative relationships, burning bridges, and forgetting what came before (except to grow in anticipation of future Positive relationships). Paul even seems to suggest as much in passages like 1 Corinthians 15:33 "Do not be deceived: 'Bad company corrupts good morals' ". However, with the smoke rising behind me, I wonder if I see Jesus' silhouette confronting me at the end of the burning bridge.
Do Neutral and Negative relationships matter? Does loving one's enemies mean more than smiling on my way out the door? Does it mean simply not hurting my enemies and pretending to be engaged by the Pity Friend? Do these relationships matter in the kingdom of God? My current paradigm sees gifts to the Pity Friend and enemy as tribute to God. I am only really trying to serve Him and love Him. In this sense, Jesus steps in the place of the Pity Friend and Enemy, making the Neutral and Negative into Positive. Matthew 25:31-46 speaks in such a way, saying that serving the poor means really serving Jesus. I guess that also means Relationally poor. But... doesn't that make the poor person disappear? When I look at my Pity Friend, am I trying to squint my eyes very hard until I see Jesus and the Pity Friend is no more? Isn't this why Pity Friendships end? Even on the receiving end, I ended up feeling really disappointed in what happened, not energized, because I came to realize what was happening. Also, what I have seen in psychology is that one way relationships are unhealthy. I have seen them wound friends, especially in the context of romantic relationships.
On top of this surprise, Jesus also wants me to love my enemies. Again, I know the familiar mantra about forgiving and setting up healthy boundaries. Those make sense. However, I think life is more complicated than that. I think we hurt each other more often than we realize. The friend, the lover, and the co-worker can all become enemies overnight. And then we are stuck in the twilight of conflict, figuring out if this relationship is positive, negative, neutral, or some special case of its own beyond labels. A bitter friendship can become burned with the blessings and well-wishes of psychology trying to make the bitter into bitter-sweet. Does Jesus ask us to work hard at relationships that are not Positive? Do we work at neutral and negative relationships or let them burn on the horizon? If you saw last weeks blog post, you would see that I defined unfaithfulness as "withholding appropriate love that one is capable of giving". This is the guideline I have now for the transition from positive to neutral/negative relationships. If giving and receiving appropriate love is the foundation for all of our relationships, what happens when the standard is no longer love. I guess I'm asking (*cue music*) "What is love?" I find love dies and stays dead in these relationships, so what does Jesus mean?
Marriages in particular seem to be the best testing ground for these thoughts as the shift between positive, neutral, and negative can happens from day to day or even hour to hour. A confusing topic, to be sure.
Let me know your thoughts and questions as well. Also, don't worry. I am not actively trying to apply this discussion to a current relationship, so don't expect a volatile discussion. And, as always, please be civil and thoughtful in the comments.
First, I have an issue with your illustration at the beginning of this post. Talking to the kid who is sitting by himself could lead to a very fruitful and Positive relationship that never would have happened otherwise. It might not.
ReplyDeleteMy take on Jesus' instruction is not that we have to become intimate buddies with our enemies or those you are calling Neutral, but that we treat them with the same respect and kindness with which we treat our friends. In that sense, you must decide if the one-sided friendship is an unkindness or disrespectful to the other person (or yourself). If so, let the relationship go.
I have a Neutral friend. She makes poor decisions; she's not terribly bright; I don't seek out her company. But, when she needs help, advice, a hug, to be treated with respect, I can give her that without hesitation. I'm one of very few people in her whole life who has been able to offer that. I gain nothing from this relationship and am much more comfortable when I don't hear from her. But she is exactly "the least of these" who I am asked to take care of.
To your response on the illustration at the beginning, you're right. I was not trying to say that these conversations never or mostly end in unfruitful conversations. People are full of wonderful surprises. I was trying to express my discontent with where my own neutral relationships had gone due to a sense of obligation or false hope.
DeleteI love hearing what you say about your own neutral friend. I think it can be terribly hard to spend time with people who seem to repeat the same pattern of problems when simple solutions abound. The standard is love, but it can be hard to discern what appropriate love is. Some of the understanding is finding out what comes from guilt and what does not, like you were saying in the post on the role of guilt in spiritual discipline.