I have a friend who some decades ago popped off with the statement, “You are standing on my last nerve and I suggest you stop.” I was pleased how descriptive it was and clearly it connoted that not only was it downhill from here but what was about to follow would not be pretty. The choice lies with the one not letting up on her.
We all have people who have stood or often stand on this last nerve. It is only fair to warn them for both our sakes. The closer we become to a person the more likely we are to find this experience.
Is it always about them? My experience is no. Often it has to do with me, with a place where I am vulnerable because of my story, some place in the past that has left me tender to injury. For me this is often a tone of voice, a way of speaking that seems to lack regard or respect or feels as if it does. When you go there it is not a pretty picture. There is this wounded soft place that hurts…a last nerve. Don’t stand on it long.
Of course there are other places, arrogance, a lie, a hurtful lie, a pattern of not noticing others feeling, selfishness. But these must pile up to get to my last nerve. They are usually about the person before me.
There are a number of last nerve places in today’s readings. David’s last nerve is triggered when he sees how readily some will betray Saul’s son even to David’s perceived benefit. Too easily the life of Ishbaal is taken. One must grasp that what is at question besides murder is the divine appointment of a King. We know David is anointed and in waiting. Yet since monarchy has an inherited possibility there is still a question here. If one will kill Ishbaal so easily, what will happen when David displeases someone in power? What was perceived as loyalty to David stands on this last nerve and just reward for murder is exacted as David understood it.
In the Gospel we might notice Jesus’ nerves are being stood on again. The Pharisees and scribes ask Jesus, “Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” Their intent is not truly to learn an answer, but to judge another's wrong.
[Jesus] said to them, “Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written, ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.’” Mark 7:5-7
It is the motivation of the Pharisees that is called into question. They seek from their hearts to find error in Jesus’ practice and that of those who follow him. But what is error in hand washing compared to teaching and practicing the compassion of God toward others? This will be Jesus’ common concern.
Thus he says to the crowd, “Listen to me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.” Mark 7:14
When his disciples are confused he goes on. “Then do you also fail to understand? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile, since it enters, not the heart but the stomach, and goes out into the sewer?' (Thus he declared all foods clean.) And he said, 'It is what comes out of a person that defiles. For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.” Mark 7:18-23
As long as we contrast food to actions this rings true. But there are things that enter the heart, bruise the heart. These things do bruise us as we are tenderly becoming. Yet that is Jesus’ point as well. Part of the purpose of faith is to train the heart, heal it from other’s missed moments of kindness or substitution of possible kindness with meanness. Some people from their own bruised self will lie or slander or do worse. This does take a toll.
Yet here is the rub. Our take is not to revenge the bruise in us. It is to note it, learn what we can from it and then move toward forgiveness. This is what will heal the heart.
Speaking personally this can be tough work depending on the closeness of the felt betrayal or the power of the one betraying us or doing us injury. Still if we are to protect our heart’s ability to issue forth better and kinder things we need to work at forgiveness, at letting go hurt while holding whatever wisdom we can learn for future human interactions.
Still I think it is fair to say when necessary, “You are standing on my last nerve and I suggest you stop.” Because, what follows might injure you both. I do like this phrase as I find it so descriptive and fair.
No comments:
Post a Comment