On Sharing a Stall with a Jackass

 

National Arboretum, Ottawa

JACKASS: a donkey, especially male, or a a stupid, annoying, or detestable person. – Merriam Webster

In my novel, Isaac Janssen, MDiv, you’ll find a chapter on the relationship between the follower of Christ and the “other,” particularly when conflicts arise. In this case, the conflict is over one of those mundane and ubiquitous landlord/renter disagreements. Ike is of the mind that as disciples, all Christians should exercise Paul’s “fruits of the spirit,” all should embrace the demanding generosity of the Sermon on the Mount, even with those who offend or harm, and that for a pastor, it must be doubly so. But man! It can be hard!

Those of us who’ve long since been persuaded that Christ’s gospel is both broader and far more generous than childhood Sunday School led us to believe, should probably have shed any conviction that for every question, the right answer is written down; we just need to find it, read and believe it.

                If my landlord turns out to be a jackass who bilks me repeatedly, I won’t find a right answer in the New or Old Testament. Neither he nor I nor the housing situation of today lived there, for one. What I hope I would find, however, is a principle or two that will make my understanding of, and response to, the jackass easier.

Meanwhile, your first year Psychology text will tell you to guard your self-esteem, including “not letting people walk all over you;” it will tell you about enabling bad behaviour by condoning or allowing it. While the gospels and Paul’s letters are rife with guidelines for the behaviour of Christians, a Psychology textbook assumes that the human species is one species and that patterns of behaviour are held in common. Those of us who grew up “Christian” absorbed both ways of talking about human behaviour—and likely compartmentalized them rather than seeking to reconcile them.

Extinguishing deviant behaviour has historically been simple. Punish until it stops and if that fails, punish harder. The light the gospel shines on the subject is clear, both for that time of harsh Roman Occupation and for the Covid/racist/economic disparity blues of our time: the old ways aren’t working. Historians and criminologists have recognized this for years; it’s not only Christ’s example and the witness of the gospels that have come to this conclusion.

Ike learns (through a somewhat contrived plot, I admit) that, finally, his ministry and his talents are bent toward the individual before him who’s in pain. That rather than venting all our energy on how the world’s people ought to change, we bring Christ to the one floundering sheep serendipity has placed in our way. I’m not talking about proselytizing here; I’m talking about responding with the healing hand Christ demonstrated.

So what about the jackass who seems for all the world to be a lost cause? Just one worthy observation occurs to me: the old ways don’t work; the Kingdom isn’t like that. Advocating for a new way is a daily calling; but even when we see, for instance, the Trump-world as a collection of jackasses, Christ’s goal is not that we defeat them or punish them, but that by our words and examples they catch the image of a new, a better way.