Hank Is Back at Cafe Nudge

Hello, Fellow Nudgees. I've been so pleased with the response to our new series "Hank Says" here on the blog. If you're just joining us at Cafe Nudge you might want to go back and check out last week's post, and of course feel free to comment as several of you have. I've also received some private emails, one of which prompts me to clarify one thing I wrote.

I was talking about a BIble study which declared that if you didn't audibly hear God, like ALL the time, you didn't have a relationship with God and you better get on it. I didn't mean to imply that getting down on your knees and saying, "God, I really am out of touch with you. Can we fix that?" isn't something we ALL need to do at times. I was referring more to the shocked tone the author used - and the wagging finger -- and the "There is only one way and it's my way" attitude. Please forgive me if I offended any of you. My passion about neener-neener Christianity gets me in trouble sometimes.

Speaking of, well, speaking  . . . it's SO God that when I went looking through The Reluctant Prophet for Hank's next wise words, I came to the scene, around page 243, 244, where Allison is processing with Hank how she's supposed to get Geneveve, the prostitute she has taken in, to go to NA and start dealing with her addiction. Allison has been loving Geneveve, taking care of her, showing her that God loves her, and still she refuses the help she needs. The conversation between Hank and Allison goes like this:

    Hank: I see God all over this, Al. Just keep doing what you're doing. You'll get there.

     Allison: I've tried to talk to Geneveve about NA twice, and she just starts crying and telling me it's going to be different this time. . . What am I supposed to say?

    Hank: What any good Southern Christian woman would say to a friend who was deluding herself.

    Allison: What? "You're a lying sack of cow manure, and you better get your tail to NA before I slap you silly?"

    Hank: That's the one. She isn't going to shatter. If she were that delicate she'd be dead by now. Show her some Jesus love. He did not, as you'll recall, pussyfoot around."

What is so God about that is that I've been fretting (do you not love that word? We seldom use it any more and when a dear friend of mine spoke it in a conversation recently I realized it perfectly fits what I do so much of the time . . .but I digress). I've been fretting about needing to be honest with a couple of different people about some unwise and in one case even ungodly things I see them doing. So what comes up in the lectionary this week but Luke 17: 3 - "If another disciple sins, you must rebuke the offender, and if there is repentance you must forgive . . . seven times a day." Since I, like Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs, do not believe in coincidence, I tried to take it to heart.

But then I ran up against the word "rebuke." It's the very word that made me (dare I say this?) not like Jesus when I was a young girl. I just knew that if he "rebuked" me I would never get over it. Why couldn't he explain things nicely when people messed up? I know now, of course, that some people don't respond to "nice" -- but still, when he tells me I'm supposed to rebuke my fellow believer, I want to go hide in the back of my closet.

And yet. And yet. Didn't I let those same words come out of my beloved Hank's own mouth?  "Show her some Jesus love. He did not, as you'll recall, pussyfoot around."

So what does that mean exactly, Fellow Nudgees? There's no getting around that we're called to help keep each other straight. But some of that rebuking isn't done in a spirit of love. Some of it feeds the rebuker's own ego. Some of it has driven people right out of the body of Christ because no one has taken the time to figure out why they need to be rebuked in the first place. Or, in fact, IF they do.

Maybe that's the answer right there. Before she has this conversation with Hank, Allison does pray for Geneveve, get her to a place of strength, try to understand where she's been. The rebuking shouldn't come first -- but when tough Jesus love is needed, we've got to give it.

Even if it means trouble for the friendship.

Even if you're going to be called a meddler or a shrew or a self-righteous son-of-a-gun. 

Even if it doesn't work.

It does work for Allison. This time. And then she gets to do the fun part -- the forgiving. The "Okay, let's go to work on this thing -- together." I think what I thought as a kid and what many still do in the name of righteousness is fail to see that the rebuking isn't the end of it. It's the beginning. 

So when do we call that not-so-Christian behavior to someone's attention? And how? Is there anybody who needs that kind of love from you right now? We'd love to hear.

What this means, of course, is that now I have to go face those folks who seem to need it from me. I still can't think of it as "rebuking". Is that okay? I'm going to think of it as . . . loving enough to say, "Oh, honey -- what were you thinking? Can I help you turn this around?"

I hope all of you have a wonderful Thanksgiving. As I thank God for the blessings in my life, you will definitely be included. What a joy to take this journey with you.

And if you need to do any rebuking of me, could you wait until after the leftovers have been put away?

 

Blessings,

Nancy Rue