Dr. Ron Sumners
March 13, 2005
A man said something in a conversation recently that set me to thinking. He said it jokingly, but I think his point was serious. He said, "It would take very little time to solve the fighting going on around the world if one simple thing were done. What they need to do is take the leaders of the governments involved, those who actually agree to the ultimate peace terms, and put them right in the middle of the fighting and make them do all the negotiations right there. It would not take them long to decide on peace if they had bullets whizzing over their heads and if a few of them were killed or wounded."
This man was pointing out a basic fact of life. It is a virtual impossibility for the negotiations to approach the matter of settlement in the same spirit they would if they were soldiers, if the bullets were whining over their heads, if their lives were in danger, if their children were dying. They are too detached, in the comfort of a plush conference room. They are safe away from the battlefield. If they were on the battle lines, if the peace talks were out where people were dying all around them, how long do you think it would take for them to decide to end war? Wouldn't most of the international problems and interpersonal problems of life be solved if the people making the decisions were the ones getting hurt physically, financially or in some other way?
Our text is Ezekiel 3:15. The verse says, "I sat where they sat." This is important to be able to say. Several years ago, a singer named Joe South had a song called “Walk a Mile in My Shoes.” One of the lines went: "Before you abuse, criticize, and accuse, walk a mile in my shoes."
Let's look at the background of the text. The children of Israel had been driven out of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar. They had gone into exile in Babylon. There, many of their leaders had been taken into the government of Babylon. Leaderless, the Israelites wandered around with less and less initiative. But worse than that, they lost their spirituality. They got into the lifestyle of Babylon. They forgot the glories of Israel. They forgot the Temple. They forgot Worship. They forgot God!
Ezekiel was called by God to go down and warn the people. But when God told him to go down and warn the people and encourage them, Ezekiel did a significant thing. He asked himself, "Why do they act the way they do? What is wrong with them? What has brought them to this?" And he decided to go down among them for seven days to see these Children of Israel in captivity; to try to understand them before he spoke to them. He must sit where they sit. He must put himself in their place. He must see through their eyes. He must "Walk a Mile in Their Shoes."
This was a significant thing for Ezekiel to do, for he was a member of the priestly tribe. The priests were separate and distinct from the people by law and tradition. They never got down among the people. So, Ezekiel had to break with tradition. He had to be courageous enough to follow the dictates of his own heart. The Scripture says in verse 14, "I went in bitterness, in the heat of my spirit." With a confused, disturbed, angry heart he went down to tell them off because of their sin.
But when he saw the conditions under which they were living, when he saw their misery, when he saw their temptations, when he saw what they had encountered, he was overwhelmed. A glow of pity and love was kindled in his heart. He had sat where they sat.
Just think how they reacted, those people in captivity in Babylon. Here was one of their religious leaders, the official representative of God, and he had come to them! This man was sitting among them, understanding their grief, giving them silent sympathy from his own heart, trying to see problems from their point of view. Just think what it meant to them to know that he cared. He came and understood. HE SAT WHERE THEY SAT.
This is a text we need to remember. Just suppose we could get on some magic carpet today and go to the country of Ethiopia. Suppose we were able to say, "I sat where they sit starving in Africa." Suppose we remained there seven days in the middle of hunger, squalor, filth, among the destitute. What if we saw with our own eyes the starving children and adults? Do you think we would ever be the same again? What would our attitude be toward hungry people of the world? We have never been on the edge of starvation ourselves. But if we were there and sat where they sit, what attitude would it produce in us?
Suppose we "sat where they sat," among the drunken derelicts of Chicago or New York. Suppose we heard these alcoholics talk, telling of their background, of their disappointments, of their hurts and fears, what would our attitude be toward them? Would we still be holier-than-thou, completely without sympathy, strong in our condemnation of them? In what way would it change our attitude if we "sat where they sat?"
What if we sat among the "up and outs," among the member of the jet set, the playboys, the rich? Would we envy them anymore? We might find that they are to be pitied because for any of them life is a meaningless farce.
Any thinking person realizes that much of the waste in Washington is caused by the fact that the politicians are too detached from their constituents. They get paid too much; they don't work hard enough; they have too much luxury. A sense of fiscal responsibility begins at the point of our own personal condition. People making decisions about inflation and recession feel no financial pinch. What a change would come in management of our government affairs if the politicians in Washington were able to say, "I sat where they sat."
In the home, what if husband and wife could change places for a week? What if the husband understood what it is to cook and clean house, and look after the children when they are so energetic and fretful? If she understood the pressures of business and sat where he sits in the push and pull of the business world, how much more would they respect and love each other?
Go into a factory, into the paneled walls of the conference room where the board of directors is meeting. The worker on the assembly line needs to go up there and sit among them. He would better understand what their problems are. He would go back to his fellow workers and say, "We need to give an honest day’s work for our pay. It is to our own advantage to be more productive." What would happen if the directors spent a week in the homes of the workers, to understand something of heir difficulty in making ends meet, to understand something of the monotonous drudgery of manual labor? They would say, "We need to pay our people more. We need to make their living and working conditions better. These are souls. They are persons who breathe and have emotions, who care, who have needs just as we. We must think of them as persons, not things." You see, we are so biased about our point of view that we often cannot see the other side of the picture.
Often adults and young people cannot communicate. But the barriers would be torn down if the adult would get in the mind of the young person and understand from the young person's point of view, what life and society look like to him. And if the young person could get in the adults’ mind and look at what life and society appear to be from the adult viewpoint, if we could just say "I sat where they sat" what a difference it would make in inter-personal relationships.
You see, this is the heart of communication. The heart of communication is to be able to say, "I know how you feel." In Psychology, they use the term empathy. It means to put yourself in the other person's place, "to walk a mile in their shoes."
Many of you may remember when you were younger, and your father or mother had to spank you. They may have said, "This is going to hurt me as much as it does you."
But it didn't or at least not in the same place. They just weren't seeing things from our point of view.
No, it is not easy to say, "I sat where they sat." If we could, what would it do to us?
IT WOULD MAKE OUR SYMPATHY MORE SINCERE. We say, "I'm concerned about you; I'm praying for you" and we are. But if we were the one sick instead of that person would our prayers be more intense, more sincere? If we hurt, if it were our loved one who had died, if our child were sick, it would be different, wouldn't it? Trouble is like a stained-glass window in a Church. It is impossible to appreciate it from the outside. You can only understand trouble when you see it from the inside. So those who have been able to help troubled people are those who have had troubles themselves. II Corinthians 1:4 says, "God comforts us in all tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God." If we could just say, "I sat where they sat" it would make our sympathy more sincere.
IT WOULD MAKE OUR UNDERSTANDING MORE COMPLETE. Someone is irritable around us, someone has a personality problem, someone says stupid and unkind things. If we could understand it from their point of view, what a difference it would make. If we were as nervous as they, if we had been stuck in a dull job all our lives, if we had to face the frictions and problems at home that they have, if we were lonely, if our kids had gotten into trouble, if we had to work as hard as they worked the day before, we might come closer to understanding their mood. We might be able to love them.
Sidney Smith is said to have remarked, "No, I don't know that man and I don't want to know him. If I knew him, I might not hate him and I want to hate him." It is possible that you do not understand some person because you do not want to understand them. You would rather go on disliking him. If we only knew the circumstances of their lives, if we sat where they sat, we would not be so quick to judge, we would not be so quick to criticize.
We don't like to change our mind about people. We like to categorize them and think that they are always going to be exactly the way you sized them up the first time you met. We do not like to give them credit for changing. We enjoy saying, "I knew he would never amount to anything." "I knew he couldn't be trusted." We do not like to change our opinion of other people. But this is sin. This is human failure. This is not godly, but satanic. God can change the heart of a man; can we not accept him as a new creature?
We can never know what the other person is going through. Dr. William L. Stidger told of a maid in a college who was so happy that the fellows in college were always kidding with her and she with them. They never got the best of her. But, on one morning, in the rush of breakfast, as the students were rushing at the last minute to grab a bite to eat, suddenly there was a crash. Mary had dropped a whole platter of dishes. She stooped over, greatly embarrassed, to pick up the tray load of dishes, and wiped scrambled egg and coffee stains off the floor. There was loud laughter by the students and lots of wise cracks directed at Mary. She was their old friend, and it was their time to get back at her for the many times she had kidded them. But when Mary picked up the mess and wiped the floor, she waited until all the young men had quit their kidding and said gently to them, "Boys, I guess I've got tears at my fingertips. My boy was killed yesterday in Viet am and I just got word. I've got tears at my fingertips this morning." A silence fell over the dining room. The young men had embarrassed looks on their faces. They were apologetic and sorry.
WE can never know, can we? These people all around us may have tears at their fingertips and we have no way of knowing it. If we "Sat where they sat" our understanding would be more complete.
IT WOULD MAKE OUR ACTIONS MORE POSITIVE. (Luke 6:45, John 3:21, John 15:14) We have a second-mile religion that demands that we go past justice to mercy. Sympathy means to "suffer with." If we could feel with other people, we would become more effective Christians. We would understand the skepticism of those outside the Church and be more intent on winning them. We would understand the seriousness of indifference to Christ, of what it does to a person. We would understand the inner yearnings of people. We would be more earnest in witnessing, more regular in attendance of Sunday School and Church. We would see the point of reaching people for Jesus Christ and helping them grow in grace. We would be better preachers and teachers and Deacons and church members, and better Christians, more interested in people as individuals. Are we too detached? Do we not care enough? Have we seen it through their eyes?
The poet, Brewer Mattocks, has written this poem:
"The parish priest of Austerlitz
climbed up in a high Church steeple,
To be near God that he might hand
God's word unto the people.
And in sermon script he daily wrote
what he thought was sent from heaven,
And he dropped it down on the people's heads
Two times each day in seven.
In His time God said: 'Come down and die'
And he cried from out his steeple:
‘Where art thou Lord? ' And the Lord replied,
'Down here among the people.'"
This is not just a poem. This is what Christ did. Like Ezekiel, He came down among the people. John 1:14 says, "And the word became flesh and dwelt among us." He identified with us. He stayed in the flesh 33 years. He took upon himself our sin. There is nothing that we have to endure that he has not endured. Our struggles, our deepest questions, our loneliest prayers, our sharpest sorrows, our sins, our deadliest fears - all these, He understands. He has been there.
Isn't that the heart of the Gospel? Our Christ cared, came, suffered for our sins, died, rose again, sits at the right hand of God Almighty to make intercession for us because He understands. He came down here and "Sat among us."
Comentarios