Intent and Tone: A Follow-Up to Cameron
This is a follow-up to Cameron’s recent blog on tone being a key part of the logic of an argument. It is a bit of a tough argument to fully digest, but I don’t think he is wrong. After discussing it with him and sleeping on it, I awoke the next morning and decided to push it a bit further and penned this line in my journal:
If the good of the other is the goal of Christian communication, then the tone of the statement must be commensurate with goodwill.
I’ve been preaching through the book of Matthew for the last several years. Matthew records the tone of Christ as anything but “warm and fuzzy.” Jesus can be direct, pointed, critical. He doesn’t mince words when rebuke is called for and is laconic even in his invitations. “Follow me” doesn’t take a lot of time to say, but it takes a lifetime to figure out.
Despite the variations of his audience, there are two rhetorical postures and motivations that are common in our day that I find lacking in Jesus’ tone: Fear and derision. I’m struck that as Jesus enters Jerusalem in Matthew 23—knowing full well that his personal liberties are going to be infringed upon, that he was going to go through an unjust trial at the hands of a ruthless government egged on by the religious establishment—that he doesn’t respond with fear, anger, or slander. Rather, we hear his sorrow: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing.”
The argument that Cameron and I are making is that Jesus’s tone is a model for Christian speech at all times. This takes strategic focus when derisive speech is vogue. I can visualize some saying to us, “That’s cute, boys, but this is a culture war. You’re naïve to think you won’t suffer if you don’t fight.” I would simply respond with three short thoughts. First, Christ did change the world without giving way to fear and ridicule or using worldly tactics. Secondly, it would be naïve to assume that the followers of Christ wouldn’t suffer at times by limiting their cultural interactions to Christlike means and methods; Christ himself told us not to expect different treatment than he did. Third, if this all seems like a tough pill to swallow, we have Peter as an example. Remember that Peter’s response to conflict was to take a sword to a man’s head. Yet this same Peter later (after a little more polishing from Christ) wrote:
“To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps. He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth. When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly.” 1 Pt 2:21-23
That last sentence is the example Jesus left us, “He entrusted himself to him who judges justly.” This isn’t a call to quietism or inaction; it is a recognition that when we reach the limits of what we can accomplish in our world in a Christlike way, the story isn’t over. There is one who judges justly, who will ensure that when all is laid bare and judged at the renewal of all things that the right thing will happen. At that point the wicked and the unjust will need to give an account for their actions and we likewise will have to give an account for our words.
A dog will respond differently to its name depending on the tone in which it is spoken. How much more so does our tone matter to those made in the image of God! Direct and serious words can be spoken for the sake of the other. You’ve probably been critiqued or rebuked in a way that was good for you, but my guess is that the love and respect of the other made that interaction not just palatable, but productive and constructive. The simple truth is that the tone in which a word is spoken radically alters the way it is received. I haven’t mastered this, but I do know that if Christ loved his enemies enough to die for them, then I can at least learn to speak kindly, even to those with whom I disagree.
Cameron’s blog got me thinking, but it was really Psalm 15 that started all of this for me. Psalm 15 asked who may dwell in the Lord’s sanctuary and live on his holy hill. The answer includes those who speak the truth from their hearts, who have no slander on their tongue, cast no slur on their fellow man, and keep their oaths, even when it hurts. Somehow with the Lord’s help we can learn to ‘despise a vile man’ (v4) while maintaining purity of tongue. It isn’t that we don’t recognize evil and brokenness, but one of the ways that we separate ourselves from it is by refusing to adopt its rhetorical strategies. After all, Jesus once said, “Out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks.” Let’s ask the Lord to help us keep our hearts in the right place.
If the good of the other is the goal of Christian communication, then the tone of the statement must be commensurate with goodwill.