How Does Trust Return When a Society Loses It? It Returns As Folks Remember This.

Boy, it’s tough out there.  But up until this week, I didn’t realize how tough.   I don’t know if you’ve realized it yet.  I sure don’t want to.  But I’m getting old.   That means I don’t always see things the way other people see them.  I’m getting dangerously close to being someone who says things like, “Back in my day, young whipper-snapper, things weren’t like this.”  

And this week, a few numbers I read showed me how tough things have become for so many.  You see, I grew up in a generally high trust society.  In other words, we trusted folks to do the right thing.  So, when we went to bed at night, we didn’t necessarily lock our doors.   Heck, if we left the house, we didn’t always lock them.   Why?  We trusted folks. 

But today that has changed.  The top survey of the way Americans think discovered less than one in three believe that “most people can be trusted.”  They haven’t recorded that low a number since they first started asking the question in 1972!  And the lower you go in age, the worst it gets.  About 3 in 4 Americans under 30 believe that most of the time, “people just look out for themselves,”… that they would try to take advantage of you if they got a chance.”   And if you’re young and in a racial minority, the numbers get worse.  

And that distrust is not only bad, its literally life-killing.  In just ten years drug-related deaths among those 18 to 34 has more than doubled.  Alcohol related deaths went up by 69%, suicides by 35%.   As one science writer put it, “When you have no one to trust, your brain can self-destruct.”

And now that Covid’s hit, those numbers are getting worse.  You can see it in the controversy over masks.  You see.  Masks present folks with a social dilemma.  Let’s say, you’re low-risk.  So, if you pursue just your self-interest and don’t wear that pesky mask, it might be better for you.  But if you pursue the common interest, then yes, the mask inconveniences you a little, but overall, everyone is going to be better off.  Yet, too often, in too many places too many folks have refused to pursue that common good.  They don’t trust. They don’t trust each other. They don’t trust the authorities, the scientists, well, anyone.    And that’s bad.   When a society stops trusting, it goes down.  As the historian Arnold Toynbee discovered. Civilizations don’t die by murder.  They die by suicide.  Civilizations don’t get killed off.  They kill themselves.   Now, could that be happening here?  In late June, Gallup discovered our pride as a nation has gone lower than any since since they started measuring it.   And our happiness level? It’s gone down to its lowest level in nearly 50 years.

But everything I just shared can change.  No, it will change.  We just need to remember the powerful, the profoundly beautiful, the life-changing message of this story.   How does trust return?  In this story, Jesus shows you the way.  Let’s listen and hear what Jesus has to say.

Matthew 25:31-46

Have you ever heard that saying; “Don’t miss the forest for the trees?”  Yet with this story, I’ve done that.    In this story, it’s too easy to just look at the things you’re supposed to do, feed the hungry, care for the sick, visit the prisoner.  And sure, Jesus wants you to do those things.  But if that’s all you get from here, then you’ve missed the entire point.  And I say that because I did.   I missed the entire point. 

Jesus is going deeper than simply telling you things to do.  Jesus is inviting you into a new view of the world, a new view of everything.   Jesus is inviting you, inviting the world to change how it thinks.   And when you do that, when you change the way you think, it changes everything. 

Have you ever heard the story of the man on the train that the leadership writer, Stephen Covey tells?  It goes like this.  This man is riding on a subway train, heading home from work.  But right in the next seat over, there’s this man with two little kids.  These two kids are running up and down the aisle, bouncing on the seats, being loud and obnoxious.  But the dad isn’t doing anything to control them.   And this man is getting more and more angry.  He is thinking.  How rude! How inconsiderate!”   Finally, he angrily says to the man.  “Please control your kids!”   And the dad apologizes.  He says.  “I’m so sorry.  My boys just lost their mom, and we’re coming from the hospital.  They just don’t know what to do with themselves, and honestly, I don’t know either. I’ll try to get them under control.”  

Let me ask you.  Do you think that man was still angry after hearing that? No.    But nothing had changed.  The kids were still going crazy.  The dad was still not able to control them.   What changed is now the man thought differently about that situation, about what was really going on.  

Here’s a powerful truth that we need to hear again and again.   What you think about a situation is not necessarily what that situation is.   It’s what you think it is. In other words, your thought isn’t reality.  It’s your thinking about reality.    But that thinking leads you to feel a certain way.   And once you feel that way, it leads you to act a certain way.  And that action leads to a result.

And if you have a culture that thinks and feels a certain way, that thinking leads to certain results.   And in Jesus’ day, the thinking pretty much said only a few people matter.   And anyone else doesn’t matter at all.   And when I say at all, I mean that, at all.   If you had a baby and didn’t want it, you dropped it by the side of the road and hoped for the best.  That meant a lot of babies died.   If you killed a slave, you regretted the same way you regret breaking your stove today.  The slave wasn’t a person.  It was just a tool, a thing, nothing more.  

Even the religion of Jesus’ own faith had its blind spots.  Yes, they valued human life far more than the culture around them.   But that didn’t mean they thought everyone mattered the same.  If you obeyed the law, you mattered more.  And if you didn’t, you mattered less, a lot less. And for those outside the religion, they only mattered if they had power, and only then for what their power could do for you. 

And yet, Jesus comes along and tells this story.   And he says, at the end of time, you’ll see who and what really mattered.   You’ll see reality for what it really is.  And what is reality?  Jesus says.   Reality is everyone matters.   The hungry and thirsty matter.  The sick and naked matter.  Even those who have done wrong, criminals, law-breakers matter.  Everyone matters.  No, Jesus goes further.   Jesus says.  In those people, you will find God.  So, treat them as you would God.    

And let me tell you, when you start seeing in everyone around you the presence of God, when you know honoring that presence has eternal impact, that changes things.   It changes the way you think about people.  It changes the way you feel about them.  It changes the way you act towards them.   And it changes the results of, well, everything.   

Before Jesus, hospitals didn’t exist.  You had doctors, places that cared for the sick, but only for the rich or for the soldier or gladiator so they could kill for you.   But anyone else didn’t matter. But Christians in every city where they placed a bishop, placed a hospital, a place of care for everyone.  Why?  They knew.  Everyone mattered.

Before Jesus, orphanages didn’t exist.  Why would you need an orphanage?  Babies don’t matter.  But Christians created them.  Why?   They knew.   Everyone mattered.   

And that way of thinking started changing the way everyone thought.  For you see, if you want things to change, you share a different story, a truer story.   And that story changes everything, often in striking ways, even today.

Years ago, when my grandmother passed, I remember riding in the funeral procession and noticing everyone on the road stopping.  They were getting out of their cars and standing.  Men were taking off their hats.   No one moved until the procession passed.  Why?   They knew. That person who had died mattered.   And he or she mattered more than their next appointment or task.   And their stopping mattered to me.  Now I do the same when a procession passes by.  

But when you stop thinking that way, it has impact.   The preacher Bill Coffin put it well.   “There are people and things in this world, and people are to be loved and things are to be used.  And it is increasingly important that we love people and use things, for there is so much in our gadget-minded, consumer-oriented society that is encouraging us to love things and use people.”

And because we live in a world that increasingly does that, that loves things and uses people, it has heartbreaking results.  Why would you trust in a world like that?   Why would you risk or hope or sacrifice for others in a world like that?  

But that world isn’t reality.  This story is reality.   And if you want things to change, then you live in this story, the real one.  You let that story frame every situation, every person.  And as you do that, you get closer and closer to what is truly real, to God, the heart of reality itself.   

You see.  The way you think matters.  It’s why the word for repentance, metanoia, means just that, a change in thinking, in how you see the world.   In fact, in one story that thinking defines the very difference between heaven and hell.   In the story, someone enters a room called Hell.  She discovers people seated around a banquet of incredible food.   But each has a spoon too long for them to put in their mouths.  So, the food lies there with no way to eat it.  The people cry in agony and rage.   Then she enters another room called Heaven.  She discovers. The room is identical, a banquet full of food, spoons too long to put in your mouth.  But here there is laughter and delight.  Why?  People are using their spoons to feed each other.

Years ago, I experienced a group exercise around just such choices.  Our group had been together for a couple of days, and right at the end, the leader gave us this exercise.  He asked us to go around and stand before each other.  And he gave us each time a number of choices.  If you chose one, you chose to turn from the person standing in front of you.  If you chose two, you choose to simply stare in their eyes.  If you chose three, you chose to grasp a hand.   And if you chose four, you chose to hug.   As it was an exercise in choice, the lowest number someone held up won.  But you had a few moments to negotiate so if someone voted two, and the other voted four, you could settle on three.   Now as we began, we realized.  The exercise was a setup.   We looked at each other and we realized. We wanted to choose four again and again.   Before long, everyone was hugging everyone else.   It was wonderful.  And as we left, at the door someone greeted us with a construction paper hand that simply had four fingers held up.   The exercise had been about choice, yes.  But it had challenged us to make a particular choice, to choose four, to choose to love, to realize that choice would always be worth the risk.

Every day you and I face that choice.  You can choose to turn away or stand at a distance or you can choose to love, even when love doesn’t seem to make much sense, even when love seems to be losing.  Why choose four?  Because no matter how it seems; four is true. It’s real.   How do you know?  In Jesus you see that reality, that truth. You see the God who chooses four for you, even when it costs God his life.  And you see. That love, that reality is stronger even than death.    

And as you live in that love, it will not only change you.  It will change everything.  For God in Jesus is bringing a world that is truly real, a world where everyone matters.  So, live in that world now.  Choose it now.  And see what God will do.