Making Assumptions

I am in charge of the power points at my church. I also run the sound board at two of our three services. So, every weekend I attend two services so I can click through the slides and keep an eye on the sound system. I go to the Saturday night service and the first service on Sunday morning. Since I hear the sermon twice, on Saturday nights I usually bring a book to read during the sermon and then listen on Sunday morning. The book is to keep me awake. I am up in the balcony alone and it is easy to close my eyes and fall asleep since no one can see me. Then, when the sermon is over and the slide needs to be changed, I’m up there dozing and the service grinds to a stand still. So I read to stay awake. Sunday mornings, I drink tea or coffee to stay awake so I can listen to the sermon.

This weekend I listened to the sermon twice because it was really good. Not that my pastor’s sermons aren’t always good but this one really reached me. It was about not making assumptions about people. Part of what Pastor mentioned was Martin Luther’s explanation for the Eight Commandment. In case you don’t know, the Eight Commandment is: You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor. What Luther says is “We should fear and love God so that we do not tell lies about our neighbor, betray him, slander him, or hurt his reputation, but defend him, speak well of him, and explain everything in the kindest way.”

Pastor was speaking about this in relationship to the vote on homosexuality at the ELCA church wide assembly this past August. This has been quite the divisive subject in my church. As I have mentioned in previous posts, we have already lost some members because of it. Others are staying but stepping down in leadership. Then there are those who agree with the vote and seem to brag about it, which isn’t the way to go either.

It is easy to pass judgment on people. To make assumptions about why they do the things they do. Especially when we have been hurt or saddened by their decisions. What the Eighth Commandment says to do is to always assume the best about people. Speak well of them and defend them whether you agree with them or not. It is so easy to think the worse. To think that a person’s motives are completely off base and completely wrong when they are the opposite of what I would want to do. It is harder to change my heart and mind and accept that, although their ideals and beliefs are different from mine, they are as entitled to their ideals and beliefs as I am entitled to mine. I don’t like it when people make assumptions about me or assume they know what I am thinking. I shouldn’t do the same to other people.

That is what I learned from my pastor’s sermon this morning. Learning, though, is one thing. Putting it to practice is an entirely different thing. But like anything, it is a habit that can be learned. In time.