Nix the Negative

Here is my message from Sunday. The text was Matthew 5:21-24 and James 3:1-12:

When Charles Darwin was originally formulating his idea of evolution, he said that one of the things that almost undid it for him was the idea of kindness and altruism, let alone sacrifice. After all, if it’s about the survival of the fittest and making sure that your genes survive for future generations, taking care of your own makes sense, but why would you ever want to help others, especially strangers. But later on, according to Dr. Dacher Keltner, a professor at UC Berkeley, he says that Darwin actually came to believe that our need to be social and caring may actually be stronger than our desire for self-preservation, and it’s ingrained not socially learned. Indeed, Dr. Keltner says, “evolution [has] crafted a species—us—with remarkable tendencies toward kindness, play, generosity, reverence and self-sacrifice, which are vital to the classic tasks of evolution—survival, gene replication and smooth functioning groups.” That is, kindness is ingrained in us, and we can see this even from the earliest age.

In a study done with six-month-olds, they were shown a round piece of wood that had eyes glued onto it and it was struggling to climb up a felt mountain. After seeing the circle struggling, a triangle piece of wood, also with eyes glued on it, came along and tried to help push the circle to the top. But then along comes a square piece of wood, with eyes, that tries to push the triangle and the circle down so they can’t make it to the top. What experimenters wanted to know was how the infants would respond, and while they couldn’t verbalize how they felt about the pieces of wood, they could express it by which blocks they played with, and which do you think they refused to play with? The square. The block that wasn’t kind. They even introduced a neutral observer block who did nothing to hinder or help, and the children still preferred the triangle to the others. So, even before we know what’s happening, we have a natural preference for those who help and are kind over those who are unkind. And what scans of the brain have also found is that when we participate in acts of kindness that the pleasure centers of our brain are activated, and so kindness in and of itself can be its own reward. And so with that we continue in our series on the Kindness Challenge, which is based upon a book of the same name by Shaunti Feldhahn.

What the Kindness Challenge asks, or challenges us to do, is to practice three rules of kindness focused on one person for 30 days. Today we are going to be focusing on the first rule, but let’s quickly recap what all three rules, in reverse order. The third rule is to carry out kindness by doing one small act of kindness or generosity every day for the person you are seeking to be more kind to. The second rule is to say a word of praise every day to that person and also praise them to someone else. And the first rule is to nix the negative, which is to say nothing negative about the person you are doing the challenge for either to them or to anyone else. Now, I know that some of you may think in hearing that “If I didn’t complain, I don’t know what I’d talk about.” And that’s what caused a supplemental rule to be added to this first rule most especially for men who are doing the challenge for their spouse or partner. Because men, not exclusively, but proportionately, would say, if I can’t say anything negative, then I just won’t say anything at all, for 30 days, which begins to defeat the point. And so men, or ladies if you think this could be a challenge for you as well, here is an alternative rule. So, to overcome just not speaking, the alternative rule for men is to give your partner your full attention, and that means no interruptions or multi-tasking, but your full attention in conversation with your partner for at least 15 minutes every day, and also listening just to listen paying attention to that scary word, feelings, and not trying to solve their problem. And when you are upset with each other, and are talking about it, to stay in the game for five minutes past when you want to escape, unless you know that in your anger you will say something that will upset them more, and then you are to say, “we’re okay” and take a time out, while also saying when you think you may be able to engage again. But men, you can also keep the first rule, which is to say nothing negative, or even, perhaps, add it as a fourth rule in trying to combine them together.

Now as I said last week, what follow-up research has shown is that while slightly more than half of people who have done the kindness challenge reported having improvement in their relationship with the person for whom they were doing the challenge, if they did just one of the rules, 89% reported improvement if they did all three of the rules for 30 days. And of the rules, the first might be the most important, because when we work on getting rid of the negative, then it makes doing positive things even easier. Because while we can say that sticks and stones can break my bones but words will never hurt me, we know that’s not true. Even though it rhymes which usually means it’s true, that one is not. Words hurt, words damage, words injure and words can even kill. James tells us that the tongue is the most powerful muscle we have in our bodies, and it’s the one that’s toughest to tame and control, and can set the world on fire. “With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this ought not to be so.”

What James is saying is that the words that we say, and how we say them are important. Jesus says that blessed are the peacemakers, and so shouldn’t our words be offering peace? We are to be the light unto the world, and so shouldn’t our words be bearers of that light? He says that what comes out of us is what can defile us because it reveals who we are, and so shouldn’t they be words of healing and wholeness? Jesus says that we will be known as his disciples because of the love that we show to the world, which is not just through our actions, but also through our words. Last week I talked about Christian speech, and so our words James says, and Jesus says, should be a reflection of who we are as Christians. They should reflect our faith. They should be the words that God wants to be put into the world. And so this is not just some simple thing we are doing. Practicing kindness and nixing the negative should be at the heart of how we live out of faith, not just for 30 days, but for every day.

And there is one other piece in that passage from James that also directly relates to the kindness challenge, and that is the idea of being deserving. I know that some of you may say, as I have said at times, “they aren’t deserving of me being kind to them.” Right? We are going to serve as judge, jury and executioner. And often we say that because of what they have done to us, especially in not treating us with kindness, at the very least. But what James says is that our words both bless the Lord, and “curse those who are made in the likeness of God.” We curse those made in the image of God. Do we think that God thinks that they are not deserving of kindness? Does God think that those we curse are unworthy of kindness? As Anne Lamonte once said, “You can safely assume you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.” Instead, we need to see and understand that everyone is deserving of kindness. Everyone should be treated with kindness. Everyone is worthy of kindness. Everyone merits kindness, and that is most especially true for those who don’t treat us kindly, because as Feldhahn says that is when we begin to see the power of Christ-like kindness. That is when we begin to see the cost and the power of discipleship and Christian speech.

And one other thing to keep in mind is that the kindness challenge does not say that you cannot become angry about something. What it says is that we are going to choose how we respond. Our emotions are indicators, but they are not dictators, or at least they shouldn’t be, although we often let them be. Pay attention to what your emotions are telling you, and when they are coming up. Pay attention to the patterns of your emotions, especially those that make you want to lash out, and then learn to pause before responding. If you pay attention to the calls to kindness that we find in scripture, what you will often find accompanying kindness is the word patience. Patience and kindness go together. When we practice patience with others, especially in how we perceive things, which will talk about more next week, it becomes easier to practice kindness. And you can be irritated and even angry and still practice kindness based on how we respond. Because often what happens when we lash out at someone is that we have lost perspective on the situation. Often when we respond critically or angrily what we are actually saying is “my money, my effort, my perspective, my convenience are more important than your precious heart.” We are more important than them and are therefore justified in being unkind. We might not think that rationally, but it’s definitely what we are implying through our response. What we are saying is that they don’t deserve me to be kind to them, what they deserve is a tongue lashing. But if we are to produce the fruit of the Spirit than that is not how we can live.

And on the subject of anger and lashing out, which Jesus has things to say about as we heard in the gospel passage from today, often people will say “well if I don’t let my anger out then I just bottle it up and it will eventually explode.” And let’s deal with the other reality of this is that there is a gender dynamic involved with anger that anger is one of the few emotions that men are allowed to express, and it is one of the few emotions that women aren’t supposed to express. Again, there is nothing wrong with anger in and of itself, but it’s about how we express it. And remembering that kindness is not niceness, we can tell the truth and be kind. We can be irritated and angry and still be kind. We get to choose how we respond and the words we say. And what research has also shown is that when we explode in anger we don’t let off steam and then cool down. Instead the brain actually triggers the interconnected anger system and so rather than blowing off steam, your brain actually turns up the heat and creates more steam. What we want to do is to remove the pot from the heat so it cools down, which happens when we change how we respond, which means not responding negatively, instead responding with kindness and not saying negative things about others.

Other ways we have to nix the negative is through non-verbal things like rolling our eyes, a heavy sigh, giving “that face”, every mom has one of those. But, again, we can control these things, if we are aware of them, and sometimes you have to fake it until you make it. But you know what research has also shown is that if we smile, even if we don’t want to, the muscles still trigger the same areas of the brain as if we were happy. Just like a fake laugh triggers the same areas as if we were really laughing. In a study done of patients who had Botox injections in their face was that after treatment the patients reported feeling fewer negative feelings and more positive ones. Why? Because they couldn’t frown or show other negative emotions, because those muscles were numbed, their brain therefore didn’t process those emotions physically and they felt better and more positive.

Another form of negativity, and one I have to say I am susceptible to is that of sarcasm. Now I am one of three brothers, and I am the youngest, and honestly if we didn’t have sarcasm to communicate, we might not have talked at all. But Linda did not grow up that way, and so she didn’t see my sarcasm as humor, she saw it as verbal attacks and it hurt her. And I’ll be honest and say that I didn’t listen to her about that, because it was how I was raised, until I read this book about sarcasm being negative behavior, as being unkind, of having to see that sarcasm does not have to be mean to be a problem. Sarcasm has its place, but be measured and careful in how it is used, where it is used and why it is used.

One of the other ways to learn to nix the negative is to just pay attention to learn to pay attention to how often we are negative, how often we are complaining, and how often we feel justified in how we respond. Few people actually think they are bitter, but the definition of bitterness is “Feeling or showing anger, hurt, or resentment because of bad experiences or a sense of unjust treatment.” That means we rehash old hurts, when we are repeatedly irritated or annoyed by someone, when we vent to others about what someone has done, that we are in fact being bitter. And when that is matched with self-righteousness the behavior becomes even worse, and we are liable to become what the Wall Street Journal entitled crybullies, where “the pleasures of aggression are added to the comforts of feeling aggrieved.”

Jesus got angry, but how often did he lash out? Again, there might be a significant reason, and you may well be in your rights to be angry, but is it helping or hurting the situation? Is it helping or hurting you? When we don’t focus on another person’s faults, and we’ll cover this a lot more next week when we talk about praise, then we are less likely to notice them, and when we don’t talk about those faults we are less likely to focus on them, or obsess over them. Additionally one of the best questions to ask ourselves “what’s my real desire in responding the way I am?” Is it to make me feel better? Is it to make them know for sure they are wrong? Is it to correct behavior? What are you doing this, because the truth is you can prove you are right or you can work to improve a relationship, but rarely can you do both. And you don’t have to feel kind in order to be kind.

Being kind and learning to nix the negative takes work. And so as we do this work, and learn to talk like Christians, I ask you to first be honest with yourself about your behavior and second to be open to hearing not how you think about what you say, but about how it can come off to others, and third is to remember that being kind takes effort and as Richard Rohr says “If you don’t choose daily and deliberately to practice loving kindness, it is unlikely that a year from now you will be any more loving” or more kind. James tells us that the words we use matter. That negative words can set the world on fire, and we know they can destroy people. But the opposite is also true. 

Positive words can also set the world on fire in spreading love and kindness. Jesus tells us that what we think will be what comes out of us, and which is why even being angry at someone leads us to judgment, the same as the murderer, because our thoughts become our words and our words become our actions. So, watch what you think and say and do, because kindness is only realized when we do it. By focusing on practicing kindness and eliminating negativity in what we say to and about others we can transform our lives, we can transform others’ lives and we can even transform the world. When we fail at nixing the negative, learn from it and go right back to trying not to be negative, So, my brothers and sisters, I challenge you to focus on removing the negativity in your life and to let all your words be Christian words. I pray that it will be so. Amen.