Of Facebook Cannons and Twitter Bombs

The issues are the same: We get wronged and we want to tell everyone about how wronged we were and how unfairly we were treated.  But the weapons have evolved through time.  From face to face to telephones and now social media.  Facebook cannons and Twitter bombs. If you wrong me, (or I so much as perceive that you oppose something I might hold dear, thus creating, at least in my mind, the offense) I will BLOW you off the face of the social media map by turning the tide of popular opinion against you

and then, not only allowing, but encouraging others who agree with me to also get their shots in, until you are totally pummeled into submission.  And even after you wave the white flag of surrender, I will come back and drop another bomb just for good measure before I finally turn and fly off.  But allow me to digress.

It seems that the more things change, the more they stay the same.  Take, for instance, what happens when someone truly wrongs us...or even if we just perceive that we have been wronged.  What happens?  We immediately want to let people know that we were wronged and we try to gain more people to agree with us about how badly we were treated.

Back in the day before technology, when people were wronged, they told their family members, or their friends or maybe even a judge.  Some even took justice into their own hands and developed "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" mentality.  They wanted to make sure that they exacted their "pound of flesh!"  There are many examples throughout the Bible of people seeking to "get even" or make someone else pay or at least to come out of a scrap without losing anything.

Think Joseph's brothers after being told another wild dream.  Think Jezebel after her prophets were done away with.  Think of the two mothers in Solomon's court arguing about a baby.  Think the priest who lost a concubine to rape and cutting her up and sending a piece of her to each tribe to show what the men of the tribe of Benjamin had done.  They all wanted to let people know how much someone had wronged them.  There is nothing new, as King Solomon said, under the sun.

You've done it.  I've done it.  It's only natural that I want YOU to know how much I hurt and have been WRONGED.  And let's be clear.  There are legitimate hurts that need to be addressed.  There ARE wrongs that need to be righted. But there are also right ways and wrong ways, if you are a Christian, of going about it.  Likewise, even if you aren't a Christian, there are more productive as well as less productive ways of going about things.

Which takes us next level.   There are two main motivations to make changes.  Force and choosing to change out of Love.  In our society, and in fact, in most societies throughout history, there has been an element of force or coercion underlying almost all social structures.  Each may have some valid points, but each also has its drawbacks.  From Empires in the old world to clan clashes and religious clashes in more recent times, almost all rely on a "might makes right" mentality.  Or another way of looking at it is "majority rules".  Marxism, Socialism, Communism, Naziism and even democracy all hold this in common.  They all utilize the idea that if we can just get enough people to join us for the change that we believe needs to happen then we can make them do it.  And most of it comes from the fact that we see the same problem, but all put forth different solutions as to how it should be addressed. (Which is why the election cycle becomes extremely tedious as each side seeks to rally more votes so they can be in power and make people do things their way.)

All of these social structures hold this in common.  The only difference is the distribution of wealth and power.  That's what the whole French Revolution was all about.  Seeking to throw off tyranny and establish new control over the distribution of wealth and power.  But if you read history, those who originally killed the aristocracy on the guillotine would themselves end up perishing the same way only a few days, or if lucky, a few months later as popular opinion swung wildly back and forth for a time.

So man operates off of the basic premise: If I have more power than you, then I can force you to do what I want you to do or I will simply eliminate you one way or the other.

But Jesus came and demonstrated a different way.  His "come, follow Me" was never followed by the words "or else".    His was a way of loving reason.  Of thinking about the other before Himself.  When the leaders of the synagogue and the people of Nazareth tried to throw Him off a cliff, He hid and then moved on to the next town.  And once there, He wasn't talking about how His own townspeople and neighbors had tried to kill Him.  He was talking about the Kingdom.  He was telling them that God loved the world so much that He sent His Son to redeem it, not to judge it...but that the world might be saved through Him.

And then He taught, in Matt. 18:15    “If another believer^a sins against you,^b go privately and point out the offense. If the other person listens and confesses it, you have won that person back. ¹⁶ But if you are unsuccessful, take one or two others with you and go back again, so that everything you say may be confirmed by two or three witnesses. ¹⁷ If the person still refuses to listen, take your case to the church. Then if he or she won’t accept the church’s decision, treat that person as a pagan or a corrupt tax collector.

And how did Jesus treat pagans and tax collectors?  With love.  Ask Matthew.  Ask Zaccheaus.  What about pagans?  What about the Centurion with a sick servant?  Or the Samaritan woman at the well.  These were who the Jews considered pagan.

Somehow, I don't think Jesus would ever say, "If another brother or sister sins against you, leverage your social media capitol and light up your Facebook cannon and drop your Twitter bombs."  See, once you bring out the big guns, your disagreement is guaranteed to only escalate until one side or the other realizes what is going on and backs down, or one side or the other sways enough popular opinion to bombard their adversary into complete and total surrender.  But surrender doesn't mean that minds have been changed and hearts have been won.  

To leverage your social media against another without so much as a face to face or at least a private phone or even private email conversation may win you the skirmish, but it will never win you the war.  You may leverage enough social capitol to load the cannon and deliver and you might even force someone's hand on an issue.  You may even force things that are right and good to happen.  But even if you get the right results utilizing the the wrong methodology will never truly serve you for the long term.  In the end, you always stand to lose more than you gain.  It may be a loss of relationship, or a loss of trust, respect or credibilty  and reputation.  It could even be the loss of your salvation.   But you will always lose something, even if you happen to win in the short term.  To paraphrase Jesus...he who lives by the cannon, dies by the cannon.  Or whatever a man sows, that will he also reap.

Without a doubt, change is needed in many areas.  And undoubtedly,  there are issues that we must address and face if we are to be faithful followers of Jesus in the public arena.  But HOW we address them is just as important as addressing them.  But note that Jesus never asked us to be successful in creating change. He only asked us to be faithful in our presentation of Him and His love.

Maybe it is time to put away the Facebook Cannons and Twitter Bombs and instead of trying to force others to change their beliefs or their actions in order to get more results,  perhaps it's time we live like Jesus and lead with Love.