Two Doctors and a Dentist

The doctor vented about Medicare, price control, undeserved give aways, and government in general while he examined us. It was our first – and last – visit.

Another doctor – in our presence – humiliated his intern, scolded him, scowled, called him names and wondered aloud how he could ever be a physician.

His curt questioning interrupted half our explanations about why we wanted to see him. His examination was cursory and his recommendations did not suggest any interest in our concerns. We did not return for a follow up.

The dentist said his daughter took a class on active listening at a youth group meeting. He wondered what that could look like in a dental office. He described how his dental assistants struggled with clients who were touchy and generally disagreeable.

He arranged after-work conversations about active listening and how to manage no-lose conflict resolutions. (Active Listening is a term developed by Dr. Carl Rogers; the referenced conflict resolution steps are taught by Gordon Training International, formerly known as Parent Effectiveness Training).

The dentist’s staff and the dentist engaged in role plays built around examples of their actual experiences; they practiced listening to and confronting patients’ difficult behaviors in ways that avoided damage to the dentist-patient relationship.

A year later, the dentist reported their efforts required increased time spent with each patient, resulting in fewer appointments per week. But he was excited to see his smiling associates walk with smiling patients to the checkout desk rather than merely pointing to the exit, and then grousing about how difficult THAT appointment had been!

A win for civility!

Peter Marty, editor of The Christian Century, comments about “vile rhetoric” and “verbal threats of bodily harm” experienced by “physicians, scholars, poll workers, judges, librarians, officials at the FBI and the Department of Justice, and even leaders of the National Archives.”

“Nothing in the ministry of Jesus promotes anything resembling bodily harm or threat…” Marty went on to write. “He may threaten our pride by mocking the ways we serve ourselves or play god. But he never harasses or threatens anyone for failing to adopt or comply with his playbook on life.”

Perhaps you, like me, grew up with images of a silken-haired Jesus, dressed in clean flowing robes, holding a lamb in his arms with another leaning against his legs, and sometimes a crowd of children crowding around him. They were portraits of a kind, mild mannered, easy going, Caucasian model for civility, courtesy and Christ-like citizenship.

Curiously, though, the Gospels also tell stories about a Jesus who attacked with a whip the merchants in a temple lobby. He name-called leaders of the church and said they were going to hell!  

Eight times he says, “woe unto you.” Seven times he says, “you hypocrites.” Twice he says, “you blind guides.” Twice he says, “you fools,” and once he says, “you generation of vipers.” 

Eugene Peterson paraphrases Jesus saying: “if you give one of these simple, childlike believers a hard time, bullying or taking advantage of their simple trust, you’ll soon wish you hadn’t. You’d be better off dropped in the middle of the lake with a millstone around your neck!”

 So much for civility.

 A pastor wrote in a church blog that “Jesus was often a disrupter …. He ..tripped up the scribes and lawyers with ideas that blew their comfort zones out of the water.”

 Dominque Stewart writing in Politico observes that “Americans have seen unresolved civil unrest, millions struggling to survive a mismanaged global health crisis, the unraveling of rights and anti-trans and LGBQT+ legislation … Americans are experiencing an empathy deficit …” 

Effectiveness Training author Linda Adams says “When you express your opinions and get resistance, you will almost always defeat your purpose if you continue to reassert your opinion – which usually comes across as aggressive and insensitive. It puts others even more on the defensive and stiffens negative reactions …”

She adds, “…our nearly universal disregard for civility continues to magnify the discord, the incivility, and obliterate citizenship.”

An article in the Sequim Gazette, Sequim Washington, asserts that to be a good citizen requires a commitment to civility —that incivility is “an acid which corrodes good citizenship.”

How, then, are we to deal with these assertions about what civility, courtesy, and citizenship look like, and also understand the instances of abrupt anger and, dare we say, incivility, of our mentor Jesus?

The two doctors failed the civility course. The dental staff get an A for listening civilly to the feelings of their clients.

But what of the confrontive sometimes aggressiveness of the Jesus stories?

It is a complex dilemma, for sure. Jesus excels with compassion for those who are disrespected and forgotten, broken and ignored. Also, as God’s Teacher of Us he has license to be dismayed when the greatest commandment to love God and neighbor is buried by an “empathy deficit.”

For our part, to be good citizens of God’s vision for a humane community, requires civil discourse, respect for others, listening care-FULLy to the differences among us – while not necessarily agreeing with the differences.

The task is far from easy…but essential on our way to faithful and effective discipleship.

Practice civil listening; practice and practice some more!

SHALOM