Who Am I?

The Didache 33 – Reprove One Another In Peace

Posted: July 13th, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: Didache | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

This series is reflecting on the Didache if you want to read it separately.

And reprove one another, not in anger, but in peace, as you have it in the Gospel. But to anyone that acts amiss against another, let no one speak, nor let him hear anything from you until he repents. But your prayers and alms and all your deeds so do, as you have it in the Gospel of our Lord.

Like the NT, the Teaching is still close enough to the Jewish roots of our faith that when we read “peace” we should hear the full resonance of “shalom”. So we reprove one another from the desire not for control nor even to achieve a cessation of hostility, but to restore the one we reprove to wholeness, to completeness, to fullness of life. If you speak in anger, however righteous your anger might be (or at least that you believe it to be) you can never accomplish that goal.

I have nothing against tolerance. It is certainly immensely better than the intolerance that plagues mankind. It is better by far to politely tip your hat to the other from across the room than it is to treat the other as something less than human, which is where intolerance always ends. Yet, while infinitely better than intolerance and hatred, tolerance is not love. It will not bring shalom to the other. Tolerance is not evil, but it is weak. Love is both good and strong.

But love is also exceedingly hard. For to love, you must sacrifice yourself. You must make yourself lower than the beloved. You must pour yourself out into the vessel of the other. And that is risky for you can never know the results in advance. You might be hurt. You might be rejected. You might be used.

You might be crucified.

And yet the command Jesus gave us was to love others as he loves us. And whereever we turn in the Holy Scriptures or in Christian writing and teaching, we can never escape the admonition to obey his commands. We see it here again.

I’m lousy at speaking the words to people that I think they might need to hear and acting to help them live them out. Part of my problem is that I have a hard time taming anger in tense or difficult situations. Another part is that I don’t like tense situations at all. Both of those flow from very early formation and though I have made considerable progress on the former — “I’m better than I used to be!” — the latter is unlikely to change.

I understand the concept of gentle reproof flowing from a desire to bring shalom back into the life of another. It took a long time for me to reach that point, but I believe I do finally understand the picture. I don’t see any way I could actually do it. At least not as I am today. Perhaps through the grace and healing of our Lord Jesus Christ, I might someday be the sort of person who could. But I’m gradually learning to lie less to myself about who and what I am. And I am not yet that person.


One Comment on “The Didache 33 – Reprove One Another In Peace”

  1. 1 On Reproving One Another in Peace « we live and move and have our being said at 9:45 am on July 13th, 2009:

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