Friday of the First Week of Lent
I know that we live by first impressions. My dad (in charge of hiring employees at his company) always instilled in me how important a first impression was for the job interview. When we're meeting a person for the first time, we do judge a book by its cover because clothing, body language and the things a person says are the only indicators we have at that point of sizing up what it will mean to relate to the other person. We change our responses to fit what we see, and that's important many times. I think of when I was working in the chaplain's office at a hospital: all too often, I'd only have a few minutes with a patient and first impressions were what I had to go on to figure out what the patient might need. Was she sad? Did he seem angry? Did that patient's bruises mean possible abuse at home? All of those clues led me to respond in different ways to each of the different needs I saw.
But what is also important is knowing that first impressions can be wrong, both because we are only human and because people change. The employee we hired might not be as honest as we first thought; the person who seems angry may just wear that expression as a matter of course. If our relationships are to last beyond that first meeting, we must continually examine ourselves and our own prejudices, as well as continue to get to know the other person.
Today's first scripture (Ezekiel 18:21-28) emphasizes the importance of "second impressions" and beyond for understanding a person's character. On the first meeting, we only know a few . What is needed is to look at someone's habits over a long time: the person who initially seemed to be a "wrongdoer" in Ezekiel's passage is deeply capable of change and becomes someone who is loving and generous and kind. What is harder for me to understand, but which the passage also shows, is that sometimes the opposite is also true. The person who seems loyal and loving and true can end up being mean and ungenerous.
While Ezekiel knows that many of his readers will find God's reaction to these two people unfair - for why shouldn't the second person's loving kindness in the first half of his life count in some way? - this should also be good news for us! God doesn't work on the basis of flimsy first impressions, but on impressions of our whole lives. That means we have a whole lifetime to become better people.
The gospel passage (Matthew 5:20-26) emphasizes the importance of being righteous and reconciling with our brothers and sisters before going to worship God. I have often read this passage as meaning if I am angry with someone else, I should go and reconcile with them. Yet that is not what Jesus says. Jesus asks us to consider who we ourselves might have hurt, or who might have a grudge against us, and then go and be the first person to wave the peace branch.
It's second impressions again. Our first impressions of our own actions are likely to be that we are always fabulous and the other people were less than fabulous, but Jesus asks us to examine ourselves to see that the first story we want to tell ourselves isn't necessarily accurate. Isn't Lent a great time have "second impressions" about ourselves and others, and seek to make all our relationships better?
- Jana M. Bennett