Things have been
getting uncomfortable around the Jacoby household for a while now and it has nothing
to do with the fact of a teenager in my house.
No, the problem was my clothes, or more specifically my expanding waist
line. Unfortunately, I had become a
little overwhelmed at work and over the course of the last year or so, I’d put
on a too much weight. When I noticed that
my local gym was having a contest to see who could lose the most weight in 60
days I decided that would be the perfect incentive to get me back on track – a
goal to strive for. So I started
planning my new healthily eating and exercise habits which included some
reading as well. One of the articles I
read was about the connection between our sleep patterns and overall health
which got me to thinking… I haven’t been sleeping all that well lately. And part of my problem was Facebook.
Facebook specifically, and social
media in general, can be a tremendous blessing.
It can be a fast way to get news and keep in touch with people both near
and far. But it can also suck more and
more of our time each day. It was also
proving another challenge to me, as a pastor.
While for the majority of time it gave me helpful and interesting
insight in the lives of the members of Summit of Peace, it was also becoming a
way for me to “see” sin but not have an adequate way to respond.
Now I’ll be the first to admit
that I’m far from perfect, especially when it comes to social
media. My “spiritual gift” of sarcasm
can often get me into trouble and even hurt people’s feelings (which I am
always sorry for). But over the past few
months it seemed more and more of us were using social media to express “heat
and not light.” What I mean is that the
strong feelings we have on ________ (fill in the blank) was leading to Facebook
posts that I fear were breaking some of the commandments or at the very least
forgetting Jesus’ words to us “Peace
I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to
you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.” (John
14:27)
So in the hopes of providing some “light instead of heat”
here are some of my own personal reflections on “Signs it might be time for a
Facebook break – or personal reflection.”
And in good Lutheran fashion I thought I’d approach them from our
understanding of the 10 Commandments with Luther’s explanation.
#1. “You shall have no
other gods.” What does this mean? “We should fear, love and trust in God above
all things.”
Fear, love and trust in God above all things… All of
us love to use Facebook to express our views on things that are important to us
and there is nothing wrong with that. My
fear is that we have allowed our strong feelings to give the impression to the
“Facebook world” that the most important thing in the world is this particular
issue. I see this most often as it
relates to the upcoming election, but it also applies to our feelings about
other political and social subjects. We
write so strongly about them that we may be giving the world the impression
that our “fear, love and trust” is in these particular issues going my way. All of them are certainly important, but none
are more important than our Lord and the relationship we have with him. Next time we are going to post on an
important political, social or moral issue to us - perhaps before we press
“post” - reread your post and ask “Does
this post express my views on this topic AS WELL AS show that I do not place
the importance of this issue above God’s love for me, my love for him or my
neighbor?” Another question we should
ask ourselves is about the number of posts we share on any given topic. For example, if you “share” 1000 posts on who
you think should be our next president but never share a post on how you
believe that our God remains in control no matter who is president… guess which
message people are more likely to receive.
#4. “Honor your father
and mother.” What does this mean? “We should fear and love God so that we do
not despise or anger our parents and other authorities, but honor them, serve
and obey them, love and cherish them.”
Every time we cover this topic in my 8th grade
confirmation class, I spend as much time on the “our parents” portion of this
lesson as I do on the “other authorities.”
Lutherans have always believed that the 4th commandment also
showed us how we were to treat all of the authorities that God has placed over
us, both elected and appointed. Doesn’t
matter if we voted for them, doesn’t matter if we like them, doesn’t matter if
we agree with them. So before we press “post”,
perhaps we should ask “Does this post express my views of this particular
public servant while at the same time showing honor, obedience and love to them
as commanded by God?” If we can’t do
that then we’d probably be better off deleting it.
#8. “You shall not
give false testimony against your neighbor.”
What does this mean? “We should
fear and love God so that we do not tell lies about our neighbor, betray him,
slander him, or hurt his reputation, but defend him, speak well of him, and
explain everything in the kindest way.”
Wow, this one could be its own entire article. But for the sake of brevity let’s just focus
on “but defend him, speak well of him, and explain everything in the kindest
way.” In the 8th commandment,
God seeks to help protect our reputation and this only happens when we
communicate with charity about one another AND this includes people in the
public world. I fear we all struggle
with this in a couple of ways on Facebook.
First, when we see a post or article that is “against” someone that we
don’t like we have a tendency to “share” it right away. Problem is that there are untrue stories
about people on the internet all the time.
So if we share something without bothering to check if it is true, we
break the 8th commandment. Don’t
have the time or resources to check it?
Don’t share it.
Second, and this is the most difficult of all in my opinion: even if the post is true AND we share it in
order to “hurt” another person, we have broken the 8th
commandment. Is this a surprise? It usually is to my 8th graders as
well. The 8th commandment speaks
against slander (sharing false information that is intended to harm another
person) and against gossip (which may be true information BUT is being
shared with the purpose of hurting another person) as well. Obviously this one is very difficult. Today’s politicians certainly have feet of
clay and we may feel VERY strongly about certain individuals. But still we should ask… “Am I sharing this
post with the intent of hurting someone’s reputation? Am I explaining things in the kindest
way? Am I putting the best construction
on people’s words or actions?” If the
answer is no, then we probably shouldn’t post.
The truth is that I am often not able to follow the above
advice myself. So that led me to make
the rather sudden decision (when I started my new healthy living lifestyle) to
also give up Facebook - at least for a little while. As of the writing of this article I’ve been
off of Facebook for 5 weeks and I must say I don’t miss it near as much as I
thought. I do miss the connections with
a lot of people and to be honest I don’t have anything funny to say anymore or
any funny memes to share… apparently I have no original material! But one day I’ll go back on Facebook,
probably after the election, and hopefully with a healthier approach. But in the meantime, I’d recommend these
words to all of us at SOP…
“Let
your light shine before others,
so
that they may see your good works and
give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”
(Matthew
5:16)
And when we fail to do that both in life and on
Facebook…“Jesus said ‘Your sins are forgiven.’”
In Christ,
Pastor Jacoby
P.S. Also, on a
related topic… I would humbly suggest as your pastor that you NEVER EVER, EVER,
EVER, EVER share those posts that contain something like “if you really love
God then share this…” There are so many
things wrong with them I don’t even know where to start. First, they are a confusion of Law and Gospel
and we Lutherans are supposed to be experts on Law and Gospel. Telling someone about God’s love is Gospel
but doing it in a way that makes them feel “guilty” if they don’t is Law and so
ruins the whole point. Second, our
Lord’s message to the Pharisees throughout the entire Gospels is “stop just
saying you love God, act like. And a
great way to act like it is to love your neighbor.” So my suggestion would be the next time you
are tempted to “share” one of those posts, get off your computer and go shovel
your neighbor’s driveway, rake the leaves in her yard or go volunteer at a soup
kitchen. I guarantee that Jesus will
“like” that more than your post.
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