Defensiveness Kills

Our culture and community is a hard community to grow up in. It teaches you to build thick skin. It teaches you how to defend yourself. Depending on where you grew up, defending yourself could be how to answer people’s comments, or how to answer people’s punches, or BOTH!

And I think a lot of us growing up know how difficult it is but we appreciate this upbringing because it shapes who we are today. We handle each situation with confidence and without fear.

However, because our upbringing and our culture can sometimes be hostile and in your face confrontational, it means that we have a hard time with healthy confrontation and communication.

And what's interesting is that the people in today's Gospel have the exact same problem. When Jesus speaks with them, it’s after Jesus heals a blind man and the blind man announces that Jesus did this for him.

Jesus is telling them: the fact that you claim to see the truth, that you claim to know God — but you can't recognize what's standing right in front of you — that's what makes you guilty.

If you were in their place, some religious leader flat out tells you, “You’re blind and you are guilty.” If I was to tell you that to your face, what would be your reaction?

Counterattack — "Oh yeah? Let me tell you about your problems.

"Righteous indignation — "How dare you say that to me? Who do you think you are?

"Innocent victim — "After everything I've done for God, for this family, for this community — I'm the one in the wrong?"

Now this is classic, textbook Defensiveness, and we’re all guilty of it. It’s present in our friendships, our families, and even our marriages. In fact, Dr. John Gottman, Dr. John Gottman, a marriage researcher who studied thousands of couples over forty years, says it’s one of the four things that kill the life of a marriage.

So although we’ve been taught to hold our own and be ready to protect ourselves in the case of an attack, we don’t have to do that with Jesus. Unfortunately that’s what the Pharisees do when Jesus clearly lays out the truth to them.

They attack him back, “You were born in utter sin, and would you teach us?”

They say, “This man is not from God, he doesn’t keep the Sabbath”

Finally, they claim their innocence asking him “Are we also blind?” Is that what you’re saying about us?

Unfortunately, defensiveness when in conversation doesn’t only escalate the conflict in our friendships, families, and marriages, but it also BLOCKs the resolution of it. It doesn’t allow us to see through a resolution.

The Pharisees weren’t able to see Jesus for who he was and hear what he wanted them to hear because they couldn’t admit who they really were. Defensiveness is a form of blindness where we tell ourselves, “I can’t afford to let these words in.”

The reason this is so important for us to hear today is because Dr. John Gottman says defensiveness will kill your marriage. Jesus says it kill your soul.

The good news is that we don’t have to be the Pharisee in this story. We don’t have to fight with Jesus. We can put our guard down. We can put our guns away. We can let him see what we’re hiding. We can let him take control of what we think we have handled.

Jesus presents himself today as a Shepherd who already knows that we, his sheep, don't have all the answers. He knows we carry guilt and don't know what to do with it except bury it down deep.

Let down our walls for him. Let down our walls with our spouses. With our children. With our parents. Don't be afraid to repair — because with Jesus in the picture, repair is always possible."

With Jesus, we don't meet a wolf who comes to condemn. We meet a Shepherd who comes to repair, to redeem, and to lay down his life for us. Amen.