We Were Polite And Nothing More

Nobody has ever been rude to him. Not once, in eleven years.

He is greeted properly. He is asked how the drive was. Somebody makes sure he has a drink and somebody else asks about his work in the way people ask about work when they are not going to follow up.

And that is the whole of it. Eleven years of faultless courtesy, and if you had to write down three things about the man you would struggle to get past two.

He came from a different world than the one your family comes from. Different country, or different class, or a different kind of house entirely, and everybody handled it beautifully, and the handling is the problem.

And he has been to everything. Eleven years of Christmases, two funerals, the sixtieth, a great many Sunday afternoons in a garden. He has never missed one and he has never been late.

That is a lot of hours in the same rooms with somebody, and an attempt tonight to write a paragraph about the man would be finished in about two lines.

Politeness as a wall

Let me name what courtesy does when it is the whole relationship, because it is not neutral.

Politeness is a set of forms that let two people occupy a space without friction. It is genuinely useful, and in most of life it is enough. Between strangers on a train it is exactly right.

Inside a family it does something else. It maintains the distance it was designed to make comfortable, and it does it so smoothly that nobody can point at a moment where anything went wrong.

You have been keeping a distance with a set of good manners, and no amount of courtesy has ever once been able to do what one real question does. James 2:1 says have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ with respect of persons, which is the written word naming what sorting people looks like, and the Holy Spirit is the one who can get somebody past a form and into a conversation.

And he is a whole man. He knows exactly what is happening, and he has known for eleven years, and he handles it well because he has had a great deal of practice at being handled well.

He is right about at least one thing nobody in that family has conceded to him. And nobody has ever asked him about the thing he actually cares about, because nobody knows what it is.

You are able to find out one thing about a man you have known for a decade, and eleven years in the same rooms has never once been the same as knowing somebody. The Spirit of God is what makes a real question possible after a long courtesy, and it is written in James 2 that faith is not held with respect of persons.

With respect of persons

My brethren, have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect of persons. (James 2:1, King James Version)

The example James gives immediately afterward is worth knowing, because it is not about rudeness at all.

A man comes into an assembly in fine clothing and a poor man comes in shabby, and the fine one is given a good seat and the poor one is told to stand or sit somewhere out of the way. Nobody in that scene is unkind. Everybody is perfectly courteous to both men.

The sorting is done entirely through good manners, and James calls it what it is.

You are being shown that sorting can be done politely, and no set of good manners has ever once made a distinction disappear. It is written in James 2:1 that we do not hold the faith with respect of persons, which is the written word looking straight through a courteous arrangement, and the Holy Spirit is the one who names a thing that has no rude moment anywhere in it.

And notice what James does not do. He does not accuse anybody of hating the poor man. The whole point of the passage is that this happens among people who would be genuinely offended by the suggestion.

That is the difficulty and that is why it lasts eleven years. Nothing in it is deniable and nothing in it is defensible either.

You are able to see a thing with no rude moment in it, and a courteous distance has never once been invisible to the person standing on the other side of it. The Spirit of God is the one who makes a soft thing visible, and James 2 puts the whole example inside a room where everybody was perfectly well behaved.

One real question

Here is the practical thing and it is one question, this week.

Not about his work in the way that means nothing. Not about the drive. Something that assumes he has an interior life, and then the second half, which is the harder one: listen to the whole answer.

You are able to ask one question that cannot be answered in six words, and one real question has never once been an intrusion at a family table. The Holy Spirit is the one who supplies the question and holds a man through the answer, and it is written that we do not hold the faith with respect of persons.

Good options are things nobody has asked him. What his father did. What he misses. What he found strangest about this family when he first arrived, which he will laugh at and then answer honestly if you do not flinch.

And the listening is the whole assignment. Courtesy has a shape where a person asks, receives thirty seconds, says something warm and moves on. Break that shape. When the answer stops, wait, and then ask a second question about the thing he just said.

That second question is the entire difference between courtesy and interest, and everybody on earth can tell the two apart instantly.

You are able to ask a second question, and one follow up has never once been a small thing to the person receiving it. The Spirit of God is what holds a man in a conversation past the point where the form would have ended it, and James 2:1 refuses to let a room be sorted, however well mannered the sorting is.