Trust & Communication

I am in the midst of a two day speech and debate tournament right now, so I have no literary analysis to post (more John Milton is soon to come, though). For now, here is one of the speeches I gave today:

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<>“Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left,
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.”

So wrote the author of “St. Patrick’s Breastplate,” a medieval Celtic poem. This poem was written either by or in honor of St. Patrick, the great British missionary who evangelized 5^th century Ireland and brought the majority of the population to Christ in his lifetime. The author of this poem voiced Patrick’s longing for his devotion to Christ to be apparent in all aspects of his life, not just his words. This, most would agree, is a noble sentiment, one that should be the goal of all Christians, but for St. Patrick, this goal was a necessity. St. Patrick realized, as have many other great missionaries, that successful evangelism depends on this principle. While words are the primary tool we use in communication, our audience has to trust in our sincerity in order for our words to have weight. Trust is essential to effective communication. Let’s examine this principle more closely by examining our audience, our message, and ways to make the two connect.

In Alexander Solzhenitsen’s book, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, he explores the basic needs of humanity by examining prisoners in a Stalinist era Siberian labor camp. Faced with a fight for their most basic survival needs, the prisoners eek more than the food and warmth necessary to keep them alive. Within these starved, half-frozen, overworked men exists a desire for more than survival, an insatiable craving for relationship. Those that do abandon all scruples and values for the sake of survival, remarks the main character Ivan, are the first to die. In the midst of discomfort and cruelty, the men in the prison camp keep their souls alive by seeking relationship with one another. That spark of humanity, more than anything else, is their hope of survival. This book gives a profound insight into the nature of man. It reveals that inside each of us is a yearning that can be satisfied only by relationship. Man does not live by bread alone.

This innate yearning has begotten a quest for relationship that usually ends in disillusionment. When someone thinks he has found satisfaction, it turns out to be an illusion. The Roman poet Catallus reflected his disillusionment in his poem, “My Woman Says.” “My woman says there’s nobody she’d rather marry/than me, not even Jupiter himself if he asked her./She says, but what a woman says to a hungry lover/you might as well scribble in sand and swift water.” As the author of Ecclesiastes wrote, “This too is vanity, a chasing after the wind.” There are millennia between Catallus and ourselves, but people still identify with his frustration because the majority of humanity hasn’t moved beyond the desire for relationship. This, the one desire common to mankind, is the one desire it can’t satiate.

As Christians, we realize that our message provides the answer to this dilemma. St. Irenaeus said, “The glory of God is man fully alive,” meaning that men and women are meant to reflect God’s glory by living to the fullest extent of their being in connection with the personal God who created them. God is the ultimate personality, and people can realize their longing for relationship only in communion with Him. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich showed us that man does not live by bread alone; Christianity reveals that he needs the water of life. However, it’s not easy for people to accept the Christian message. William Gurnall voiced this: “It is the image of God reflected in you that so enrages Hell; it is at this that the demons hurl their mightiest weapons.” People search for relationship, but they also live in fear of being tricked. Like Catallus (My Woman Says), people know longer believe what others say, and they won’t listen to anyone unless they trust them first.

That’s the nature of our mission field and of our message, and we have to bring the two together. We’ve seen that this task requires more than words because too many people believe that talk is cheap. Each individual receives the challenge to circumvent the barrier of distrust so that our words can have effect. So how do we position ourselves so that we can communicate this message? In 1 Thessalonians 1 Paul writes, “…our gospel came to you not simply with words, but also with power, with the Holy Spirit, and with deep conviction. You know how we lived among you for your sake.” These words embody the desire of the author of “St. Patrick’s Breastplate.” Paul and his fellow evangelists came to the Thessalonians not only with the words of the gospel, but also with the Holy Spirit shining through all of their actions. They lived among the Thessalonians and the witness of their lives paved the way for their words. Later, in chapter 2 we read, “We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well, because you had become so dear to us.” At the heart of this verse is the concept of unconditional love. It would seem that this is also at the heart of the necessity for more than words. If the question is, “Why more than words?” The answer is that love is of prime importance. Love is the way to secure the trust that is fundamental to effective communication and evangelism. The people who surround us thirst for relationship, and by offering them love, we can gain their trust. If we use primarily words in an effort to reach beyond the cynicism that characterizes the disillusioned, we’ll be met with words, but if we use lives, our own lives, we’ll be met with lives. Paul’s love caused him to live among the Thessalonians. His loving, Christ-like witness gained their trust, and then he was able to use his words. The same can be said of St. Patrick, Mother Theresa, and Jim Elliot. In the stories of great missionaries and evangelists, we find the common pattern: love gains trust, and trust is the context in which words are effective.

This pattern has held true as we have examined our audience, our message, and the connection between the two. We have a message of love to communicate to an audience starved for love, and the way we communicate it is through a life of love. Our primary tool is not words, but love. Jesus himself voiced this principle when he said, “Greater love has no man this, that he lay down his life for a friend.”