The Very Important Subject

A woman on Facebook asked a question this morning and I couldn’t help but be struck by how she began. There is a tricky passage in Matthew chapter 24 that stymies a lot of people, and she tripped over it during her morning meditation. What is Jesus saying? Why does it seem so jumbled? How do you sort out the ideas? 

Actually, it is really not that hard. You start by doing what we seem to never do…you back up and read the question. If I have learned anything in years and years of marriage, it’s that how I talk with my husband is different from how I talk with my daughters or my close friends. When it’s the former, I must introduce the subject. When it’s the latter, we just dive right in with the unannounced subject and ask our questions.

“Did you see the dress as blue or gold?!”

“I saw it as gold, but of course, Annaliese saw blue!”

To my daughter, the conversation made sense. To my husband, if I didn’t say, “There is a dress on the internet that some people see as gold and some as blue,” but began with the above, he’d say, “What are we talking about?”

I wonder if we wouldn’t all benefit from remembering to begin in the beginning. If we said what we are going to discuss, would we not all be in the know much faster? If we knew the questions, would we be better prepared to get the answer?

Seeing how confused the world is, it is obviously time for a lesson in first listening to what is being asked.

“Did you hear what he said?!” can actually apply to lots of things, and turning it into an exclamation only clouds it further. But not defining what we are talking about is a way to keep our listener slightly in the dark, so we hold the upper hand in the conversation. It is often intentionally vague. Perhaps we should stop our excited friend, as my husband stops me, and make sure everyone knows what is being discussed. Watch a Karen, sometime. They are loud, and purposefully trying to hide the real subject.  They won’t tell you what is going on because what is going on is they are irrationally upset and just want the upper hand. If they first calmed themselves (and no one does that anymore), they couldn’t use you to vent about their life by using whatever situation they have latched onto for a good rant. Like readers of the book of Matthew, the question is missed so the answer is nonsense.

In the case of Matthew 24, you have to back up and see that the disciples are asking two questions, not one.  First, they address Jesus’ statement that the city will be destroyed.  Then, that leads their minds to when will time end? Backing up to see there are two questions makes it much easier to see that there are two answers. Plowing blindly into the answers is always going to lead to confusion.

As the master of rushing willy-nilly into whatever is in my head, I can attest to the introduction of the subject as a real game changer. And while we cherish those we know well enough that the tumbling of ideas works, we should also realize that oft times, we just need to let others what we are talking about before we talk about it.