“We have a problem,” announced the elementary school principal to his staff. “Karen is nine years old and has not been attending school for months. We’re supposed to see that she gets an education.” Two days earlier, Karen’s father, an unemployed truck driver, had forced Karen to come to school. After Karen kicked out the windshield on their way into the parking lot, the father and the principal decided to lock Karen in a waiting room so they could talk more peacefully about the problem. When they returned they discovered that Karen had ripped the door molding off with her bare hands. Maybe Karen wasn’t quite ready for a classroom experience. So in the staff meeting the principal swallowed hard and said, “I’d like a volunteer, someone who would be willing to go out to tutor Karen in her home.”
In this true story, the teacher (a member of my Bible study group) who chose to become the tutor was faced with this question: How do I reach Karen, a poor, rural, violent fourth-grader? Christians who hope to influence others often find themselves trying to communicate with people in circumstances quite unlike their own. How can a pastor from a strong family address the needs of those from highly contentious divorced families? How can a male counselor identify with rape victims? In these situations, followers of Jesus sometimes point to the Incarnation for guidance. Since Christ became flesh, the reasoning goes, we also should go to great lengths to reach others. True enough, but the Incarnation provides much more insight into communication than is usually suggested. Although Jesus modeled a deeply other-centered approach, he also exposed the limitations of some traditional truisms about communication, handed down over the years since Aristotle’s day. I would like to examine those limitations by imaginatively using Jesus’ format in the Sermon on the Mount: “You have heard it said [Aristotle’s perspective], but I say… [the incarnational view].”
The incarnation as a guide
The whole Bible can be seen as God’s character and ideas incarnated into accessible words. In the Old Testament, God spoke into creation by voice and fire, through floods, and even out of a burning bush. God changed his shape to communicate with his people. Most important, the New Testament recounts how the Son of God became flesh, not just as the baby we celebrate at Christmas but as the beggarly adult who experienced bland food, bad weather, and squabbles among friends. In addition, Paul wrote in Philippians 2:5-8 (NIV) that believers are to learn from the Incarnation, not by imitating Christ’s literal crucifixion but by approximating his motivation and methods. Since our “attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus,” we are helped by studying how he lowered himself to the form of a servant. Although Christ’s primary purpose was not to set up an incarnational approach to communication, I believe we can describe his “attitude” in three themes that apply to our rhetorical decisions: the temporary abdication of power, identification, and service.
Temporary Abdication of Power
“I don’t know where to begin with Karen,” the teacher says. “How can I be the authority figure I need to be if I leave the classroom?” “You have heard it said,” Jesus might respond, “that persuasion is to be used as a weapon to triumph over your adversaries. But I say to you that true communication is less about winning a battle and more about speaking respectfully on the level of others.” Paul wrote that Christ “did not consider equality with God something to be grasped” or “to be exploited.” Although God could have tyrannized his Creation, his supreme expression was in a poor, rural carpenter. Certainly, he humbled himself. Controversy rages about what godly powers might have been restricted in the Incarnation. Whatever debatable losses may or may not have occurred, we could at least say that although Jesus remained fully God, his deity was not immediately recognized.
In this mystery, Christ left his privileged position voluntarily for a time. He chose to “abdicate power temporarily.” (I thank Dominic LaRusso for this phrase.) How might we imagine the measure of this sacrifice? What if Rembrandt were to become one of his own self-portraits? Or James Cameron were to become the ship in his movie, Titanic? Those examples only begin to capture the distance traversed in the Incarnation. Perhaps that is why Karl Barth saw that Christ was “in humility the highest.” Jesus’ willingness to step down continued in his encounters with the shunned Samaritan woman, pitiful, forsaken Lazarus, and the destitute blind man. It was his common practice. It was also temporary. Philippians 2:9 says that after his death, “God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name.”
In our age, we often hear that communication should be thought of as power. And so it is. Sergeants bark orders to their troops. Parents say yes or no. Teenagers influence their peers with, “What will others think?” If we are to use the Incarnation as a model for communication, Jesus showed us that we should not automatically exercise this power. Often, we find that he stooped before he stood. He lived as a dependent child before he went to the synagogue to talk with the rabbis. He allowed John to baptize him. He addressed the poor before he confronted local magistrates. Jesus often left his “rightful place” so he could speak on the level of others. In so doing, he highlighted three aspects of the temporary abdication of power: preparing for misunderstanding, embracing humility, and resisting manipulative speech.
Preparing for misunderstanding
When the Son of God transformed himself into a human, the world did not recognize him. Jesus so understood this alteration that he said on the cross, “Forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Here is a speech-act we can imitate. Every day, when we empty our ideas into our words, we can abdicate the power we feel in our knowledge and consider alternate ways to incarnate our message. To be unwilling to have this attitude would be like saying that if we heard Handel’s Messiah for the first time on a toy piano, we should know that the notes represented a choir and orchestra. Parent-child conflict often revolves around expectations for immediate clarity. As a middle-aged father I can easily forget that my teenage daughters don’t have the experience that I do. I get impatient when they reject what I consider obvious advice, such as being careful about what they wear in front of teenage boys. I need to give them grace while I try new ways to communicate my message.
Embracing humility
If the Creator of the universe became an infant wholly dependent on his parents, we should be able, as needed, to give up the privileges of rank or wealth or comfort. One problem is that we are so stuck in the metaphor of “argument as war” that we approach disagreements by strategizing to defeat our opponents. With humility, we might see that communication need not be a weapon in a human battleground but, say, a loom for building the fabric of community. Humility allows us to risk the temporary abdication of power. A few years ago, one of my students broke his neck and became paralyzed while attempting a backwards flip. When I went to visit him in the hospital over the next month, I felt pressure to come to him as “the wise professor.” I quickly learned I had very little to say. Although I found it hard to abdicate the power to know what to say, I needed to give up this role so that I could simply be with him in his pain.
Resisting manipulative speech
Power is seductive. Every dictator, elected president, and guru has felt the tug to get his or her own way at the expense of others. Did Jesus? We know he was tempted as we are. Think how easy it would have been for him to say to the Pharisees, “Shut up and get out of the way,” or to the disciples, “You dopes! No one obeys less than you do.” But he did not abuse his persuasive power. Sometimes we want to control others “for their own good.” Preachers can bully their congregations. A youth leader can take advantage of a teen’s immaturity. We also manipulate by unreflectively passing on our culture’s unbiblical biases. We accentuate the pain of our culture’s “losers” when we praise only beauty and wealth, and champion athletes.
Perhaps the readiness to abdicate power is a sign of mature leadership. Thomas à Kempis observed, “No man can live in the public eye without risk to his soul, unless he who would prefer to remain silent. No man can safely command, unless he who has learned to obey well.” Though we should abdicate power temporarily, we must exercise wisdom as we do so. A willingness to step down is not a condemnation of power altogether. Rhetorical power cannot be avoided in any case, and the wise use of power is inevitable in a moral society. The legal system’s judicious restraint, the media’s dissemination of information, and a teacher’s motivational speech are all necessary and beneficial. To abdicate power completely would shirk responsibility and leave the weak defenseless. Jesus was neither a despot nor a doormat. The teacher who became Karen’s tutor abdicated power by leaving prepared lessons, predictable norms, and the comforts of the classroom. All this enabled her just to get inside the girl’s house. Then things got difficult.
Identification
“I couldn’t believe my first day,” the teacher wrote in a prayer journal. “In a dirty kitchen, Karen sat at a table while her mother yelled at her. Karen didn’t say one word.” “You have heard it said,” Jesus might respond, “that good conversation requires a study of the audience. But I say to you that unless you study yourself, unless you can find in yourself the qualities of the person you want to reach, true communication will not be found.” When the Messiah came, he did not come as a lizard. Although God could have taken the shape of a reptile or a rock, Jesus was “made in human likeness.” We have heard this Scripture so often we might miss its dramatic implications for communication. We think, “Well, of course the Son of God became a person, to reach persons.”
It seems so obvious. But what about God’s view of this choice? Wouldn’t it have been easier to call out commands from heaven? Wouldn’t it have required less suffering? True identification in communication goes well beyond traditional audience analysis to the more significant human connections of seeking empathy as a spiritual activity and transcending common ground.
Seeking empathy as a spiritual activity
In the nineteenth century Hudson Taylor left England to start missions work in China. When he returned he wore a braided ponytail and had long, curling fingernails, signs of a spiritual Chinese person. To his critics he said that Paul commanded we should become all things to all people. Was Taylor overdoing it? Or are we underdoing it? Are we willing to change our appearance to reach others? Are we willing to change more than appearance? Although we can’t look like every member of our audience, we can look for them. Where? Inside ourselves. As we better learn how to love God, and our neighbors as ourselves, we can put off our right to see the world only through our own lens. We can use our imagination for one of its intended purposes, to become like others so we can better understand them. Isn’t this what divided husbands and wives often long for—a sincere effort on the part of one to find ways to appreciate the other?
When G. K. Chesterton’s fictional detective Father Brown was asked how he solved so many baffling crimes, he said he employed the “religious exercise” of looking into himself until he found the culprit: “I wait till I know I am inside a murderer, thinking his thoughts, wrestling with his passions … till I am really a murderer.” Just as Jesus became one of us, we can explore the depths of our own souls to find the human potential others have acted upon. Henri Nouwen wrote, “The man who has spent many hours trying to understand, feel, and clarify the alienation and confusion of one of his fellow men might well be the best equipped to speak to the needs of the many, because all men are one and the wellspring of pain and joy.” Can a suburban mother of toddlers identify with a young male’s problems with urban living? Can a healthy white male identify with the fears of an elderly Latino dying of cancer? Yes, by God’s incarnational grace.
Transcending common ground
To follow Christ’s attitude in identification, we have to get out of ourselves. We must leave behind our self-preoccupation and move beyond our simplest attempts at finding common ground. Harold Barrett said, “Those who see only themselves in others find only themselves—and talk only to themselves.”
The Incarnation moves us to see our deeper bonds with others; that we are all made in the image of God; that we long for meaning; are in need of grace and forgiveness; live in a moral universe; and are under the supervision of God. To know the human soul is to recognize that temptations reach rich and poor, faithful and untrusting. Though Jesus did not choose evil, we do. Our wrestling with pride and jealousy can help us understand the motives of those who take those sins to grosser ends than we have as yet. So, how could a sheltered, suburban teacher reach Karen and her parents? Not by condemning them or pretending to be above them or staying safe from all their pain. Incarnational identification requires risks that may leave the communicator wounded.
On her second visit to Karen’s house, the teacher suggested that the tutorial take place away from the mother. As the two walked through the yard toward the barn, Karen threatened the teacher with a stick, attracting the attention of Karen’s imposing father. The teacher ran after Karen into the barn only to find her sitting on an old, dirty mattress. Gently, the teacher spoke to the student. Just when Karen began to open up to her the father burst into the barn, his tall frame silhouetted ominously in the doorway. He screamed at Karen for assaulting the teacher. Frightened of what he might do, the teacher assured the father that things were fine and that they would probably do better alone. Reluctantly, he left. The teacher turned around to see Karen shaking, curled up in the fetal position on the spider-infested mattress.
Service
Frustrated, Karen’s teacher moaned the next day to friends, “I feel like I’m not getting anywhere. I’d do just about anything for Karen’s sake. She’s got to get better.” “You have heard it said,” Jesus might respond, “that we should persuade for our own sake or for the advancement of others, but I say that true communication should be motivated by service to the glory of God.” Can we imagine a U.S. president traveling on foot in an obscure region, intentionally avoiding the comforts of the times, eventually lugging on his shoulders the means of his own execution? As Paul said in Philippians, Jesus, the Son of God, took on the “very nature of a servant.” He suffered while communicating, preaching in the hot sun to hostile or unenthusiastic crowds and explaining his parables to slow-witted disciples. Without this kind of commitment to service, the first two principles could be used as a means to selfish ends. Incarnational service means speaking for the glory of God and persuading holistically.
Speaking for the glory of God
In our narcissistic age, service is attractive only if it is seen as a mark of financial success (“We’d be pleased to have someone of your stature on the board of our Christian college”) or as a sign of personal fulfillment (“You’ve just won Teacher of the Year”). As would be expected, incarnational service is not self-centered. Although we say we believe this, we usually don’t consider what it means beyond stating that “I am doing such and such to the glory of God” (see Philippians 4:11b).
Augustine developed this perspective by arguing that only God could be loved for his own sake. Loving anything or anyone else for their own sake would lead to perversions of love. His view highlights three potential communication problems. First, we can speak on behalf of others to advance ourselves. Certainly, glory is not given to God when we are deceptive or prideful in our service. Second, when we speak for our neighbor’s sake instead of God’s, we may attempt to meet our neighbor’s needs as we inaccurately perceive them. One woman I know telephones her married children every day, “just to see what I can do to help.” Her “service” is a weight they can barely tolerate. Third, we may regard our neighbors too highly, serving them to please them (lapsing into co-dependency or flattery), or avoiding the kind of service that truly needs to be extended toward them (confronting or rebuking). Instead, when we speak to the glory of God, our communication will be measured by what pleases God, which, ultimately, would be in the best interests of our neighbors and ourselves.
Persuading holistically
We often hear communication touted as a technique that will solve our problems. We are told that communication breakdown is the source of our problems and, if we want to get ahead, we need to learn better communication skills. The incarnational aspect of service suggests a more holistic view. Just as Christ made his sacrifices for a higher purpose, incarnational communicators serve by acting redemptively toward their audiences. “What does the whole person need to hear?” is a more important question than “How can I change my technique to speak more convincingly?”
On the third visit, the teacher found Karen in her room lying silently on her bed. Karen would not speak to the teacher but she let the teacher speak to her. For the entire hour, the teacher spoke softly to Karen and stroked her hair. Nothing else occurred. The teacher did not insist that Karen do her lessons. During the fourth visit, Karen began to respond. Soon regular lessons began. After a few months, to the amazement of staff and faculty, she returned to school. Though her life continued to be marked by struggle, she was clearly influenced by her teacher’s love.
Together, these three principles offer compelling guidance. In the temporary abdication of power we are given a mandate to love on the level of others. Identification supplies a method to love according to the other’s experience. Service provides a motive to love for the glory of God. Although I have discussed these principles as Paul presented his themes in Philippians, we act upon them in reverse order. Motivated by a desire to serve, we apply the method of identification, recognizing that eventually we will be called on to follow the mandate of the temporary abdication of power. Since we often wish to assert ourselves selfishly, we need to be reminded to “S.I.T. before we stand.”
The teacher had communicated incarnationally. For years afterward Karen corresponded with her, testifying to the love that went beyond the district’s task to educate. The teacher knew she should S.I.T. before she stood. She had emptied herself in ways that Karen could understand to serve for the glory of God. That teacher had the mind of Christ.
Greg Spencer is a professor of Communication Studies at Westmont College. He is the author of Reframing the Soul: How Words Transform Our Faith (Leafwood, 2018), Awakening the Quieter Virtues (IVP, 2010), and others. Currently he is working on a semi-autobiographical novel about growing up in an alcoholic home, called Boomer Boy. You can see more of Greg’s work on his website, gregspencerbooks.com.
(A version of this essay appeared in Radix 29:4)