How good are you at ‘tough love’?

Her name was Bridget*, (*not her real name) and I knew her back in my days in the seminary. Bridget was a troubled youth. I met her through the TEC retreat program. It took a little while to figure out the root problem. Bridget was an alcoholic. Her family situation was tenuous at best, and that led her down a path to drinking heavily all the time. So she’d call in the midst of her drinking and pour out her woes and in my ‘good seminarian pose’, I’d listen patiently for long phone conversations, of which she’d remember very little the next day. Finally, it dawned on me, I was not helping her get well. I was a part of the problem. So I changed the rules. If she called while drinking, I would end the phone call. She didn’t like it. “You don’t love me!” came the wounded cry. “No, Bridget, it is because I love you that I will not stand by and watch you throw your life away.” I don’t know if she ever understood. (as a side bar, she eventually went into treatment after she took out a traffic road sign on a highway…)

It is called ‘tough love’ in our day and most of us are not very good at it. The brutally honest loving of people in a way that calls them out of their addiction into freedom. Ezekiel called it being a watchman. “I have appointed you watchman for the house of Israel…” The role of the watchman is not about being a busybody, but rather living with a wide eyed awareness to what is good and right and life-giving. Watchmen, because they have a sense of what is good, also are able to sense danger. To sense what is hazardous for the individual and for the community. And who can then sound the alarm. Sound the call to action, sound the prophetic call to change.

It is not a popular role in our culture today. Nor is it popular on college campuses where we overlook almost everything under the guise of ‘being open to diversity.’ We often hear comments like: “Well, if they want to throw away their life on that worthless man/woman/addiction (you fill in the blank), then that’s their business.” But what Ezekiel and Matthew are trying to teach us today is that it is not ever just their business. Because of our solidarity as human beings and because of our belief in Jesus, what happens to the least as well as the greatest is vital to who we are. Paul says it so succinctly: “Owe nothing to anyone, except to love one another…” Because we love one another, we cannot but speak out.

Yet, it is so difficult to be a watchman. Because we have done it so poorly as people. So poorly as a world. We’ve done it in ways so that we can feel good, instead of by means that might be helpful to the one who is struggling. Instead of confronting the one who is in difficulty, we’ve talked about them behind their back. Or we’ve done the ‘end run’ – talking to everyone connected to them but the person.

It seems this struggle has been around for a while. It is why Matthew lays down the rules of engagement for ‘watchman behavior’. Talk to the person one on one first. Then bring loved ones in to witness. Then bring in the church. Then, the wider world. But when you do it, do it out of love. A love that seeks their good and not our own agenda. Perhaps a good rule of thumb is that ‘if you find yourself with too much energy about a confrontation – like “I can’t wait to lay into them and set them straight” – it is probably not your job to do it… Because only great love will allow them to forgive us the tough choices we invite them to live…

“I have appointed you watchman for the house of Israel…” To speak out to an individual, to a community, to a nation, to a world. To let them know there is danger. There is peril. There is good to be chosen instead of evil.

This week, we will be inundated with pundits reflecting on 9-11. Perhaps one of the ways to listen to all of this is with the eyes of a watchman. What about the rhetoric and language is life giving? What about what is spoken is dangerous for us as a people. Be vigilant. Be watchful.

To this day, I don’t know if Bridget ever forgave me for not speaking to her when she was drinking. I like to think so, because she did invite me to visit during her recovery. But I knew in my heart of hearts that I couldn’t keep doing what I had been. And in that moment, I became a watchman for the house of Israel. Around this table, a community gathers. May we be good watchmen for each other - calling each other to life and love and freedom… Amen…