The Dangers of Rolling Our Eyes at Others
By: Michael Murray
Tags: Spirituality, Jesus, Bible, Christianity, Life

Photo by Max-Jakob Beer on Unsplash

A Devotional on John 1:43–51 (focus on verses 43–46)

In the musical Les Miserables, a group of students revolt against the corrupt Paris government. The group is led by Enjolras, a passionate man willing to sacrifice everything to see change. He leads his fellow revolutionaries in the rousing anthem, “Do You Hear The People Sing?” (Go ahead, put it up at full volume and belt it out!)

In the first chapter of the gospel of John, we read about an encounter between Jesus and a young man named Nathanael. When I think of Nathanael, I imagine someone like Enjolras.

Like Enjolras, Nathanael hung out with a group of like-minded young men who dreamed of revolution. Israel was under the thumb of Roman rule, and they longed to be set free.

Nathanael and his friends knew God had promised to send Israel a savior. They all had theories on what that savior — the rightful king of Israel — would be like. But when Philip suggested that Jesus from Nazareth was the promised one, Nathanael scoffed.

“Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?” Nathanael asked. (Verse 46.)

Nazareth was a small, backwater district where nothing exciting ever happened. Nathanael quickly dismissed Jesus because he came from “the wrong side of town.”

In his book Encounters with Jesus, Tim Keller says:

Dismissiveness kills all creativity and problem-solving.

How quick are we to shut down a conversation because the other person “just doesn’t get it”? Nathanael pounced on Philip’s idea that Jesus could be the savior. The Message version of the Bible puts his response this way:

“Nazareth? You’ve got to be kidding.”

That sounds like a reply you might see on a Facebook post!

Keller goes on to say there is one surefire way to tell if you’re being dismissive: check for the eye roll.

If I’m rolling my eyes at someone, I’m dismissing their ideas, and maybe even dismissing them as a person. That’s a dangerous place to be. It means I’ve shut myself off from learning about them. I can’t roll my eyes and show compassion at the same time.

I’ve seen both Christians and atheists have dismissive attitudes towards each other.

Christians dismiss atheists for ridiculous ideas like evolution (because there’s no way God could use evolution as a method of creating life!).

Atheists dismiss Christians for ridiculous ideas like creation (because there’s no way evolution would need God’s hand to guide it!).

Soon we’re all rolling our eyes at each other.

So how do we fight off dismissiveness when we feel it creeping into our lives?

One way is to think the best of people! Assume they’ve thought through their ideas. When someone holds a view that goes against mine, I can either dismiss them or ask why they hold that opinion. I can either roll my eyes or choose to take their point of view seriously.

It doesn’t mean I will suddenly agree with their view. But I might learn something from them, and (gasp!) maybe even begin to see them as a fellow human being and not simply as a set of “wrong” ideas.

Curiosity invites conversation and builds friendships with people who are different from me.

Questions to Ponder:

Why do you think Nathanael dismissed Jesus so quickly?

What (or whose) ideas are you most likely to dismiss? How can you invite conversation instead?