Recently on a sunny late morning I decided to go to the Ross Thrift store to exchange a couple of items for store credit. Well the customer service person so happens to be a very attractive Hispanic woman. I told myself, since I’m reading Mortification of Sin, that I will just ignore her to prevent any lusteth of the eyes. She greeted me pleasantly enough. I said hi, but made an effort not to really pay her much attention other than what was necessary for the transaction to take place. So then she asks me how my day is going. I reply “nice, but I’m a little tired.” She fumbles around with the tags a bit, and then finally prints out the receipt and hands me the gift card. “Thanks and have a nice day” she said. I said “You too” and walked away feeling a little proud that I had been holy and not lusted over her. But is this really the way to fight lust?
No more than 10 minutes later did I start to feel bad about what I did. I realized that what I did was very flawed. The whole reason why lust is so insidious is that it completely objectifies women and doesn’t treat them as a real person. What I had just done was really not any better. I had ignored her, and in so doing, failed to recognize the real person that I was transacting with. This gives me deep sadness even as I write this, because here was an opportunity to not just refrain from lusting, but to positively engage someone as a person and perhaps by God’s grace bless her in some way. Satan would probably love that I stop lusting, if he knew that I would never engage another woman as a person again.
And as I continue to think about this, I don’t just do this to hot women who I might lust over. I do this to the grocery store clerk, the bank teller, the fast food worker…and on. We live in such a consumerist society that I believe we begin to see the men and women who work in the service sector as no more than ATMs. We go up and make our transaction and split. Is this the standard of holiness that God calls us to? As long as I don’t do anything bad, I’m okay? I’m afraid that this is just another example of how we’ve created our own standard of holiness and have completely missed the foundation of all of God’s commands, namely to love; both God and fellow man. The foundation of the law is not don’t but do. Abstaining from something is one thing, and is often of value. However, to always love God and others, with a deep sacrificial love is a much more radical call and one that we cannot ignore or water down if we desire to be called followers of Christ.