The Mood Is Rude

Read

1 Corinthians 13:4-5 “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.”

Think

Lisa was driving our SUV one afternoon on a two-lane road with our twin daughters in the backseat. They were about seven years old at the time. She was following a truck pulling a trailer, and the truck just stopped. The driver had no idea Lisa was behind him. Lisa tapped the horn, and one of our daughters leaned forward from the backseat and said, “Mom, don’t honk at the guy in the truck! He might do that finger thing!”

Seven years old. She had already learned what to expect from the world. A first-grader had already mapped out the predictable behavior of an angry stranger on the road. She didn’t learn that from us. She learned it from watching. From absorbing. From living in a culture where rudeness has become the default setting.

We have a rudeness problem, and it goes way deeper than bad drivers and long checkout lines. A study on rudeness found that six out of ten Americans believe rudeness is increasing. Nearly eight out of ten said it’s a serious problem in our society. And that study is over twenty years old. It hasn’t gotten better since then. If anything, we’ve added new platforms for rudeness. Social media. Comment sections. Group texts. We’ve given rudeness a megaphone and a global stage.

But I want you to think about something. Rudeness isn’t just a social problem. It’s a spiritual one.

The word “rude” comes from a root that means to disfigure. To take something that was meant to be beautiful and distort it. When you’re rude to someone, you’re disfiguring the image of God in them. You’re treating a person made in his likeness as if they don’t matter, as if they’re an obstacle between you and whatever you want next. That’s not a manners issue. That’s a worship issue.

And I’m not talking about the big, dramatic acts of rudeness – the screaming matches and the road rage and the public meltdowns. I’m talking about the low-grade, everyday rudeness that we’ve all accepted as normal. The half-hearted greeting. The conversation we’re only pretending to listen to because we’re scrolling through our phone under the table. The way we talk about people when they leave the room. That kind of rudeness doesn’t make headlines, but it erodes something. It chips away at the way we see each other. And over time, a culture that chips away at dignity long enough will lose its sense of it altogether.

Paul understood this. When he wrote to the church in Corinth about love, he didn’t keep things vague and sentimental. He got specific. He said love “does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking.” That phrase “does not dishonor others” is the same idea as saying love is not rude. Love doesn’t disfigure people. Love doesn’t dismiss. Love doesn’t look through someone on the way to someone more important.

Think about that for a second. Paul is telling us that every rude interaction is a failure of love. Every sarcastic jab. Every eye roll. Every ignored greeting. Every time we treat a waiter like they’re invisible or cut someone off in conversation because we’ve already decided what they’re going to say. All of it. A failure to love.

And love, according to Paul, is patient. It’s kind. It doesn’t boast and it isn’t proud. You know what’s interesting about that list? Every single one of those qualities shows up in how we treat people in ordinary, everyday moments. Patience at the drive-through. Kindness to the person bagging your groceries. Humility when someone disagrees with you. Love isn’t just a feeling you have for the people closest to you. Love is the Christ-like posture you carry into every room, every conversation, every interaction.

This week we’re going to talk about manners. And I know what some of you might be thinking. “Manners? That’s what we’re doing this week?” Yes. Because manners matter. Manners matter because people matter. And when a culture moves away from God, it moves away from manners. Those two things travel together. You show me a Christ-follower who claims to love God but treats people with contempt, and I’ll show you a Christ-follower with a Christ problem. Because the God we serve is a God of courtesy, a God of kindness, a God who notices people and treats them with dignity. If we claim to follow him but can’t be bothered to treat the person in front of us with basic respect, something has come unplugged between our theology and our Tuesday.

That little voice from the backseat of our SUV? She wasn’t just making a funny observation. She was giving us a diagnosis. The mood is rude. The culture is sick. And the Christ-follower’s job is to be different. Not holier-than-thou different. Not self-righteous different. Genuinely, practically, in-the-details different. Starting with how we treat the very next person we see.

Apply

Check the mood – Pay attention to how you treat people in the small moments today, the cashier, the coworker, the person in traffic. Each interaction is an opportunity to reflect the character of Christ or to disfigure it. Choose to reflect.

Pray

Father, I’ll be honest. I don’t always think about how my words and actions land on the people around me. Forgive me for the times I’ve been rude, dismissive, or unkind. Remind me today that every person I encounter carries your image, and teach me to treat them that way. In Jesus’ name. Amen.