That’s Not Very Nice!

This blog post is adapted material from our english-speaking Evening Classes ‘Love God and Love Your Neighbour’. You can find recordings of all the lessons in this series at the bottom of this blog post, or by subscribing to the podcast of recordings wherever your listen to podcasts. You can also join the lessons in person every Tuesday evening, 7pm at the Greek Evangelical Church, Larnaca.

I consider life to be ‘too short’ to stuff peppers. And yet millions do it. They take a pepper, slice off the top, and scoop out the innards. The vegetable is filled with something new, the top is replaced, and the gourmand is left with something that looks like a pepper on the outside, but on the inside is an imposter.

Its insides have been scooped out, scraped clean, and left completely changed.

We are very familiar with the words of Jesus:

'Love your neighbour as yourself'

But we are very quick to give them the pepper treatment. We scoop out the meaning, scrape them clean, and replace it with whatever suits our mood. In this post I want us to consider only one of the ways we've done that: 

We have taken the words 'Love your neighbour' and turned them into 'Be nice to your neighbour'.

But here's the crucial issue:

'Love' and 'Niceness' are far from the same thing.

What is being nice?

'Nice' is something of an etymological chameleon, it's meaning has shifted a number of times; from 'stupid' to 'ignorant' to 'scrupulous' to 'subtle' and onwards towards the modern sense. But the history of the word is not particularly relevant to us in this discussion. Much more relevant is its frame of reference today.

Who are the nice men? They are the ones one that makes you feel comfortable. They are easy to be around and they certainly won't hurt your feelings. 

Which are the nice places? They are the ones that are pleasant in an undemanding kind of way. 

What is nice speech? Nice speech is the speech which goes down smoothly, that ruffles no feathers and that rubs no-one up the wrong way.

The meaning we have spooned into Jesus’ words goes along these lines. Be nice to your neighbour. Don’t offend them, don’t make them uncomfortable,  may your life go down smoothly to them.

Now, as we’ll discuss in a few moments, it should be said here that the Christian embrace of 'niceness' is usually an earnest attempt to get at something that is real and good. Nevertheless, imposters of Christian virtue that are embraced for wholesome reasons are still imposters.

‘Being nice' is about making others feel comfortable and about hurting no feelings.  Therefore, it inherently orbits around a particular centre of gravity; the subjective experience of the recipient.

We see this most clearly when someone falls foul of nicety. In the midst of their supposed offence, there is no recourse to a higher court, no external standard that can be brought to bear to vindicate them. No. The recipient felt offence, the recipient felt uncomfortable, and that is the only thing that needs to be weighed.

And, whilst I say that ‘niceness’ is ostensibly about making others feel comfortable, we can see from the kind of things it leads to that it, more often than not, it becomes a disguise for making ourselves feel comfortable instead. With a facade of virtue, ‘niceness’ leads very easily to things like:

• Cowardice

• The fear of man, and the fear his feelings

• A desire to be seen as respectable above all

All of these are categorically not virtues. When love has been replaced by ‘nice’, these things become the focal point of a fake version of christian virtue. In fact, these things have tended to go by a different name in the past:

Flattery. The zenith of nice.

Here is how the Lord feels about flattery:

"I will not show partiality to any man or use flattery toward any person. For I do not know how to flatter, else my Maker would soon take me away" Job 32:21-22

"A man who flatters his neighbour spreads a net for his feet.” Proverbs 29:5

"A lying tongue hates its victims, and a flattering mouth works ruin.” Proverbs 26:28*

We replace ‘love your neighbour’ with ‘be nice to your neighbour’ and then, when the process is complete, we end up working his ruin.

We end up hating him instead.

‘Be nice to your neighbour’ is an imposter. It is the biblical command cut open, scraped clean, and filled with vice.

Anything good in nice?

As I mentioned previously though, when we pursue niceness we are generally trying to get at something good. The concept of niceness, though it’s centre is misplaced, does overlap with something wonderful. 

The good neighbourhood on the edge of niceness is where it overlaps with the biblical categories of kindness and courtesy.

Kindness is part of the fruit of the Spirit:

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.” Galatians 5:22-23

And courtesy is clearly commanded:

“Remind them…  to show perfect courtesy toward all people.” Titus 3:2

What is the difference between being courteously kind on the one hand, and being merely ‘nice’ on the other. 

Here is where I think the key distinction lies. Courtesy and kindness are both defined objectively according to an external standard and irrespective of whether the recipient feels that they have received kindness or courtesy.

To show someone kindness is to act concretely for their good, not to act for their undisturbed feelings.

Courtesy extends a measure of respect towards someone. And again, your success or failure is based on a set of concrete (if sometimes minute) standards. The rules of courtesy are often culturally variable, though (when working rightly) they simply express unchanging creational realities in particular situations. Nevertheless, the point still stands. They are measured by an external standard. External, that is, to the subjective experience of the recipient. 

To put it another way. In case of conflict you could appeal to a higher standard and rightly defend yourself, saying:

“But I was perfectly courteous”

And it could be weighed objectively (though not without complexity).

Or, to take a longer-term example, it is not unheard-of for recipients of kindness to say something like:

“I see now that you were extraordinarily kind to me, even though I hated you for it at the time”

Whilst ‘being nice’ is about making others feel comfortable and so is based in the experience of the recipient, kindness and courtesy are objective acts based on an external standard outside the experience of all those involved.

Now of course, making someone feel comfortable can be, in particular situations, a great kindness (as can the opposite). The feelings of our neighbour are in the orbit of true love. But they can’t be the centre.

If not ‘be nice’ what else?

So then, if being nice is not what ‘love your neighbour means’ then what does it mean?

Well here is, perhaps, a better definition:

Loving your neighbour is acting rightly towards them, from the heart.

That is, to love your neighbour is to sincerely aim to act in a good way towards them. And who gets to define what that good way is? 

Certainly not our neighbours feelings.

The real answer is unsurprising. God gets to define what acting rightly means. And his opinions on the matter are what forms the centre of all questions of Christian ethics.

* On the other hand: "Faithful are the wounds of a friend; profuse are the kisses of an enemy.” Proverbs 27:6