Common courtesy is no longer common.

We were taught it. Or at least I was. I was taught to treat people—all people—with a basic level of respect. They didn’t have to earn it, because it wasn’t about them. It was about me and my character. Common courtesy was to be offered to the courteous and the discourteous, the loving and the hateful, those I agreed with and those I disagreed with, friends and enemies, personal acquaintances and public figures.

But courtesy is no longer common, even in Christian circles. We find it far too easy to excuse our incivilities and our disrespect for any one of a dozen reasons. “He hasn’t earned my respect,” or “I was angry,” or “He’s an idiot,” or “He’s a public figure, so he’s fair game.” These are all just excuses. Your lack of respect doesn’t excuse mine. Your stupidity doesn’t give me free license to act stupidly. The fact that you are well known and I am not doesn’t give me free reign to parade my disrespect. And my anger never excuses anything. It merely puts my lack of character on display.

And that’s the issue when it comes to courtesy and respect. It’s about me and my character.  I can’t let your behavior set the standard for mine.

Admittedly, there is a serious lack of courtesy all around us. The political world breeds disrespectful attitudes, name-calling, and angry hate-and-profanity-filled tirades. “I understand your point but I respectfully disagree” has been replaced by lies, exaggerations, put-downs, slurs, innuendos, and name-calling.

The sports world encourages put-downs, trash-talking, and utter disrespect for the fans of other teams and for authority. Good sportsmanship has been replaced by angry confrontations, whining, and pointing the finger at the other team, your own team, your own coach, league officials, or the referees. “It was a great game and the best team won,” sounds almost archaic in today’s climate of disrespect, anger, and win-at-all-costs-even-if-it-means-being-a-jerk mentality.

The world of religion breeds its own level of disrespect. We find it easy to make up hate-filled names for the followers of other religions. We find it way too easy to publicly ridicule the beliefs of others rather than to lovingly persuade them.  We preach love and grace but we rarely show it to those who don’t believe as we do.  And then we shake our heads and act amazed when they won’t listen to us.

The ease of communicating in today’s world hasn’t helped us, either.  We no longer have to look someone in the eye to say something. We can say it in an email, in a text, or simply post our disrespect for everyone to see. Unfortunately, though, this just makes our lack of respect more obvious.

It’s time–especially for those of us who are believers in Jesus and claim Him as our Lord–to make common courtesy common again. Let’s take responsibility for our words, our actions, our posts, and our texts, and let’s do so without excuses. Let’s do so in the church, in the sports world, in the political arena, and on social media.

Because our words show far more about us than they do about others.  Nothing shows our character or our lack of it more than the words and the attitudes we choose to use.

Let’s make common courtesy common once again.