One of my early ministry mentors, Brother Bryan, had a saying he repeated often. “Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.” At the time, I smiled politely. I understood the words, but I wasn’t sure I understood their weight. Years later, I think I finally do.
The old expression comes from a simple picture. After everyone in the household had bathed, the water was dirty. Really dirty. When it was finally time to dump the tub, you had one more job. Make sure the baby isn’t still in it.
The point wasn’t about bathing. It was about judgment. It was about remembering that something precious can be hidden among things that genuinely need to be discarded.
I think we’ve become remarkably skilled at doing the opposite.
Today, we often throw away the baby first.
-
- Someone hears that a priest abused a child. Suddenly, every priest becomes suspect.
- A teacher commits a terrible crime. Now every teacher must prove they are safe.
- A police officer acts dishonorably. Every officer wears the stain.
- A politician lies. Therefore, politicians can’t be trusted.
- A man betrays his wife. “Once a cheater, always a cheater.”
- Someone commits a felony. “They’ll always be a criminal.”
- One member of a race behaves badly. The entire race inherits the accusation.
- One immigrant.
- One business owner.
- One coach.
- One pastor.
- One doctor.
- One stepfather.
- One teenager.
- One generation.
- One denomination.
- One political party.
Our minds are astonishingly quick at taking one painful story and quietly attaching it to millions of people we’ve never met. Perhaps it’s because our brains are trying to protect us.
Patterns help us survive. If one berry made someone sick, avoid berries. If one cave held a bear, check caves carefully.
Those instincts served our ancestors well. But human beings are not berries.
People are not statistics. And they certainly are not headlines. The news has a difficult job. It reports what is unusual. Very few reporters stand outside a school to announce that every child arrived safely today.
No one interrupts your dinner because another hundred thousand fathers came home from work, hugged their children, and quietly loved their families.
Ordinary goodness is rarely spectacular enough to become breaking news. Extraordinary failure almost always is.
The problem isn’t that we hear about terrible things. The problem is that we begin believing terrible things are ordinary. And somewhere along the way, our curiosity quietly dies.
-
- We stop asking.
- We stop meeting individuals.
- We stop allowing people to surprise us.
Instead, we file them. Category. Label. Case closed.
Jesus seemed unusually unwilling to do that. He met people one person at a time.
-
- Tax collector.
- Roman soldier.
- Religious leader.
- Woman at the well.
- Fisherman.
- Leper.
- Thief.
He somehow managed to see the individual without pretending the problem didn’t exist.
That takes wisdom. It’s easy to condemn an entire group. It’s harder to remain curious. Curiosity isn’t naïve. Curiosity simply refuses to let someone else’s story become everyone else’s sentence.
-
- I’ve known remarkable pastors.
- I’ve known terrible pastors.
- I’ve known honest business owners.
- I’ve known dishonest ones.
- I’ve known people with criminal records who became among the safest, kindest human beings I’ve ever met.
I’ve also known people with spotless résumés who quietly destroyed lives.
Character doesn’t travel in packs. Neither does integrity.
Every human being deserves the dignity of being encountered before being categorized.
Brother Bryan was right. Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.
You may discover that the thing worth protecting was there all along. Perhaps the real baby isn’t the person you’re judging. Perhaps it’s your own ability to see people clearly. And that’s something worth protecting.