By Steven Norris
When my wife and I got married, we faced a problem common to many young couples: we had no money. We had a place to live, but not enough to furnish it the way we might have liked, so we accepted whatever hand-me-downs our families offered. To fill the gaps, we went to a local “big box” store and bought a few inexpensive pieces—a coffee table, an armoire, and end tables.
Almost 25 years later, none of those pieces has survived.
In the interest of lowering costs, our culture has learned to accept a certain disposability in consumer goods. Some products are not really made to be repaired or handed down. When they break or become outdated, we replace them and move on.
By contrast, the furniture in our bedroom came from my grandparents’ estate. It is made of solid wood, with dovetailed joints and carefully crafted edges. It bears scratches now, but those marks are part of its beauty. These pieces were built to last—not merely for years, but for generations.
I wonder what happens when that same spirit of disposability seeps into more important parts of life. What happens when relationships become disposable?
Recently, a church member told me about two cousins, both in their nineties, who have not spoken to each other in more than a decade because of political differences. Whatever the original disagreement, years of shared history have been surrendered to it. Their story is not unique. We live in a culture where it has become remarkably easy to disconnect, unfollow, avoid, and walk away.
Throughout Scripture, however, Jesus offers a different vision of what it means to be human. We were created for relationship—with God and with one another. Jesus gathers a diverse community of people and teaches them how to remain together when relationships become difficult.
In Matthew 18, Jesus addresses conflict within that community. His instructions are practical: go to one another, tell the truth, listen carefully, seek restoration. Then he says, “Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”
“Binding and loosing” has a broader meaning than forgiveness alone, but forgiveness gives us a powerful picture of what Jesus is describing. In Scripture, sin is sometimes pictured as a debt. When someone harms us, we may feel that they owe us something. Forgiveness does not pretend the wound never happened. It refuses to let the debt have the final word.
The church should be the kind of community that practices this holy work of loosing—loosening the grip of shame, alienation, guilt, resentment, and revenge. At the same time, we bind ourselves to one another through love, compassion, truth, reconciliation, and healing.
In other words, people are not disposable.
Every person bears the image of God. Every relationship deserves to be treated with care. Not every relationship can be restored to what it once was, and healthy boundaries are sometimes necessary. But followers of Jesus should resist a throwaway culture that teaches us to discard people as easily as worn-out furniture.
Some things are worth repairing. Some things are built to last.