Have you ever been to the DMV? Here I am talking about the Department of Motor Vehicles. I can imagine anyone now reading this to be nodding their heads, knowing that I am about to spout off some frustrating account of my visit there.
You are right, of course.
When you think about it, the DMV should be a happy place. It’s where people go to get licenses, and car tags, and such. Why wouldn’t it make a young 16-year-old happy to get his or her driver’s license? Or why wouldn’t you be happy with that new plate you got for your car, especially if it is a vanity plate that you wanted?
But this is not the reality. I recently visited the DMV to register a car that I had purchased. I did my research. I got the insurance on it first (that would have been a failure right off the bat if I had not). I filled out the bill of sale and had two witnesses sign it. I had the title with me with the appropriate fields filled out and signed. But I forgot one crucial thing. I forgot to bring my wife. Both of our names were on the title transfer fields and therefore both of us had to be there to sign. I was told this by a worker younger than me who looked and acted like her best friend had just died (to my knowledge this was not the case). So I had to come back a couple of days later with my wife and we got it taken care of.
In my experience most people who work at the DMV are unhappy. And I never really knew why that was. Government jobs have good benefits. They don’t have to take their work home with them. What is going on that makes working there such a drab experience? I did a little research and found something very interesting. People have actually studied this phenomenon. It comes down to a combination of two qualities.
A high degree of power
A low status
It turns out the combination of these things can have very bad results for people. There was a paper written on it called “The Destructive Nature of Power Without Status.” The researchers in this paper put several people through some tests where some of them were given power and others status and varying combinations of these two things. Then they put them into role-playing scenarios where several of them were able to assign tasks to others. The ones that had the combination of high power and low status were more likely to assign demeaning tasks to others. We jokingly say “misery loves company,” but it looks like there is real truth to this.
What is the real problem here? It seems like it is this: people who have been treated badly and then are given power over others are liable to use that power to get a kind of revenge. We see this pattern a lot in life. School bullies are a prime example. Children who a treated badly at home get to a school environment where they have physical power over other kids. Or what about children who grow up in bad circumstances growing up to become adults? What kind of adults do you think they are likely to become?
The real issue here is love, isn’t it? What if low status is a reflection of low love? What happens when people who are not loved are given power over others? This is something that Jesus told his disciples about after the events of the Last Supper.
John 13:34
34 “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
Have you ever wondered why this was a “new” commandment? Jesus is telling them to love one another. You would think this would be one of the very first commandments given. Why wait until the last time he would see them to levy a commandment like this?
Maybe Jesus gives this commandment now because he knows what is about to happen. He knows what it will be like for his disciples in the coming days. They will be the epitome of low status, so much so that their de facto leader will have to deny he was involved with any of this in order to survive. Their world will come crashing down on them and they will have nowhere to turn.
And what will happen to them after Jesus’ resurrection? What will become of them at the start of the early church? Then they will have power. You see it in the book of Acts. They are the leaders of the whole movement.
People of low status, given power
Jesus knows what that combination can do. And he warns against it, with a reminder that love is paramount. You must love one another. You must respect one another. You must make it so that you don’t fall into this trap of becoming a bully to others because you weren’t given the respect you needed.
I believe that is the answer to this problem. Love and respect everyone, especially those that are of “low” status. I tried this out the first time I went to the DMV. The lady there had a perpetual frown on her face. I smiled the whole time. I didn’t argue with her. I accepted her judgement without question, and told her I would be back with my wife, and to have a nice day. She looked at me as if to say “who are you that you would wish me a nice day?” I didn’t see the frown go away, but maybe I planted a seed there. If more people did that, if more people treated the employees of the DMV with nice, kind, respectful attitudes, what might happen there?
I would love to find out.
God Bless