Seeking A World Without a Map: Some Reflections on Preaching

By Derek Penwell

A Course in Creative Writing

They want a wilderness with a map—
but how about errors that give a new start?—
or leaves that are edging into the light?—
or the many places a road can’t find?

Maybe there’s a land where you have to sing
to explain anything: you blow a little whistle
just right and the next tree you meet is itself.
(And many a tree is not there yet.)

Things come toward you when you walk.
You go along singing a song that says
where you are going becomes its own
because you start. You blow a little whistle—

And a world begins under the map.

~Willam Stafford

---

“They want a wilderness with a map.” 

Boy, ain’t that the truth?  In a world that seems constantly to be shifting beneath our feet, ministers feel that unspoken expectation every time they step into the pulpit. 

“They want a wilderness with a map.”

I think that’s why bumper stickers are so popular.  There’s a sense that if we could just get a few things nailed-down, if we could just see a few markers that would point us through the briars, through the overgrown brambles, through the violence, and uncertainty, and senselessness of it all, we might somehow survive another day in the wilderness. 

Straight-line, discursive speech that tells us where to put our feet next.  We all know about preachers only too anxious to give it to them.  The sermon as self-help, as moral disquisition, as prosaic orienteering.  “I’m okay, you’re okay.” 

“Five easy steps to a better prayer life.” 

“God helps them who help themselves.” 

“Do this.  Avoid that.  Don’t talk back to your mother.  Brush your teeth after every meal.  A penny saved is a penny earned.  Wash your hands after you go to the bathroom.”

 “Be careful little feet where you go.”

“It’s so hard out here.  Tell us something that allows us to believe the whole thing isn’t so unpredictable, isn’t about to blow up in our faces.”

We preachers understand it.  We know the diminished expectations.  Such deflated speech, however, bridles all complexity, all nuance, all mystery.  In our rush to have a manageable reality, a tractable existence we lose the “errors that give a new start/or leaves that are edging into the light/or the many places a road can’t find.” 

The temptation of preaching is to smooth the rough edges, to iron out the wrinkles, to fill in the cracks and gaps with caulk, to be assuring and affirming, to opt always for the palliative, rather than the curative.  

But this attenuated speech raises the question of why anyone would need to come to church to receive such thin gruel?  You can buy that sort of non-confrontational, low-cost reassurance anywhere.  Daytime television is busy dishing this stuff out in much more convenient doses, which don’t even require you to get out of bed to partake. 

The problem with all this tiny talk for tiny Christians is that bumper stickers are too small to make good maps.  If you tame the wilderness, it’s no longer wilderness; it may be easier to move about in an illusion, but you don’t really get anywhere—and it’s not near as exciting.

“Maybe there’s a land where you have to sing/to explain anything.” 

Maybe, like Walter Brueggemann has argued, the job of the preacher is not to circumscribe the known world with bromides and banalities—but to render a world heretofore unimagined, to break open a reality that has gone unobserved because we didn’t have the resources to name it, to speak it—by the grace of God—into being, a world where “you blow a little whistle/just right and the next tree you meet is itself./(And many a tree is not there yet.)” 

If you ask Jesus, the reign of God is too huge, too grand, too paradoxical ever to be contained by our pedestrian prose; it’s a world so inimical to the way we’re conventionally trained to see things that often the only way we have to speak about it is poetry and parable and story; it’s “a land where you have to sing/to explain anything.” 

And in Christ, we’re finally given the words to sing the tree.  As we sing the truth, we see that it was a tree all along, and not just a stick with green attachments shooting off in every direction, or a large birdnest, or an inconvenient obstruction to new housing development. 

And by singing that one tree into existence in all of its wooded glory, maybe we can begin to understand that there are forests of other trees standing before us, and beside us, and beyond us that we formerly saw as merely wilderness to be traversed as efficiently and painlessly as possible, by whatever map promised the easiest route.

The very act of singing this world sets you on a journey into the heart of the mysterious wilderness.  Who would be callow enough, stupid enough to claim that it’s an easy journey to walk?  Only those with a pretend map of a pretend land that exists in an illusion called reality, utility, fact—conjured up by people with inexaustable fear, but limited vision. 

“Things come toward you when you walk.” 

The fact that you begin the journey at all means that you’ll run into obstacles that you would otherwise have avoided if you’d only stayed home and watched Jeopardy. 

Beginning the journey at all means that you’ve surrendered the notion that you possess a way to map the wilderness, that it’s possible to have any real understanding as an antecedent to actually taking the first step.  In the same way it is impossible to learn to swim without ever getting in the water, it is impossible to know the terrain, to understand the wilderness, while sitting at home in your Barcalounger with a map in one hand and a Budweiser in the other. 

“You go along singing a song that says/where you are going becomes its own/because you start.” 

Following Jesus is a contact— not a spectator — sport.

“You blow a little whistle—/And a world begins under the map.” 

Sing a little bit, take a few baby steps and soon you see that the prosaic maps of the bumper sticker producers, the map-makers only serve to cover up the reality that’s there beneath the surface of a different reality contained in the words the church uses to name that world, and thereby call it into being—a radical, crazy wilderness in which it makes sense to turn the other cheek, to pray for those who persecute you, to sell everything you have and give it to the poor. 

Those sorts of big, unwieldy truths don’t much lend themselves to bumper stickers, or to maps . . . or unfortunately for us all . . . to many sermons.

Judgmentalism: The New Heresy

By Derek Penwell

Judgmentalism.  It's one of the things Christians do best according to those outside the church. 

Unfortunately for the church, emerging generations find any kind of judgmentalism off-putting. Consequently, they tend to seek the broadest possible parameters for what previous generations would call orthodoxy.

Now, let me just say that some of what passes for non-judgmentalism is simply an unspoken social contract in which I promise to keep my nose out of your business if you agree to keep your nose out of mine. I want to be clear that I’m not suggesting Christians should approach faith and morality as a laissez-faire proposition—in which the church, to avoid appearing judgmental, agrees to keep its mouth shut about important matters.

What I am suggesting, however, is that no matter how the church feels about being labeled judgmental, it would benefit mainline churches to think carefully about the way they come across.

Growing up as a religious conservative (an Evangelical, I would have said) I took it as an article of faith that salvation was like an obstacle course. Once you began to move toward the goal, you couldn’t go back, and every step was a potential hazard, threatening to disqualify you from finishing.

I was convinced that having the right beliefs about God was of equal importance with doing the right thing. In fact, having the wrong belief might be even more problematic than doing something wrong.

If you screwed up and said “Dammit!” because you bent your dad’s driver trying to hit rocks in the back yard, you could always repent and ask forgiveness.

Wrong belief, on the other hand, assumed a kind of intentionality, a willfulness that was much more difficult to recover from. You couldn’t accidentally believe in evolution or that the Bible might contain some mistakes in it.

Additionally, I believed that among the barriers Christians must negotiate on the obstacle course of salvation the need to “save” other people was a high priority:

If you observe a toddler wandering into the middle of a busy intersection, you have a responsibility to try to protect the child from being hit by a bus. Looking the other way is sin of omission. In the same way, if you see someone boarding the express train to perdition, you have a responsibility to help jerk them back onto the platform. Not to do so is to have saddled yourself with the responsibility for someone else’s damnation. You get enough of those lost souls in your column and the sheer weight of them might just drag you down, too.

Now, I’m willing to admit that my description of my childhood beliefs doesn’t necessarily represent all of Evangelical Christianity. However, they were my beliefs, and they are often the same things I hear people describe as “what Christians believe.” It’s important to name the reality that “Evangelical Christianity” has largely become a placeholder for “Christianity” in our culture.

That Christianity has become known by many people more for its beliefs than for what it actually does is problematic for the church in an emerging world.  Part of the way I read the common charge against the church as “judgmental” has to do with the conviction on the part of emerging generations that Christians tend to believe more than they actually live.

That fact, turned back upon the individual is hypocrisy   (another post) —that is, “I believe this, but I don’t think that means I actually have to make it a part of my life.” 

Turned outward, however, that conviction about believing more than you’re willing to live, often expresses itself as judgmentalism—that is, “I believe this (and I’m right); and therefore, I’m holding you responsible for living up to my expectations.”

Hint: The combination of hypocrisy and judgmentalism is deadly for the church, since it communicates an inordinately high opinion of oneself and one’s abilities to determine what’s right—an opinion of oneself that isn’t mapped onto reality, and therefore, need not be taken seriously by the individual.

At the heart of the criticism of judgmentalism lies an accusation that Christians feel themselves superior.  In other words, when people look at the church what they see is a collection of overweening know-it-alls who assume that everyone is breathlessly awaiting a word about how to improve themselves.  Any deviation from “Christian expectations,” these observers believe, cannot but be met with moralizing opprobrium from those who “know the mind of God.”  Christians, on this reading, have nothing better to do than to think up rules for everybody else to follow—then set about in earnest being exceedingly disappointed in everyone else when the moral revival doesn’t take shape.

“That’s not fair.  I think people ought to live right, but I’m not the judgmental person you so sarcastically describe.”

In the absence of information to the contrary, I’m perfectly willing to concede that that’s not a fair description of you.  I don’t even know you, after all.  That’s not the point, though.  The people who believe you’re judgmental, probably don’t know you either.  As far as they’re concerned, if you’re a Christian, they already know as much as they need to know about you. 

Among emerging generations, “Christian” is metonymous with “judgmental.”  That is to say, for many people the sentence, “Derek is a Christian,” is a shorthand way of communicating that “Derek is judgmental,” since “Christian” is merely a placeholder for “judgmental.”  Whether it’s true or not, the perception is, for my purposes, what matters.

Why is it the perception that matters?  Because, as a very wise man once told me: “The difference between reality and perception is that reality changes.”  If you want perception to change, you must work not only on the reality, but also on the perception. 

Not only must the church adopt a positive understanding that it is called to be something for the world not just believe something about the world, but it must do so in a way that communicates its own humility.

After all, in our culture judgmentalism is the new heresy. 

And for Christians used to occupying the role of heresy hunters, being the target of the new hunters of heresy is going to be extraordinarily uncomfortable.

We're Christians, and technically we don't believe in karma . . . but, dang!

Why Betraying Your Instincts Might Be the Best Thing You Could Do for the Work You Care About

By Derek Penwell

I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.

—Michael Jordan.

I’ve been thinking about this Michael Jordan quote a lot lately. That’s a lot of failure.

There are so many things to hate about failure—that feeling in the pit of your stomach you get when you realize that once again you didn’t do what you set out to do, that voice in your head that says, “I told you you could never do this,” the realization that if you’re going to succeed, you’re going to have to risk failing all over again.

But the thing I hate most about failing is being embarrassed. Missing 26 game-winning shots means that you have to stand before the world, and admit that—at least at that moment—you’re the one everyone counted on to come through … and you didn’t. I hate, hate, hate being embarrassed. But according to Seth Godin, not wanting to be embarrassed is encoded in our DNA.

Actually, it’s not just the avoidance of embarrassment that is buried deep within us; it’s the fear of standing out from the crowd.

Why?

Evolutionarily, we’ve developed an extraordinarily sensitive threat-detection system, which in the past used to protect us from predators. And in a predatory environment, the ones who get eaten are the ones who stray too far from the herd. Sticking with the pack is the safest place to be, since the pack is much more difficult to attack than the lone individual. Wander too far from the safety of the group and you’re a prime target.

Unfortunately for us, the finely honed survival instincts calibrated to keep us safe from lions and tigers are much less practical now that we live in environments without those kinds of predatory threats. We still have these threat detection systems that continually tell us to keep our heads down, not to stand out, not to get too far ahead of the herd. Only now, the threats come more in the form of disapproving looks in a meeting, or the more subtle but no less devastating “no-that-was-fine-really-it-wasn’t-that-bad” consolation from people who are trying to be nice, or the now ubiquitous public shaming and unconstructive criticism on social media.

Consequently, nowadays most of us live our lives afraid of saying something that will draw negative attention to ourselves. In our world what many of fear most on a daily basis isn’t being eaten by a hungry tiger, but being eaten alive by an angry troll. And so we hedge our bets in an attempt to remain safely hidden in the pack.

Of course, what suffers when we hew too close to the middle for fear of drawing attention to ourselves is creativity. The impulse to remain invulnerable from attack, which Steven Pressfield calls the resistance, is what keeps most of us from doing the creative work we were put on earth to do. The resistance is that voice in our heads telling us not to put ourselves out there, not to do anything too new, too dramatically different. Because when we separate ourselves from the conventional, from the ordinary, from the expected—that’s when we’re most vulnerable.

But as both Godin and Pressfield point out, the resistance, if we’re brave enough, can become our friend. Because art is always a risk, the resistance can act as a barometer or a compass for creativity, which tells us when we’re getting close to our most important work. The louder that voice in our head warning us about embarrassment is, the more likely it is that we’re closing in on something important.

In other words, when it comes to creative work, the more insistent the voice in your head is about telling you not to put yourself out there, not to risk failure—if you can manage to listen to it in a different way—the better the chance that you’re headed in exactly the direction necessary for accomplishing what you have it inside you to accomplish.

There’s an episode of Seinfeld in which George Costanza reflects that his instincts have always led him astray, caused him to make bad choices. So, he figures he’ll try something different: he decides to do exactly the opposite of what his instincts tell him to do. If his instincts are so bad, then, he reasons, doing the opposite of what they encourage should lead to success.

Crazy proposal for creativity: When it comes to the work you love, the passion that drives your endeavors, what if you started, like George Costanza, to do exactly the opposite of what your instincts tell you?

What if, when the resistance tells you to slow down, that becomes a cue for you to step on it?

What if, when the resistance tells you to shut up, that’s the signal for you to speak more loudly?

What if, when the resistance tells you that you don’t have any business doing something that risks public embarrassment, you embrace the risk and do it anyway?

Chances are good that you could fail.

But if you don’t, chances are excellent that you’ll never do anything interesting.

And here’s the thing: We need you to do something interesting. The world is a better place when you’re doing the creative work you’ve been put here to do.

Look at Michael Jordan.

The Blessed Mercy of Driving the Wrong Car

By Derek Penwell

I knew a young woman one time who, when she turned sixteen, was promised a car to drive. Needless to say, she was pretty stoked about the prospect of having her own wheels. She knew exactly what she wanted, too. This young woman wanted a new Camaro. She’d done her homework, so she knew just which option packages she wanted, all the bells and whistles. A fairly ambitious set of desires; but you’ve got to dream, right?

On the day she turned sixteen, she was ready to go with her parents down the dealership and order this fine piece of American engineering. Her dad poked his head in the door from outside and said, “Hey, sweetie! Come on out here. Mom and I have a surprise for you.”

She got up from the breakfast table and ran toward the door. She figured that this was even better than she expected. Her parents had anticipated her desires, and had gone out to surprise her by getting her the car of her dreams. Almost impossible to contain her excitement.

But as she cleared the side door and looked out in the driveway, what awaited her there wasn’t a new Camaro, but a ten year-old Pontiac Bonneville. Huge thing. It was the color of a rusted boat anchor. Looking at her “new” car, the birthday girl was crestfallen. She shot a glance at her parents. “But I wanted a Camaro,” she pouted.

Her dad said, “People in Hell want ice water. You don’t always get your first choice. This is a good car—it runs well and it’s safe.”

She broke down in tears. “Well, I’m not driving that thing around town. What will my friends think?”

And she didn’t drive it, at least for a while … until she couldn’t stand staying at home doing nothing. Then all of a sudden that Pontiac Bonneville didn’t look so bad. (Well, actually it did still look bad, but you know what I mean.)

I think about that Bonneville when I hear congregations complaining about not being who they think they should be, about not having the kind of resources to do really “important” work. You ever hear that kind of self-pity coming out of a congregation?

“We’re so small. We look at other congregations, and we’re embarrassed about what we have to offer. We don’t have a family life center. No sparkling youth program. Our ability to send our outreach dollars to the home office has been severely hampered. The whole thing is just really depressing.”

And often these congregations, because they have so little confidence, end up doing very little. Actually, let me rephrase that: These congregations end up doing very little of anything new or brave or exciting. Despairing of ever being Camaros, they’ve failed to understand that being a Pontiac Bonneville is still enough to get the job done.

What’s the job?

Of a car? To take you from point A to point B. And, given the constraints of speed limits (as well as the laws of physics), a well maintained Bonneville can do that as well as a Camaro.

What’s the job of a congregation?

To worship God and help equip followers of Jesus for the reign of God.

And here’s the thing: You can do that without a family life center, without a sparkling youth program, and without a lot of extra money.

You shame the angels if you don’t live bravely with what you have.

5 Questions Congregations Should Ask Themselves

By Derek Penwell

I read stories about all these congregations doing amazing things, launching new programs to pair homeless people with vacant properties, rallying around a harassed Islamic community, creating wonderful spaces for prayer and meditation, gleaning food from local producers to feed the hungry. I’m grateful these congregations take their faith seriously enough to actually find new and creative ways of living it out. But seeing the wealth of creativity some churches demonstrate can be discouraging if you feel like you’re a part of a congregation that doesn’t seem to have the resources to do wonderful, Ted Talk kind of stuff.

I recently went to a conference, sponsored by the Center for Progressive Renewal, at which we discussed trend lines in the culture that the church should being paying attention to. One of the trend lines is the sharing economy.

The sharing economy is predicated on the assumption that we create or increase value by partnering with others to share our resources. Uber, a ride sharing service, for instance, matches people who have cars with people who need rides. By paying you, who doesn’t have the overhead of a taxi company, for a ride, I get a cheaper means of conveyance, and you get money to give me space in your car that would be otherwise go unoccupied. Pretty slick, right?

The only way that a sharing economy works, however, is if there’s trust that what we’re doing isn’t trying to figure out ways to take advantage of each other—which is, of course, exactly what our capitalist systems assumes. In the predominant paradigm of the twentieth century—the Industrial economy—value is created by producing stuff, and then convincing as many people as possible that they need to buy it at prices that maximize profits. Under such an arrangement, because maximizing profits is the engine that drives the economic system, we need to enter into contractual agreements because I feel that I have no choice but to suppose that, given half a chance, you’re going to screw me. I may not know how at this point, but I’m pretty sure that’s the likely outcome.

In a sharing economy, on the other hand, I begin with a different set of assumptions—namely, that we participate in a different kind of arrangement in which generosity, instead of self-interest, is the way to create value. In this system maximizing profit isn’t the driving force, but the belief that participating in a system built on trust, which benefits everyone, is both more satisfying and sustainable. That trust is built on a continued demonstration of my commitment to maintaining a relationship with you that supersedes my desire to angle for an advantage. In other words, I must show that I’m in this not just to get something from you, but because I believe a culture of generosity is more beneficial to everyone, and that if you trust me, you’re more likely to want to continue a mutually beneficial relationship.

One aspect of the sharing economy in particular, though, that has wonderful and life altering implications for the church is the assumption that you share what you have, not what you think you should have. That is to say, in a culture of generosity we begin with the belief that everyone has gifts to share. You share your gifts; I share my gifts; and together we create something valuable that affirms the dignity and worth of both of us. I don’t have to have your gifts to be successful, because you already have them. I don’t have to be Checker Cab to contribute; I just have to be willing to use the car I have.

Unfortunately, because of the way things currently stand, too many congregations waste time worrying that—at least as they’re presently constituted—they have nothing of value to share. So, rather than spending time perfecting and sharing the gifts they do possess, they expend priceless energy worrying that they don’t have somebody else’s gifts. The problem with mega church culture isn’t that congregations are big, but (at least in part) that bigness is used as the de facto standard by which we measure faithfulness.

But what about this?

1. What if congregations gave up the illusion that there’s something out there that, if they could just get their hands on it, would make them everyone’s first choice for the ecclesiastical prom?

2. What if congregations started figuring out what they already have, worked to perfect it, then offered it up to the world in a reckless demonstration of generosity?

3. What if we started to view the gifts God has given us as sufficient to do the work God has for us, instead of standing around and complaining that God hasn’t given us enough to work with to do really “important” stuff?

4. What if we got lost not in what we aren’t, but in what we could be if we ever chose to make our own little corner of the world a haven of welcome and grace?

5. What if we stopped worrying about whether our gifts will provide any benefit to us (e.g., more young families, bigger budgets, new Christian aerobics classrooms, etc.), and just give them away so that others might benefit from them?

But why would we do that?

Let me propose a simple but radically subversive, turn-the-world-on-its-head kind of answer: Because that’s what Jesus told us to do.

Why the Church Needs to Quit Reading the Box Scores

By Derek Penwell

Patience is not a purchasable commodity.

And if you think it is, you’re both–probably in the market and unlikely to find it.

"Well, that’s just dumb. Of course, you can’t buy patience."

Ok. Maybe that’s a bit of a straw man. After all, nobody’s under the misimpression that you can go to Wal-Mart and pick up the econo-size box O' patience.

On the other hand, there are plenty of people willing to part with the money to purchase things that they think will make patience irrelevant, people willing to buy stuff that promises to do for them what only patience and hard work can actually accomplish.

Why do you think people buy Thigh Masters and soon-to-be-lapsed gym memberships in January?

I remember years ago, just after I quit smoking, thinking, “I wish I had years of non-smoking under my belt, right now.”

It doesn’t work that way, though. If you want to be an ex-smoker, there’s no shortcut, beyond just piling up time not smoking.

Patience is difficult, just to the extent that it's an admission that some things lie outside the realm of our control. It would be nice to think that engineering outcomes through cleverness or sheer force of will is always a possibility. Alas, some things can’t be planned into submission, just because we really want them.

That is not to offer excuses for not planning, which is usually an integral part of achieving one’s goals. It is, rather, a caveat to remind us that no matter how passionate or how well organized, success at some things cannot be achieved absent the bone-crushing passage of time.

The need for patience is no less necessary when it comes to congregational transformation.

As with diet and exercise, there’s a whole industry that has made a lot of money playing to people’s impatience when it comes to healthy congregations. Now, I don’t want to be misunderstood to be saying that all commercial efforts to help churches heal are cynical attempts to aid the process whereby churches and their money are soon parted. I’m not necessarily questioning anyone’s sincerity who makes a living telling congregations how to get healthy. I think there can be no denying, however, that it would be much tougher to sell books and seminars in this industry without the obdurate cultural belief that something can be had for nothing–or at least, if not “nothing,” then very little in the way of an investment in time and hard work.

Here’s the thing: Healthy turnarounds in diets and congregations are measured in unsatisfying increments of time–which is to say, time that extends beyond people’s initial enthusiastic expectations. There’s no healthy way, for example, to lose 25 pounds in a week–except, perhaps, with the excision of a particularly rare tumor or some such. Likewise, congregations, which often measure health in purely quantifiable ways (membership, budget, worship attendance, etc.) pay too much attention to the box scores, thinking that–given the recent visioning process, or the new youth minister hire, or the addition of a “praise band”–increasingly large numbers must surely be just around the corner.

Box scores, while a helpful metric for judging performance in baseball, don’t always tell the whole tale in the church (or necessarily even in baseball). Eagle-eyeing the box scores is a symptom of impatience, of believing that congregational health is reducible to numbers.[1] The goal of baseball is winning, not piling up impressive statistics.

The truth of the matter is, though, impatience in the case of congregational transformation can be deadly, because it continues to place unrealistic expectations on systems incapable of living up to them. Practically speaking, it is neither realistic nor healthy for churches to expect steroidal box scores tomorrow–or by the next time we draw up the budget. Living life by box scores is a recipe for despair.  Believe me.  I know.  I'm a Chicago Cubs fan.

Not only is impatience a practical problem, though; it’s a theological one. Patience is a theological virtue for a reason. Christians are an eschatological people–which is to say, Christians are a people caught between the “now” and the “not yet,” between the “promise” and the “fulfillment.” We live with the paradox that the war has already been won, when all signs seem to indicate that the battle is still being waged. We are called to a radical hope that can only be sustained by a patience that allows us to say, “We can’t quite yet see how God is working out God’s purposes, but we will continue to live as though those purposes are already accomplished.”

Impatience, when it comes to congregational transformation, from a theological perspective, is the damning admission that our hope in God has been supplanted by our confidence in our own resources to produce the results we think are most important–that is, box scores. That’s the rub: Our impatience is not only a statement about who we are and what we think we’re capable of, it’s also an implicit assertion about who God is and what God is capable of—or, perhaps better, what God is incapable of.

A people shaped by hope cannot but cultivate patience as the very virtue that most clearly articulates a belief that our lives (and the lives of our congregations) are not our own–they are a gift. And there’s no way to quantify that gift in such a way that it will fit in a box score.

____________________

1. Yes, I realize keeping an eye on those numbers is important. My argument is not that those numbers are unimportant, but that they’re not definitive.  ↩

This I Believe

By Derek Penwell

I believe because I have to believe.  I have to believe because life doesn’t make any sense to me otherwise. To say I believe, however, leaves open the question of the object of my belief.  That is to say, what do I believe?  I believe that God is behind all of this in some way that makes sense to God, even if it escapes me.  I know I’m supposed to have it all together, to have it systematized in some way that will hold up to scrutiny.  Yet, I’m secretly afraid, I suppose, that if I interrogate my reasons for belief too vigorously, those reasons will remain just enough beyond my reach to make me wonder, in times of darkness, whether they make sense, or even ought to be considered reasons at all.

Even so, let me venture into the fray with a few things that do make sense to me. These are neither systematic nor exhaustive, merely suggestive:

I believe that the Jesus we encounter in the Gospels has only a passing acquaintance with the Jesus we encounter in popular Christianity.

I believe that much of popular Christianity (mesmerized as it is by the atomic individual) is designed to distract middle-class white Christians from the fact that they drive SUVs, inflict violence on people who happen to be born under different flags, and ignore the cry for justice from the margins.

I believe that, in Christ, God is busy loving people I disapprove of and with whom (sadly) I too often can't be bothered.

I believe that Christianity operates more often than not as a mechanism for affirming what people already believe—before they ever encounter the subversive Jesus of the Gospels.

I believe that the ministry of the Jesus who died abandoned and alone is a terrible model for what most people think of as "church growth."

I believe that heaven is God’s jurisdiction; my responsibilities require me to be present and to work here and now.

I believe that if what you believe doesn’t make somebody mad, you’re not doing it right.  Jesus wasn’t killed because he was nice.

I believe that in a world concerned only with saying yes, being taught to say no is the most loving thing that can happen to us.

I believe the church needs to quit clinging to its life as if its life were an end in itself, and needs to start getting comfortable with the notion that the church belongs to God.

I believe that Christian belief is only intelligible, only interesting, if it is embodied in a community of people committed to living and, if necessary, dying like Jesus.

It’s not much, but it helps me hang on.

What do you believe?

New Drama Group at DBCC

A new Drama Group at Douglass Boulevard Christian Church is forming and we are calling any and all interested persons who might want to be involved both on stage and behind  the scenes to a general interest meeting on Sunday, June 8th at 12:15 PM (right after our regular morning service) in the in the sanctuary. We will discuss formation of the group and begin planning our first stage production that is tentatively scheduled for later this fall. Hope to see you there!

See Jai Husband for details!

Femto Photography and Seeing Around Corners: Why Following Jesus Is about Risk

By Derek Penwell

In July, 2012 a scientist from MIT, Ramesh Raskar, gave a Ted Talk on an amazing new innovation in photography. Femto photography films at one trillion frames per second. What this allows scientists to do, for example, is make a time lapse video of the movement of light (which is pretty dang cool on its own merits!). You can watch a burst of light projected from a laser as it shoots through a Coke bottle!

[Note: I realize that’s two exclamation points in two consecutive sentences—a grammatical practice upon which I generally frown, except to say things like “Happy birthday!” or “Congratulations on your Bassett Hound’s successful completion of agility training!”—but this stuff is pretty phenomenal! Oops. Sorry.]

The practical applications of this new technology are even more astounding. For one thing, when a burst of light is shot from a laser, it diffuses when the photons strike an object. Various photons are then reflected back to the source. Using heavy computational power, the scientists are able to stitch together the individual photon speeds to produce a 3-D model of the thing that the light hits.

The ability to produce 3-D models of things struck by a burst of light gets really interesting, however, when you realize that the reflection of light doesn’t have to come from an object in a straight line with the laser. Meaning … you can project the light around obstacles, and the computer will take into account the extra angles of reflection, and still construct an accurate 3-D image.

In other words, it allows you literally to see around the corner—to construct a 3-D image of something you can’t even see! [Again, sorry.] It’s almost like seeing into the future—getting an accurate vision of something before you ever get there.

I like the sound of that idea. It’s not flying or retractable adamantium claws, but it’s still kind of like a super power.

I understand the attraction of seeing around the corner; it’s a great metaphor for predicting the future, of telling you whether a thing will be worth doing.

But here’s the thing: In real life the only way you’ll know if a thing is worth doing is after you’ve already done it, when you look back on it—which is to say, after the toothpaste is already out of the tube.

“Should we let our daughter go on that trip to Europe?”

“Should I pay the electric bill so we don’t freeze, or should I fill my blood pressure medication so I don’t have a stroke?”

“Should I take the new job with exciting potential, or stay in the job where I’m most comfortable?”

“Should I tell my parents and friends I’m gay—risking their love and support, or should I keep it to my myself—risking my sanity?”

How do you know until after you do it?

That’s life. We have to make all sorts of calculations about what to do without enough information about what it will look like when it’s finished, or whether having done it will prove advantageous or harmful.

How do you know until after you do it.

That’s also what life following Jesus looks like. Seeing around the corner would certainly make church planning more effective, for instance. It’d be nice to know whether something is going to work before you had to take a chance on it. Face-saving is what it is.

If you don’t know what you’re getting into when you plan something, you risk failing. And failing is unacceptable to many churches.

Congregations in decline almost always understand church planning to be a matter not of achieving success, but of avoiding failure. Consequently, they tend to stand before decisions trying to do the advanced calculations necessary to see what lies around the corner, refusing to act boldly for fear that something might not work.

“Should we do this?”

“I don’t know.”

“Because if we do, it might not work. We’d be out all that money, plus things like this tend to make Janice mad.”

Flourishing congregations, on the other hand, weigh a decision against past experience, then make a decision. They’ve gotten comfortable with the fact that they will never have everything nailed down before taking the leap. They’ve made peace with the knowledge that everything they try has a pretty good chance of washing out. But they’ve learned to accept the prospect of failure as the cost of doing business.

Flourishing congregations realize that there’s no way to ensure something will work on the front end. They understand that they’ll never know if an idea was a good one until they look back on it, assessing it in the rearview mirror. But the inability to look around the corner to see what’s coming doesn’t prevent them from turning corners they think faithfulness calls them to take. They understand that a life spent following Jesus is an adventure, not a tour.

Before we get there, we’d like to know that where we’re going is where we want to be.

Maybe one day there will be an ecclesiastical version of Femto photography that will make discipleship a surer thing. On the other hand, if discipleship is an adventure, whatever such an innovation might produce, it won’t have much to do with following Jesus.

“Tell me what you want to do, not what you want to avoid doing.

By Derek Penwell

“What do you want to do when you get out of college?” That was the question on the table. Summer camp. We were gathered together with one of the grizzled veteran counselors to talk about what we planned to do with our lives.

Having just graduated high school, we found the whole conversation a bit abstract. We didn’t know. And we certainly didn’t want to be reminded about the fact that we didn’t know.

But somebody asked the question, and we were all raised with the kind of manners that wouldn’t allow us to say what we were thinking: “I really don’t want to think about this. Ask me about the beach, or about what we’re going to do when we get to college. After college is just too far away.”

One girl said, “Well, I don’t want to have to do a job I hate, where I’m stuck doing the same thing over and over—like a factory. And I don’t want to work someplace that makes me do busy work just to satisfy some kind of Human Resources directive intended to create a ‘positive working environment.’”

“Ok. What kind of working environment do you want to work in?”

“I don’t want work with a lot of passive-aggressive people—you know, the kind who get mad about little things and start putting up signs about not eating their yogurt or taking the stapler off their desk.”

“You run into a lot of sign hangers, a lot of yogurt and stapler thieves in high school, did you?”

“No, but I hear my dad talk about it all the time.”

“Anyone else?”

A long-haired guy in a denim jacket and boots said, “I don’t want to have do any job that requires me to wear a name tag or be a part of a ‘team’” (his use of air quotes tipping us off to his studied use of sarcasm.)

I jumped in and said, “Look, I just don’t want to have to get up too early in the morning.” I was not particularly ambitious.

The counselor, showing signs of frustration, said, “You’ve obviously thought about this. Here’s what I want, though. Tell me what you want to do, not what you want to avoid doing. What are your dreams? What makes you excited enough to get out of bed in the morning? What do you care about so much you’d be willing to die for?”

The impression many young adults who’ve lost any desire to associate themselves with the church feel like they’ve heard ad nauseum an answer to the questions, “What do Christians want to avoid? What do Christians hate? What kinds of things are Christians willing to kill for?”

As cliché as it may sound, more people in emerging generations know Christianity by what it stands against than by what it stands for. Jesus, though he clearly had strong opinions about what people should stay away from, seemed on balance more concerned about the kind of things in which people should be investing their lives.

This full-throated commitment to doing something got Jesus in trouble. In Matthew, he is contrasted with the ascetic John the Baptist: “For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon’; the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax-collectors and sinners!’”

It’s important to point out that Jesus drew the contrast between himself and John the Baptist to indicate that there’s just no pleasing some people, no matter what you do. However, it is worth noting that Jesus developed a reputation not for the things he avoided, but for the things he threw himself into.

In a post-denominational world the church must be aware of the widely held perception that it cares more about keeping people from doing things than in giving them the resources they need to live and flourish, and, finally, to follow Jesus. As commitment to mainline denominations deteriorates, the church would do well to think more intentionally about how it embodies its vision of the reign of God.

Justice. Equity. Mutuality. Community. Compassion for the poor, the outcast, the powerless. These are positive visions.

“But isn’t that just a rehash of the traditional liberalism mainline denominations have been trying to interest people in since the latter part of the nineteenth century? If it were such a winning strategy, why are mainline denominations dying?”

Excellent point! I realize I’m trying to thread a pretty fine needle here. What I’m suggesting, though, isn’t a strategy (I don’t think traditional liberal mainliners necessarily thought the Social Gospel was just a strategy either). Making strategic decisions about justice in God’s reign as a way to attract more people misses the whole point. Justice, equity, mutuality, etc. are what we think Jesus came to establish, not well-devised membership recruitment tools.

In a post-denominational world the church needs to quit thinking first about how to save its own bacon, and start devoting more thought to doing the right thing—because we have no other way of conceiving our lives as followers of Jesus.

Leo's Readers' Choice Awards: Douglass Loop Farmers Market Is Number One

The Leo Weekly Readers' Choice Awards announces what we've all known for some time: the Douglass Loop Farmers Market (a ministry of Douglass Boulevard Christian Church) is the best farmers market in Louisville.  

 Thank you to The Leo and everyone who voted!

Woodbourne House Public Dedication

For immediate release:
September 26, 2013

Historic Woodbourne landmark site on Douglass Boulevard is restored and to be rededicated as $3.1 million housing and senior services center

(Louisville, Ky.) In a joint announcement, New Directions Housing Corporation and Douglass Boulevard Christian Church announce the redevelopment and adaptive reuse of Woodbourne House (formerly known as Briney Hall) at 2005 Douglass Boulevard.

• A Dedication Ceremony will occur on Monday, September 30, 2013 at 10 a.m. and will include The Honorable Greg Fischer, Louisville Metro Mayor, and representatives from US HUD, Kentucky Housing Corporation and Highlands Community Ministries.
• Louisville Nonprofit Developer New Directions Housing Corporation oversaw the restoration of the Greek Revival landmark home and the construction of an annex that together provides 11 units for older persons.  New Directions, a United Way and NeighborWorks America member agency, will manage the site.
  
  
• As part of its continuing expansion of senior services serving residents of the 40204 and 40205 areas, Highlands Community Ministries will relocate its respected Shaffer Enrichment Center to operate in the receiving room and library of the Greek Revival home.
  
  
• Douglass Boulevard Christian Church, which acquired the historic home and surrounding area in 1936, will continue to host the Douglass Loop Farmers’ Market on site every Saturday in season, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Built in 1836 by Starks Fielding, the house was among the first 1,000 brick homes in the region and its 200-acre property originally included Big Rock in Cherokee Park.  The property was acquired by George Douglass after the Civil War, whose daughter later donated acreage and Big Rock to Cherokee Park.  For 10 years beginning in 1939, Rugby University School operated at the site.   Broadway Christian Church, later Douglass Boulevard Christian Church, acquired a large part of the original tract in 1936 and built their current place of worship at 2005 Douglass Boulevard in 1940.  In 1949, the church rededicated the historic home as Briney Hall.  It was in continuous use until 2005.

Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer noted that “the challenge of this point in Louisville’s march forward is in finding new purpose for buildings threatened by vacancy and no neighborhood is exempt from the necessary collaborations needed to forge new uses and meaning for such places as Woodbourne House.”

He continued, “That this much-loved place will be home to 11 seniors, continue the Farmers’ Market tradition and welcome others to daily senior activities is the hallmark of Louisville’s compassionate way of life.  This is a triple win.”

New Directions Housing Corporation is a nonprofit community development corporation founded in 1969 by members of Saint William Church.  New Directions owns and manages almost 1,000 units located in 97 historic buildings located across Metro Louisville.  The agency recently marked the 20th Anniversary of Kentuckiana Repair Affair, a volunteer-driven home repair initiative.  This summer, New Directions also co-developed the 1321 Community Inspiration Garden in Midtown, New Albany with Saint John Presbyterian Church and completed the 12-unit Wellspring Tonini Apartments at the historic Tonini Building in Phoenix Hill.

Resources assembled for the $3.1 million development include a $190,000 US HUD planning grant followed by a $1.2 million HUD Section 202 capital advance; Kentucky Historic Tax Credits and National Historic Tax Credits that yielded equity of $98,524 and $283,113 respectively;  national Low Income Housing  Tax Credits awarded by Kentucky Housing Corporation enabling $1,122,000 in equity investment, and grants from Louisville Metro Government ($180,000); Douglass Boulevard Christian Church ($40,000) and nearby neighbors ($13,000.)   Construction financing and equity investment came from Stock Yards Bank & Trust.  The development team included Bosse Mattingly Constructors and Architect Robert Haffermann with the firm K Norman Berry & Associate Architects.

The primary benefit to residents, now and into the future, is a multi-year HUD Section 202 operating subsidy that enables seniors of very low income to affordably access this housing.

New Directions Chief Executive Officer Joe Gliessner outlined the need for more senior housing. 
“For every unit, there are five applicants, and the need for such housing is growing as agencies like
New Directions seek resources to provide for people in need while repurposing vacant properties, in partnership with great institutions like Douglass Boulevard Christian Church.”

For more information contact:

The Reverend Dr. Derek Penwell

Senior Minister, Douglass Boulevard Christian Church
Cell:  (502) 452-2629 / (502) 641-9779

Lisa D. Thompson
Chief Operating Officer, New Directions Housing Corporation
Cell: 502-396-5111 / 502-719-7106

Staying Busy or Changing the World?

I remember that point in my first ministry when I came to the office, sat down behind my desk prepared to write a sermon and realized I had already said everything I knew to say. I kept going over possible angles for the sermon, and kept running headlong into a brick wall: "Said it. Nope, said it. Said that. Said that too."

I figured my career had reached its conclusion. I was sure that the next sermon would be my valedictory.

Where do ministers go after they've exhausted their knowledge, or perhaps better, when they've lost ways to communicate what they care about? After all, I hadn't really said everything I knew. I just couldn't see the bridges that would take me back to all the knowledge I had accumulated.

Sometimes I still feel that way when I preach or when I write—like whatever good I've had to say has already been said. Not much in front of me from here on out. I start feeling sorry for myself, wondering why inspiration isn't a constant companion.

Some of it is boredom, some of it laziness. You do your thing for a while and you start thinking, "What's next? Surely, there's got to be something that will motivate me."

And do you want to know what usually happens when these thoughts come flitting back through my mind? I eventually think: "I need to get busy doing something . . . something important."

I know that sounds counter-intuitive, in part because what I seem to have lost at these times of depletion is the ability to identify what's important. Perhaps better put: What I've lost is the the belief that I'm no longer able to identify what's important.

There's a difference, because I haven't really forgotten what's important. I'm still able to name the kinds of values I bring to my work. What I've lost is the ambition to discover where those values might be found in the next thing I want to do.

So, my response is to get busy doing something that I think might be important, with the idea that what I value will reveal itself to me soon enough.

Here's how it works in writing. I don't know what to write, so I fiddle. I fiddle until I feel guilty enough about it; then I force myself to write something. Usually, I will start out writing about the first thing that comes to my mind. And if I keep writing, eventually what's important will find me.

But this doing something important isn't just motivational talk. Human beings continually struggle to find meaning in life. However, many of the ways our culture seeks to define that meaning center on quantifiable measurements like money and success. But while money and success are nothing to sneeze at, they don't ultimately provide much in the way of meaning.

According to Harvard Business School Professor, Rosabeth Moss Kanter, meaning is to be found when we are a part of something that makes a difference. She argues that "everyone regardless of their work situation, [should] have a sense of responsibility for at least one aspect of changing the world."

So, engaging in something important isn't merely a bridge back to the interesting, but a chance to make a difference.

Turns out, I'm not just trying to get motivated; deep down I want to change the world.

Churches, it occurs to me, often experience this same cycle of despair, when there's not a whole lot new going on. Maintenance. If you've been busy, then taking a break can feel pretty good.

After a while, though, somebody notices that "we're not doing anything anymore."

Somebody, often clergy, will respond by saying, "What do you think we should do?"

And like my kids at home during summer vacation—usually sometime in July—the person responds with some sort of variation on: "I don't know. Nothing sounds good."

That's when it's time to get busy doing something important.

"But what should we do?"

It matters less at first what you do than with doing something that aligns with your values, with something you feel will make a difference.

Let me put it another way. What kinds of things have you done in the past as a congregation that you take pride in?

"Well, we did that back-to-school backpack thing that one summer for the children of undocumented workers in the area. That was pretty great?"

Why did you do it?

"The kids needed backpacks."

A lot of kids need backpacks. Why these kids?

"Well, somebody in the congregation heard that this group of people are often paid so little that their children go to school under-equipped. So, we thought that we could do something tangible to help."

Why'd you stop?

"It was just a one time thing."

Why?

"I don't know, now that you mention it. But it sure did feel good to be able to help. It was a lot of work, but it felt right."

What's going on with those kids now?

"I don't know."

Why don't you find out? Call the people you worked with last time and see what they're up to, what their needs are.

Pro tip: Why not find out what it is about the system as it now stands that continues to under-pay workers, and get involved in that?

Look, here's the thing: Being a Christian (or a writer, or a software designer, or a seamstress, or a golf cart salesperson) is almost always more about intentionality than inspiration.

Get to work doing something, and the important stuff will find you . . . if important stuff is what you want to find, and not just looking to stay busy.

You follow Jesus. You shouldn't be worried about trying to stay busy. You should be worried about trying to change the world.

The Prophetic Call for a Little Brash Stupidit

In this blog post, Will Willimon reminds us that age and experience are important, but that they can become idols when we forget that God is dynamic, moving--and so is the world (and the church) that God oversees. We need to move forward, take chances, embrace failure not as a moral deficiency but as a tool for learning.

"We choke to death on the geriatric virtues of maturity, balance, and careful procedure when what our moribund system needs are more clergy who are young, brash, reckless, and stupid. That is new pastoral leaders who will give God enough room to get in this staid old church and do the sort of resurrection that this God does so well."

The Future of Faith

With the rise of both the "nones" and immigrant faith groups, the way future of faith seems squeezed between two opposing forces. What is the way forward? How about this?

"What if the path toward awakening is simple? Embracing faith as if we really mean it, not worrying about institutional power or rich congregations, living out the teachings of Moses and Jesus, sharing with others, seeking to be at peace with all, loving our neighbors as ourselves?"

A thought provoking article by Diana Butler Bass. Take some time to read it.

It's All About Getting There

By Derek Penwell

Shipping

Shipping. In the end it’s all about shipping.

It’s not about starting. Anyone can start.

It’s about producing. It’s about seeing a project through to completion. It’s about shipping.

Used to be, I was a good starter. I liked the process. I’d get excited about something, and I’d go out and buy a notebook to start taking notes, start planning, start getting ready to start.

And pens. I bought a lot of pens.

And calendars. Notebooks, and pens, and calendars.

How could I not be serious with all these office supplies?

Or, after I got into the computer age, it was software. If I only had the right software, I’d already be finished.

The problem was I mistook starting for shipping. I thought that if I could just get started, I would have done the really important work. If I could just line up the perfect office supplies, the right software, I would have solved the hardest part.

I mistook preparing to work for work.

And it’s not that preparing for work is unimportant. You need the right tools to do the job. Unfortunately, I spent so much time getting the right tools, then organizing them, and making sure the desk or the paints or the tool bench was just so, that I could walk away from the work thinking I’d accomplished work without ever actually working.

Perhaps, even more importantly, I usually had tools enough to start anyway. I convinced myself that the work couldn’t get done, however, without “better” tools.

Here’s what it took me so long to figure out—and occasionally still need help figuring out—good work is the application of resources in the service of realizing a goal—that is, good work is about completing a project and shipping it. Good work doesn’t require a perfect beginning. Perfect beginnings are a white whale that lead you to the middle of nowhere.

Good rule of thumb: If the work you’re doing isn’t bringing you closer to achieving your objective, it’s wasting your time. Not only is it not helping you do good work, it’s preventing you from doing good work—since all the fiddling around deceives you into thinking you’re actually doing something, when in fact, you’re actively, not doing the very thing that would help you achieve your goal.

Sometimes you just have to use the notebook you have.

Maybe you have to make peace with the fact that the old Bic you find at the bottom of the drawer will work just fine.

Perhaps what you need isn’t new software, but a bare-bones text editor and the determination to start driving the cursor across the page—before you have all the details worked out.

The Church and Getting Sidetracked

One of the problems with following Jesus is that you never know quite where he’s going to go. According to the Gospels, the disciples regularly found this little idiosyncrasy of Jesus vexing.

First, he’s going here. Then, he’s going there. The disciples found it next to impossible to keep up with him.

Then, after Jesus left, they stood around, waiting for someone to tell them what to do next.

After the ascension, they stood around looking into the heavens, wondering, “Now what?” Suddenly, two men in white robes sidle up and say, “Why are you just standing there? Quit mouth-breathing and get back to work.”

At Pentecost, they were all gathered together in the Azalea Room at the local Holiday Inn Express, wringing their hands, unable to work out just where to go next. The Holy Spirit showed up, kicked them out into the street with no discernible plan, “For crying out loud! Will you just get out there and start working?”

“We don’t know what to do.”

“Of course you don’t. And you’re never going to know sitting here, rearranging office supplies. You’re going to have to get out there and start.”

“We don’t know where to go.”

“If you wait to start walking until it’s all lined up for you, you’ll never find out where you need to go.”

“But what if we go in the wrong direction? What if we do the wrong thing?”

“You will. Inevitably. You’re going to make so many mistakes, even Lindsay Lohan’s going to look thoughtful next to you. But so what? Most likely, you won’t know exactly what to do and where to go until you’re already out there in the middle of it. So, go ahead and make some mistakes; because making mistakes in the service of a goal is preferable to sitting about endlessly rehearsing the reasons to continue sitting about.”

Congregations too often gets sidetracked. Worried about making mistakes, congregations freeze up.

Well, that’s not true entirely. It’s not like congregations that are afraid of making mistakes don’t do anything. They start things; they just don’t ship much that’s interesting. Unfortunately, the things they start are things with which they feel comfortable.

They spend a great deal of time lining up budgets, making flow charts, buying fancy stationary, dreaming up new programs. And these things feel like good work, like ministry.

But so often these scared congregations stop just short of doing good work because they fear making a mistake. Not wanting to do something that might raise the ire of the faithful, they stick to things they know—which would be one thing, if what they know actually took them toward anywhere interesting. As it is, much of the normal flurry of activity fails to help them arrive at a destination, amounting to energy expended in the service of wheel-spinning.

Here’s What I Think

1. Use the tools you’ve got … until you have enough experience to know they’re not sufficient. Then, go get what you need. (Consistently reversing the order here, will almost certainly guarantee you won’t ship.)
2. Start working. Start heading toward a destination.
3. If you don’t have all the details figured out about your goal, start working anyway. You’re more likely to understand exactly what you’re trying to do only after you’ve begun.
4. If you don’t have the exact GPS coordinates in hand, start heading in the general direction. (This isn’t the same as traveling at random. Start heading north, if north is where you think you need to be.)
5. Make some mistakes. Embrace your mistakes. They provide you valuable information.
6. If you’re on a journey to a destination, backtracking is not defeat; it’s re-calibration. (If you have an idea where you’re going, backtracking is almost always better than sidetracking.)
7. If you’re vaguely afraid of going someplace, it might be that you need to pay more attention to that place. It could truly be dangerous. Or it could be that it’s the very place you should be headed, since all truly interesting places involve a certain amount of risk.
8. Start. Produce. Finish. Ship. Repeat.

Creeping around the Edges (Mark 5:21-43)

Rev. Derek Penwell's sermon for 7/1/2012

In the recent debate over healthcare reform one focus of the argument centers on whether the government or the private sector can better provide healthcare service at a manageable cost. Distilled to its essence, the debate seems to me to focus on which bureaucracy is less bureaucratic.

Private insurance providers claim that the free market is more efficient, because competition drives prices down—which, given the metastatic growth in healthcare costs, is a dubious claim at best. Public healthcare advocates say that the profit incentive in private healthcare makes the job of insurance companies center around figuring out how to deny coverage. Whatever your position, though, the main argument revolves around how to get more healthcare for less money.

Our society spends a great deal of time doing cost-benefit analysis. That is to say, we're socialized to ask, “Does the benefit I derive from a thing exceed the cost I lay out?”

I love cherries, for instance. But whereas I will pay $2.99 a pound for them, $4.99 a pound strikes me as unreasonably high.

Advertising is the practice of convincing you that the prices we're charging for toilet brushes are worth the investment. This makes a certain amount of sense in a market based economy. The problem, though, is that we don't just apply cost/benefit analysis to stuff—we also apply it to one another.

John Stuart Mill wrote in the middle of the nineteenth century that ethics is a matter of “maximizing utility.” Maximizing utility means doing that which leads to the greatest happiness.

According to Mill, if I have to make a choice about whether to save one person or to save ten, I make that choice based on the greatest benefit I can achieve by my action. The sacrifice of one person to save ten is good utilitarian math—though it may not necessarily be good Christian math.

But utilitarianism in Western calculations concerns not only thorny ethical dilemmas, but also the investment of energy. Does it make more sense to teach one special needs child to read or ten average kids? We only have so many resources. We need to get the biggest bang for our buck, right? You see the problem.

But it's one thing to have to figure out how to divide up food for six among seven people on a life boat; it's an entirely different thing to apply utilitarian calculations to our everyday social arrangements. Under this kind of cost/benefit analysis, people can be judged to “cost” more than they're “worth.”

How do we deal with the mentally handicapped, with alzheimer's patients, with people in a persistent vegetative state? What do we do with people who've gotten in over their heads with mortgages they can't afford, or who've had to buy groceries with credit cards? What kind of return on our investment can we expect from them? These are tough questions.

We much prefer to deal with the easy ones: should Jr. go to Harvard or Yale? Can we really afford private Zamboni lessons for our sweet little girl? Do we want our child to date the doctor or the lawyer? Does it make more sense to be a Cubs or Yankees fan?

By and large, people want their kids to be voted “most likely to succeed,” not “best body piercing.” That's the way our society operates. The pressure is to move forward and upward—and to associate ourselves with those who do.

If you have any experience on Facebook, you know that one of the moments of pleasure it can bring is when someone you've sent a friend request to responds by accepting you as a Facebook friend. On the other hand, it can be a little unnerving to send out a friend request to somebody, and never have them respond.

You start thinking, “Did he get it? Is he ignoring me? Did I do something to insult him at some point? Does he think his other friends will think less of him if they see I'm also his friend? Am I

goofier than I thought? That can't be right, because I hung out with way cooler people in school than he did?”

It becomes a sort of endless social calculation of worth—who's more important? Who's worth my time? Do other people think I'm not worth their time?

Of course, these endless calculations of worth aren't unique to us. People throughout history have been doing these sorts of things. Even Jesus isn't completely removed from the social pressures of figuring out who's worth his time and energy.

In our Gospel, Jesus has just calmed the storm and exorcised the demons from the Gerasene demoniac. He crosses back over the sea he's just calmed, where he is approached by an important man, a leader of the synagogue named, Jairus. Up to this point in Mark, Jesus is getting a bad reputation for hanging out with the wrong sort of folks. He's paying attention to all the wrong people. Healing lepers and paralytics and the demon possessed.

Back in chapter two he does some leadership recruitment—not at the finest business schools—but at a “tax booth,” where he calls Levi. Then, he adds insult to injury by going to Levi's house to eat with a bunch of “tax collectors and sinners.” People are starting to talk. You have to be a bit more discerning about the company you keep. Jesus is getting a bad reputation.

So, when Jairus prevails upon Jesus to come see about Jairus's sick little girl, everyone’s relieved. Jairus is the kind of ally Jesus is supposed to cultivate. He's head of the Men's Morning Breakfast down at the synagogue, president of the local Lion's club; he's got contacts. He can help Jesus network.

The disciples must have been thinking, “Finally. Now, we're getting somewhere.” Do a favor for this guy, and no telling the kind of political capital Jesus can start building.

On the way to Jairus's house, though, something happens. It shouldn't have been a big thing. Jesus probably should have just kept going. When you've got a big one on the hook like Jairus, you don't

want to lose your concentration, don't want to get distracted. But Jesus stops anyway. Somebody's yanking on his shirttail. “Who touched my clothes?” he wants to know.

The disciples look at each other, their eyebrows knitted. “What do you mean, 'who touched my clothes?' You're in a crowd, for Pete’s sake.”

A woman approaches. She's owns up to grabbing onto his cloak.

If Jesus is going to turn over a new social leaf, quit hanging out with the wrong crowd, this is the perfect time to start. Women weren't supposed to touch men who were not their husbands. Jesus could make a real statement about how he's willing to play ball in the current political environment by giving this woman what-for.

Moreover, not only is she a woman, she's an unclean woman. She has, what the King James called, an issue of blood. She's been bleeding for 12 years, which is a nice way of saying she's had female problems—not just monthly, but daily . . . for 12 years.

A menstruating woman was considered unclean—which is to say, untouchable. She wasn't supposed to touch anyone, let alone a strange man.

Jesus could really signal his willingness to play by the rules by doing the right thing, the thing that would grease the social gears, the thing that would maximize utility, making the largest number of people happy. He could humiliate her, should humiliate her. But he doesn't.

He tells her that her faith has healed her. “So what?” you ask.

The outrage is that he gives tacit approval to the woman's actions. She’s a drain on society. You can’t encourage that kind of behavior. We know how people are, they’ll take advantage of you every time if they think they can get something for free—especially healthcare.

But rather than do the socially and politically expedient thing, Jesus walks the margins again in search of those folks who are creeping around the edges.

Soon, he and Jairus make it to where the sick little girl is. But by the time they get there, she's already died.

Oh well, nice try, Jesus. Thanks for coming. We appreciate you taking the time, but all that's left to us now is to start preparing her body for burial.

Jesus says, “I'd like to see her anyway. She's really only sleeping.”

Mark says that everybody laughed at Jesus for saying this. They've seen dead people before. They know what dead people look like.

Jesus persists, though. As far as Jairus is concerned, Jesus has done all that could be asked of him. Now that she's dead, Jesus will only make himself unclean by going to see her to hold her lifeless hand.

He never learns, this Jesus. What's the public relations upside here? You've got to think about how this stuff is going to play on cable news.

Not Jesus. Ignoring the cost/benefit analysis, Jesus goes to her, takes her hand, and tells her to get up, and together they walked the margins hand in hand.

What I find interesting about these two intertwined stories is the issue of how short-sighted they make Jesus appear on the front end. In both cases, Jesus participates in activity guaranteed to marginalize him in everyone’s eyes. In both cases, he risks the social and political costs of being unclean by touching those who are unclean. A true test of your convictions is what you’re prepared to look like a complete idiot for.

But the great shock of the story, however, is that once Jesus touches them, they are healed, made alive—and not only is Jesus not unclean as a result of the this encounter, neither any longer are they.

In touching these two in an unclean state, Jesus has not only healed them physically, he’s restored them to the social world in which purity is boss. In other words, he’s given them back their lives . . . in more ways than one.

When Jesus walks the margins looking for those who creep around the edges, he redefines the edges, so that the margins are set in the center; and it's the folks who usually occupy the center who risk finding themselves on the margins.

Once again, Jesus turns the world on its head. The last shall be first, and the first shall be last. The one who wants to find life, must first lose it. Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. The one who wants to gain the world, must forfeit everything.

But Jesus, that doesn't make sense; it's just not good math. You need to put your money on a winner, get a good return on your investment, ride the middle of the road. And Jesus says, “Life's much more interesting out here with those folks on the edges.”

Ask them. Ask those folks who, because society’s told them repeatedly that they’re not worth the effort, what it means for Jesus to go out of his way to reach out a hand, to risk the bad opinion of those bigwigs who occupy center. Ask them whether somebody finally willing to go looking for them means anything.

Walk the margins with Jesus, go looking for those folks creeping around the edges, and sooner or later your cost/benefit analysis is going to get really goofed up.

I promise you.

-Amen. 

True Colors Film Screening

Our friends at the True Colors Ministry of Highland Baptist Church are screening the film Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin this Sunday, February 5th.  If the Super Bowl just isn't your cup of tea, or you're simply looking for an interesting and stimulating activity on Sunday, this is definitely the place to be!  For more information, contact Maurice Bojangles-Blanchard at truecolorsministry@gmail.com. 

Youth: Saturday Night Movie Social

The DBCC Youth, as well as our friends, are invited to our first monthly Saturday Night Movie Social (official name pending).  Youth are encouraged to bring friends as we dine, play games, watch a movie, and just hang out together.  The event will be from 6-11PM this Saturday, Jan. 28th.  Bring friendly attitudes, empty stomachs, and lots of friends! 

Sunday Happenings!

Here are some of the cool things happening the next few Sundays here at DBCC:

Jan. 29: Fiesta Dinner

• Come join us in the Robsion Family Life Center for a Mexican Fiesta meal! We'll have all sorts of Hispanic-inspired cultural dishes. All donations from the meal will be attributed to our Mission Trip Fund!

Feb. 5: Super Bowl Party!

• If you haven't already bought your catered tray of hot wings, come on down to the church and hang out with us for Super Bowl XLVI! Whether you are a die-hard football fan, or prefer to partake of snacks and non-sports related conversation, please feel free to join us. We will also be visited by our friends from the Grace and Freedom House.

Feb. 12: Planning Meeting Follow-up

• Join us for a follow-up to our January 7th Event Planning Meeting to dine and discuss the progress of our 2012 events and ministries. As well as discussing plans in greater detail, we will also be giving dates to those events who have progressed to a hard date. This is also a great chance for those who couldn't attend the Jan. 7th meeting to offer their support and assistance for one or more of these initiatives.

Feb. 19: DBCC Dessert Auction

• To raise money for the Mission Trip, some of the members have donated some of the fabulous desserts for auction. Bring your sweet tooth, wallet, and your bargaining edge. These deserts will be in high demand!