Theologizing on Dave Balter mini-essay in the “What Matters Now” project – “Dumb"

A long time ago, starting a company that made software for computers was dumb. Microsoft and Apple may beg to differ. A company that manufactured cars: dumb. Putting a college yearbook online: dumb. Limiting updates to just 140 characters: dumb.

Here's what's easy: to regonize a really smart new business concept as just that. What's hard is recognizing that the idea you think is just plain dumb is really tomorrow's huge breakthrough.

But what makes dumb, smart? The ability to look at the world through a different lens from everyone else. To ignore rules. To disregard the 'why's' and 'how's' and 'never-succeeded-befores'. Then you need conviction, and the ability to stand by that conviction when other (smart) people look at you in the eye and say, "no way, nuh uh."

So, how do you tell a good dumb idea from a bad dumb one? Good dumb ideas create polarization. Some people will get it immediately and shower it with praise and affection. Others will say it's ignorant and impossible and run for the hills. The fiercer the polarization, the smarter your dumb idea.

Of course, dumb can just be dumb. You just have to be smart to tell the difference.

This essay evoked in me a question as to why we in church leadership, generally, are afraid of the word polarization? Jesus polarized people - boy did he ever! Mother against daughter and brother against brother as the scripture goes. I want to share a quote from a favorite thinker of mine James Alison:

"Someone who begins to believe in the living God automatically begins to lose faith in the inevitability of things, in fate, in the sacredness of the social order, in inevitable progress, in horoscopes and so on, because the moment the imagination and emotional and mental structures begin to absorb what is meant by the vivaciousness of the Creator God who brings into being and sustains all things, all those other elements start to be revealed as part of a dead sacred order, as attributions of divinity and thus fixity, to things which are human, which are structured socially, culturally and economically, and are for that reason dependent upon human responsibility and potentially mutable through the exercise of that same responsibility."

Beyond being one of the longest constructed sentences in known existence, this quote speaks about the polarization the Gospel creates. The Gospel takes us on a process characterized by the collapse of certain sacred structures. Specifically, the Gospel leads us down a path that calls us to abandon anything which contributes to the sacrifice of others. The Gospel leads us down a road that calls into question ANYTHING that leads us to victimize anyone/anything. Which might even be something that we, at this point, would consider foundational to our religious tradition. It might lead us down the path of abandoning some traditional and popular understandings of why Jesus died.

How fast are we willing to fail?

"It’s important that nobody gets mad at you for screwing up. We know screwups are an essential part of making something good. That’s why our goal is to screw up as fast as possible."

—Lee Unkrich, director of Toy Story 3

I ran across this quote the other day and it really jazzed me up in regards to the life of the church. What I mean is that we seem to have a great aversion (generally speaking) to failure in the life of the church. I have yet attended a clergy meeting which everything was not a 'success'. If there are failures that are brought up in conversations, I am not privy to those conversations.

So I share this quote with you, those readers who humble me with your time, in order to ask the question, "When and where was the last time you failed in ministry?"

Are you failing fast enough?

I will post tomorrow the last time I failed.

Bonhoeffer: "Life together"

In November of 2009, a group of about eight people from my local church community attended a continuing education conference which was sponsored by our Conference (the larger jurisdiction of which our local church community is associated with). The focus of the conference was asking people to take a closer look at the book "The Five Practices of a Fruitful Congregation" by Bishop Robert Schnase. After the conference, this group of eight made a commitment to one another to begin to discern what we think God is calling our church community to do and be in light of these practices. So we decided the best place to begin is to pray together.

So each Sunday (give or take a few) we have met to pray together. We have read a couple of books together which inform our conversation and we have even had a half day retreat for which we discussed what we felt God was telling us. It has been a wonderful group for one I cherish. They hold me accountable to different disciplines which I embark upon (such as my Lenten discipline).

One of our members, Reverend Nancy Allen, suggested that we read Bonhoeffer's book "Life Together". It is not a quick read despite not being very long. He uses several things in the book which the group found to be helpful as we discussed our life together in the church community we share.

Of the many things which spoke to me in this book, one thing sparked me to write out a 'T-chart' to help me see the difference between what he calls the "Community of Spirit" verse the "Human Community of spirit".

Here is the chart I made.

I was most struck by how my local church community works very hard and much of what we do is with good intentions but, I think, it is still located in the superficial (not bad, but more like "not deep") Community of the Human spirit.

I invite you to take a look at what Bonhoeffer is sharing with us and I wonder what you glean from this. Where do you find yourself living? What do you think your community strives to be in light of what it does as a church community? What steps can the UMC take to embody more of the Community of the Spirit and less of the Human Community of spirit?

William Sloane Coffin sermon quotes

Last week my senior minister shared with me a sermon dated January 23, 1983 (Palm Sunday) written by William Sloane Coffin. The title of the sermon is "Alex's Death" and it comes on the heals of Rev. Coffin's son, Alex, tragic death in an automobile accident. While I believe the sermon is great on the whole and one should probably read the sermon in its entirety in order to 'get all the goodness out of it', I wanted to share some of the lines on this post which I though were examples of great use of language.

"My 24 year old Alexander, who enjoyed beating his old man at every game and in every race, beat his father to the grave."

"Among the healing flood of letters..." (It is provocative to me that he would use the image of a flood because from what I can tell in the sermon, Alex died by drowning. That Coffin would take this image and twist it a bit to accent Grace is quite profound.)

"love not only begets love, it transmits strength."

"The one thing that should never be said when someone dies is, "It is the will of God." Never do we know enough to say that."

"While words of the Bible are true, grief renders them unreal. The reality of grief is that absence of God - "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" The reality of grief is the solitude of pain, the feeling that your heart's in pieces, your mind's blank and that "there's not a joy the world can give like that it takes away" (Lord Byron)"

"I felt some of my fellow reverends were using comforting words of Scripture for self protection, to pretty up a situation whose bleakness they simply couldn't face. But like God Herself, Scripture is not around for anyone's protection, just for everyone's unending support."

"When parents die, as did my mother last month, they take with them a large portion of the past. But when children die, they take away the future as well. That is what makes the valley of the shadow of death seem so incredibly dark and unending. In a prideful way it would be easier to walk the valley alone, nobly, head high, instead of - as we must - marching as the latest recruit in the world's army of the bereaved."

"interestingly enough, when I mourn Alex least I see him best."

"But it's a face: few of us are naturally profound; we have to be forced down."

"So I shall - so let us all - seek consolation in that love which never dies, and find peace in the dazzling grace that always is."

It is my hope that I too might learn how to be profound, but it is my prayer that I do not have to do through what William Sloane Coffin had to in order to arrive there.