The difficulty of deciding when to open the door

There is a memorable scene in the classic movie, Young Frankenstein.

For some reason the character played by Gene Wilder decides that he needs to go into a locked room with the "monster" that he has created.  Things haven't worked out as planned with his creation, and he maybe needs to try to reason with his misdirected efforts at creating a human life.

Before he opens the door to the cell where he has the creature trapped he turns to his assistant and says something to the effect of No matter what I say or do, do not open this door.

Pretty much the second he goes in, the monster becomes enraged and Wilder begins banging on the door and in a very calm tone says, Open this door please.

The difficulty with accountability in ministry, parenting, or discipleship growth is when to hold those we serve in any of these areas to the promises and vows we take; and when to relent.

You can easily find yourself holding the bag (or outside the door of a locked room with a raging monster inside) of the fundraiser, ministry event, small group, or new puppy that someone, some time thought was such an awesome idea.

When to take up the reins of someone else's vision, when to let it die, and how much the monster beats them up before you let them out is one of the most difficult duties of discipleship I have run into.

I guess that is why we find ourselves rushing toward situations that everyone else is seems to be rushing away from.

Which is sounds kind of cool.

But, for the most part: I find myself shouting, "Open this door please!"

A recent email informed me that there can only be one truth.

...Consider what Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, the life. No one comes to the Father but through me." If all religions are a valid way to God, then Jesus was not telling the truth. And if Jesus was not telling the truth, He is not the only way. Truth, by definition, means that one statement is true and a contradicting statement is false. Either Jesus is truth or universalism is truth. What do you believe? I believe Jesus...

Interesting, because I've recently been mulling over how there's more than one truth.

Your truth.

And my truth.

That's at least two truths and the fact is there is at least one truth for every you and for every me.

What difference does it make if you start with the idea that there is only one truth and everything else is false or if there are lots of truths?

For me, it's that one leads to lots of arguments about what Christian is.

The other one leads to discoveries about how Christians live.

I'll have to spend some time with you to figure our if your truth helps me live into the truth of Christ.

And you'll have to do the same.

I'd rather live with you and your truth and find out how it helps (or doesn't) me live a more truthful Christian life.

Than argue with you about what's true and what's false.

Caring for homelessness without caring for the homeless

I was helping prepare a lunch at a soup kitchen one time. On this particular day, a group from an organization renown for its support of the work the soup was doing to serve the homeless was also on the property working on a construction of a new building..

This organization was involved with all sorts of projects with the shelter from construction of facilities to programs.

When it came time to serve lunch, an interesting thing happened.

The workers who took a break to eat their lunch dined alone and not with the homeless folks we were serving.

It got my mind to thinking that it's possible to care about homelessness without really having to become involved with the homeless.

I asked my two daughters about this and sensing the perhaps disdain in my voice as I asked their opinion, they simultaneously responded that "Not everyone is like you. People serve in different ways and that is OK."

I have mentioned the phenomenon to other people.  One said, well when you really analyze it, we really don't do the service work at the shelter for the homeless, we do it for us.

There is no doubt a difference between caring about homelessness and caring about the homeless.

Maybe we prefer to be able to control our involvement and how and when we care about things.

And that's OK, but can we, together, have the courage to serve in a such a way that we can't necessarily control and with the homeless instead of just for the homeless?

Would anything change if we served out of faith?

My job is so demanding I can't do any work

I've been thinking the goal is to live an integrated life.  Work, faith, family, self, religion all a part of one thing.

I thought I was doing it wrong or I wasn't very good at it because it didn't seem to be working at all.

I then I discovered that it's not necessarily nirvana: this integrated all parts working together thing.

A friend who discovers things at a young age explained to me that things started clicking for him when he consciously segmented his work from his ministry which I think he was referring to as his vocation.

Then I came across a piece in a transcript for an On Being radio show about life in Detroit 

A job is similar to slavery in that one is forced to perform actions in return for some sort of compensation for one's labor. Therefore the rewards are extrinsic, and without such extrinsic rewards people cannot be forced into a job they dislike. To tolerate or compensate for these job conditions often times people will engage in excessive consumerism or self-medicate to counteract the boredom that comes from a job or to make themselves feel better.

Work, on the other hand, is defined as activities that one enjoys. To be compensated with money is not important because of the pleasures and satisfaction of work. Therefore the rewards are more intrinsic.

as outlined by Matthew Fox (The Re-Invention of Work)

This seems right for me now.  I have to start being realistic about what my job requires and do it with all the passion and intensity I can bring to bear.  Numbers, ego, competition, accomplishment, pleasing others, service all will be alive and well here.  I'll do my job with conviction that is making a difference in the organization and the world.

But there will need to be time for work to.  This is the integrated place. Family, friends, foes, different ideas, the joy of being, failure,  will be seen or sought or brought.

It as in most things is probably best to move from the integrated life to the segmented work life and after a while here, it'll be time to go back to the integrated thing again.

2 Things Everyone You Serve in Ministry Will Want in 2012

They manifest themselves in different ways, but two things that everyone seems to want is to be heard and to be right.

It isn't enough to try something in ministry.

Having an idea and having it heard is important.

How does it fit into the overall mission and ministry of the church?  Not as critical.

Of course it's sometimes hard to figure out just what the mission and ministry of the church is.

We sometimes confuse the mission and ministry of the church with right theology or with minimizing risk.

The most important thing might be to make sure the nativity scene is historically accurate or that the right forms are filled out for the trip to the soup kitchen.

Which leads to a third thing people will want in 2012.


To get their way.

The critical job for us will be to figure out if what we are doing is just trying to get our way or fulfilling the mission and ministry of the church.

A good start would be to hear others, and let them know we hear.

We have the rest of the year to figure out what's right and who will get their way.

When is where you put the creche the point?

An excerpt from the movie script of Charlie Wilson's War between a US Senator and a powerful constituent details a scene in which the ACLU's lawsuit to have a nativity scene removed from the lawn of a fire station.  It gives some interesting insight into our modern concept of incarnation.

Larry: Every single year since the world was young, the firehouse in the Nacogdoches

Township has displayed a creche.

Now, the ACLU has filed suit against the township for displaying a religious symbol on public property.

It's Christmas time.

It's a creche.

I could understand if we were in gosh-darn Scarsdale, but this is east Texas, and I want to know who we're offending.

Except two lawyers from the ACLU.

Charlie: That is a terribly interesting and complicated question.

Let me make this suggestion, though.

There's a church about a block and a half from that firehouse, First Baptist Church of Nacogdoches.

They've got a beautiful rolling lawn out there in front.

Larry: No, no. This is a Christian country, Charlie, founded on Christian values.

Sure.  We welcome other faiths to worship as they wish, but when you can't put a nativity scene in front of a firehouse at Christmas time in Nacogdoches Township, something's gone terribly wrong.

  

Charlie: Well, that's not really true, Larry.

You could move that creche over to that church and everything's just fine.

Larry: That's not the point!

Every since the magi came looking for Christ in the palace of Herod, we have been expecting God's presence to be proclaimed in the places of power.

We often still insist that his manifest existence is displayed in court houses, on the public square, at the check out counter, and even on the fire house lawn.

But incarnation is about how we bear God's existence and presence for others.

And not about what icon inhabits the public square.

On the eve of God's coming, we anticipate all the ways and places God's presence will find us in spite of our desire to control where we and others see him.

Or, what do you think is the point?

Kantians, modern consequentialists, and contractualists- living in the tension of right and wrong

Do you believe you should act according to categorical moral principles that you would desire everyone to follow?

If so, you might be a Kantian.

Do you believe that you should act based on what is likely to happen as being a good outcome or a bad outcome?

You might be a modern consequentialist.

Or do you put more stock in doing things guided by subjective principles of what "we owe each other"?

You could be described as a contractualist.

In her New Yorker Magazine article about philosopher Derek Parfit, Larissa MacFarquhar, using the following scenario to illustrate the difference in ideas of right and wrong:

A murderer asks you where your friend is, so he can kill her.

The Kantian would tell the murderer where the friend is.  The consequentialist would not tell because it would mean the possible death of a friend.  The contractualist would base his subjective and practical decision based on what he owes his friend vs. what is owed to society on being truthful or deceptive in this instance: lying or betraying a friend.

Parfit was looking for a way to satisfy all three positions with a convergent principle:

An act is wrong just when such acts are disallowed by some principle that is optimific [leading to best results], uniquely universally willable, and not reasonably rejectable.

It may the mother of all answers to moral dilemmas but not too helpful in the world of ministry.

The objective in bring people together around ideas probably shouldn't be an answer that satisfies everyone (let's face it, a Sunday school answer).

The objective should be for the consequentialist to understand why a Kantians is so Kantian and what experiences the contractualists had to make her so very...consequentialist.

Maybe then we can start to understand why we do what we do and have such strong feelings about what's right and what's wrong.