Bishop’s Address at 194th Convention of the Diocese of Georgia November 2015

On November 13, 2015, in Body of Christ, Community, Convention, Diocese of Georgia, discipleship, Evangelistic Witness, faith, gospel, grace, Laity, leadership, mission, by bishopbenhase

The field of moral psychology endeavors to understand why people make moral choices and the rationale they use to justify their choices. One of moral psychology’s recurring findings is that we have a higher opinion of ourselves than we ought to have. Of course, St. Paul arrived at the same conclusion about human nature nearly 2000 years ago when he wrote that very same message to the Church in Rome (Romans 12:3).

Experiments and surveys have repeatedly shown that we believe we possess attributes that are better or more desirable than the average person. For example, we believe by a wide majority that we’re above average drivers. The same is true when we’re asked about a virtue such as honesty. A high percentage of us report that we’re more honest than the average person. Even folk in jail for theft report such superior honesty. High school students consistently judge themselves to be more popular than average. And nearly every state claims that their average student test scores are above the national average. Of course, since we know something about statistics, we know that such judgments about ourselves cannot be true.

Moral psychologists have termed this phenomenon The Lake Wobegon Effect. It’s named for the fictional town of Lake Wobegon from the radio program A Prairie Home Companion, where, according to host Garrison Keillor: “All the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average.”

What these moral psychologists are documenting is as old as humanity. Our tradition names it as sin born from the cardinal sin of pride. Our creation story reminds us that Adam & Eve were quite clear that their judgment about a particular fruit in the Garden of Eden was superior to God’s judgment.

This truth about ourselves needs to be front and center when we spread the Good News of Jesus Christ. Yes, when sharing our faith with those who aren’t Christians we do need to have a “I-know-something-you-don’t-know” quality to it, because we do “know something they don’t know” when it comes to God’s grace in Jesus. But it’s how we share our faith with others that matters. It should be humble. We’re not morally superior to those outside the Christian faith. We may not even be morally above average.

So, from this humble stance, what is it we are to share?

I want to propose three Bible verses that will help remind us of how we should spread the Good News of Jesus.

The first verse is Isaiah 55:1: “Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and drink!

Notice how the Prophet Isaiah pronounces God’s word here. Everyone who thirsts is invited. All should come and drink and eat without money or price. God’s invitation to humanity is complete and without condition. Isaiah’s prophecy is a bold declaration of God’s intention, made perfect in Jesus’ words in John’s Gospel, that Jesus when he is lifted up on the cross will draw all people to himself.

That means Jesus is doing the drawing. Our congregations then must be places where we’re trained for our role, not Jesus’ role. It may be a conversation you have in the living room at Columba House. It may be you comforting an exhausted Scout Leader after his troop meets one night at your church. It may be you listening to a co-worker over coffee about her current troubles. Whenever and wherever, we need to say to everyone in our communities: “Ho, everyone who thirsts, come!”

The second verse is Isaiah 25:9: “Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, so that he might save us.”

Spreading the Good News involves us waiting for God to act. Our salvation, indeed the world’s salvation, isn’t our own doing. But our waiting should never be passive. It must be an active waiting, all the while recognizing that salvation is God’s action and God’s property, not ours.

If we remember that, then we’ll maintain a humble stance with those outside of our faith. Even though the Gospel is God’s bold declaration to the world, we should be compassionate and tender in how we share it, because we know many people have only received a false, toxic version of the Gospel.

Waiting for God to save is actually liberating. We’re free from playing the age-old game of who’s in and who’s out. We can collaborate with anyone, regardless of their faith, if they’re willing to do Gospel work with us in our communities.

If someone wants to partner with the Food for a Thousand Ministry at St Patrick’s, Albany or the community garden at the Oak Street Mission in Thomasville, we won’t worry if they don’t share our faith. We’ll feed hungry people with anyone. The Community Cares Café in Darien serves children whether or not they or their parents believe as we do. After all, we’re not on God’s “Program Committee.” We’re on God’s “Welcoming Committee.”

“Lo, it is God who saves us.” And we’ll share that Good News with anyone.

And the third and final verse is Matthew 28:19: “Go, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

It’s not a liturgical accident that each Sunday our deacons send us out with this short, powerful verb: “Go!” “Go” doesn’t mean, “stay.” “Go” doesn’t mean hang out inside the church walls until somebody shows up. And “Go” doesn’t mean being so hamstrung by political correctness that we refrain from sharing with others God’s forgiveness in Jesus. “Go” means, “Go!”  

Go into the communities of this diocese with a “humble boldness.” Go share good news with the poor. Go tell the spiritually blind that God wants to give them sight. Go speak to the spiritually thirsty and let them know how you’ve learned that Jesus is the Water of Life.

Go to everyone. Go to the NSA, the NRA, the NAACP, the Rotarians, the Elks Club, the Booster Club, the Garden Club, the Optimist’s Club, the Pessimist’s Club, just Go! Wherever God has placed you, Go!

When we actually do go, God does some amazing things.

  • The community youth group in McIntosh County decided to go and this last year we baptized five young people.
  • The Cornerstone Ministry in Augusta chose to go and now regularly has 35 or more youth participate. And some of those aren’t members of our churches. They’re being evangelized by our youth.
  • In the summer when we go to Lake Blackshear with the Good News, people respond. Because the people of Christ Church Cordele decided to go, their worship attendance has doubled in the last few years.

What might God do in our communities if we all decided to “go?” Because when we “go,” we discover God’s already there. When we go to the ends of the earth or just to the end of our block, we find Jesus already pitching his tent there.

My friends, I firmly believe that the future vitality of this Diocese is directly related to our collective willingness to “go.” Our vitality will only grow in direct proportion to the number of us who are willing to “go.” And, this going can’t be a clergy-centered movement. A few laity still think that since we pay many of our clergy to go, they themselves don’t have to go. But that’s not true. The clergy’s primary task is to equip the laity to be the ministers of the Gospel. As the great lay teacher & preacher Verna Dozier wrote: The layperson’s primary function is out there in the world.  And the wise Archbishop of Canterbury, William Temple, wrote: Nine-tenths of the Church’s work in the world is done by Christian people fulfilling responsibilities and performing tasks which in themselves are not part of the official system of the Church at all.

That means when we “go,” we don’t go to church, we “go” to the people and places of our lives taking the Good News of Jesus with us. And if the Good News of Jesus saves us, it will save anybody and everybody.

I know I’ve gone a bit long here, but please stay with me for a few more minutes. I want to end on a personal note. Some of you know that I was diagnosed with cancer two months ago. I’m happy to report to you that I’m cancer free today. And I’m most thankful for all of your prayers. I felt each one of them.

The Diocesan Staff has been amazing, as usual, dealing with their already full responsibilities while also picking up after me, which is nearly an impossible task.

I also couldn’t do even one small thing as the Bishop of Georgia if it weren’t for Kelly, who puts up with me even as I am and loves me anyway, far beyond what I deserve.

There were upsides to my getting cancer. It’s been a great excuse for getting out of stuff. When someone asked me to do something I didn’t want to do, all I had to do was say: “You know, I’d love to, but I have cancer.” That worked every time.

The other upside is that it’s sharpened my mind and soul. It’s helped me see how often I’ve taken for granted the truly wonderful people and blessings that surround me.

And cancer has helped me get clear about what I want my life to stand for and how I want to spend the rest of my days on this earth, however long that is.

So, to quote that wonderful hymn by the Reverend James Cleveland:

Right now, I don’t feel no ways tired!

I’m ready to “go!” And I hope you’re ready to “go,” too.

“Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters”

“Lo, this is our God who has saved us.”

“Go, make disciples”

Deacons, please stand now wherever you are.  Please help me dismiss all of us from this overly long address with one powerful verb. It begins with a G and it ends with an O. On the count of three: One, two, three – Go!

 
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The Inextricable Bond of Spirituality & Justice (eCrozier #253)

On March 6, 2015, in Community, culture, Death Penalty, discipleship, gospel, Justice, mission, Piety, Spiritual Disciplines, by bishopbenhase

Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple. – John 2:15

We’re more accustomed to a different Jesus, aren’t we? The Sunday School image of Jesus as the gentle good shepherd carrying a baby lamb on his shoulders still resonates with us. So when Jesus takes a whip and clears the temple, we’re taken aback. His action doesn’t fit our Sunday School image. But maybe such an image is mistaken? Some believe Christians should never get angry because Jesus never did. Well, he did. There’s nothing wrong with anger when it’s directed toward pursuing justice for God’s children.

We shouldn’t sit idly by while people suffer injustice. In fact, I’d say that if we’re not angered by injustice, then we’re not being faithful to the Gospel. It’s anger with injustice that leads us to confront the sin of racism. It’s anger with state-sponsored vengeance murder that compels us to end capital punishment. It’s anger with our society’s indifference to homeless people that leads us to work for safe housing for everyone. We should be angry when we see God’s creation polluted or God’s people brutalized.

Some of us, however, have adopted an insular spirituality. Pursuing spirituality is very popular these days. People want to become more spiritual. But much of what is called being “spiritual” has no basis in the Bible. Biblically speaking, there’s no separation between our spiritual connection to God and our pursuit of justice for God’s people. The Great Commandment sums this up: Jesus says that loving God and loving our neighbor go hand in hand. We can’t love one without also loving the other. And we can’t love our neighbors without seeking justice for them. It’s just not biblically possible.

But that’s what some people do. They’re just interested in their spiritual growth as if such growth can be separated from justice. The Bible claims a wholeness of spirituality and justice, of prayer and action, of contemplation and its inextricable connection to God’s justice. If we wish to be spiritual, we should help a child learn to read. If we wish to be spiritual, we should help a hungry person find the food they need. If we wish to be spiritual, we should rebuke that colleague when he makes a racist or homophobic joke.

Yet, working for justice will be rudderless and random if it’s not grounded in the faith of the Church, for that’s where we learn how to order our lives so we’ll avoid a superficial spirituality or a definition of justice that simply mirrors a political party at prayer.

The pursuit of God’s justice needs to begin with our own self-examination and fearless personal inventory. Before we can point our finger at anybody else, we need to point the finger at ourselves and allow our anger to motivate us to change how we live. We must admit that in some ways we’re no different than the buyers and the sellers Jesus confronted in the temple. When our lives in the Church are turned over by Jesus the same way he turned over the temple tables, then we’ll begin to learn to be the Church. Then we will live holistic lives where our spirituality isn’t disconnected from seeking justice for God’s children.

+Scott

 
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Attending Relationships, or Accomplishing Tasks, or Vice Versae (eCrozier #247)

On January 23, 2015, in Community, leadership, by bishopbenhase

People are complex, amazing, exasperating, and funny creatures. If you doubt this, look in the mirror (and be honest about who you see there). We’re able in one moment to engage in remarkable acts of love and devotion and then, in the next moment, act in petty, vindictive ways. All this complex and exasperating behavior shows itself in our social interaction. Our interaction with others can produce in us both joy and anxiety, and yet it’s fundamental to who we are as God’s creatures. We drive one another nuts at times, but the other is blessedly necessary for us. In theological terms, we might say that God has hard-wired us to be in communion with one another (thus, it’s God’s fault!).

David Brooks, the author and columnist, tells in his book, The Social Animal, of a psychological research experiment (although he can’t find a source verifying that this experiment was ever actually done). In the experiment, middle-aged men were hooked up to a brain-scanning device. Then they were shown a horror movie while the device recorded the reactions in their brains. Later, they were hooked up to the same device when their wives were present. They were then asked to share their feelings with their wives. The researchers then compared the first and second brain scans. They were the same: complete terror during both episodes!

I share Brooks’ tale partly because I think it’s hilariously true, but also because it illustrates our complexity and differences. And those aren’t just in terms of gender. Personality research and insight, such as produced by the Myers-Briggs Personality Inventory, informs us about our complexity and differences in how we take in and relate to the world around us. Some of us are innately introverted, while others are given to extroversion. Some think first and then feel second, while others feel first and then engage their thoughts. All this causes great challenges for us as we try to navigate the complexities of our myriad relationships in the world, especially in the church.

Maybe the most challenging difference we experience in community is the one related to the tension between accomplishing tasks and attending to relationships. And this tension is a core challenge for those of us who are leaders in the church. Some folk are task oriented. When they’re faced with a job to do or a role to live out, they just want to get it done. Others, however, attend themselves more to relationships. Accomplishing tasks are less important to them. This doesn’t mean task oriented folk don’t care about relationships or that relationship oriented folk don’t care about tasks. It means that in every community there will be people who tend to be more of one than the other.

The key skill here for church leaders is to help people stay on task while also helping them attend to the relationships in the group. God’s mission is not well-served if a particular task is accomplished, but in doing so people are at each other’s throats. Likewise, we’ll never engage in mission if we ignore the real tasks required to do so. If we wish to be effective leaders in the church, then we must practice mindfulness about this basic reality and attend to it in every part of church life. Both kinds of people are a part of every group within the church. That’s why church life is never boring!

+Scott

 
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Grace and the Virtue of Self-Restraint (eCrozier #246)

On January 16, 2015, in Christian freedom, Community, culture, grace, by bishopbenhase

All things are lawful for me, but not all things are beneficial. – 1 Corinthians 6:12

The Christians in Corinth believed St Paul’s message of God’s unmerited grace in Jesus and thus they weren’t bound to keep Judaism’s food and purity laws. It was God’s grace mediated through Jesus saved them. Following such religious food and purity laws couldn’t do that. But some were using this freedom from such religious laws to rub it in the face of others. So, they’d say things like: “all things are lawful for me.” They flaunted their freedom from such religious laws to satisfy their own desires. They weren’t considering what would be beneficial for the other. They were basically saying: “I’m free do anything I please because I’m saved by grace alone.” St Paul agrees with them, but he also points out that while they’re indeed free, they have a responsibility to honor other people. He argues that even though God’s grace has given them the “right” to do something, they don’t necessarily need to exercise that right. Rather, they should consider what would be “beneficial” for the other person.

Later, St Paul uses the example of eating food sacrificed to idols to make this point. Now, that was a big deal in the polyreligious city of Corinth. There were shrines there to every imaginable god where people could bring animals to sacrifice. The best steak houses were right next door to these shrines since they got the choicest cuts of meat. So, St Paul makes it clear they have the right to eat meat sacrificed at such shrines because those gods aren’t real. But he says they shouldn’t do it because it may cause the less mature people among them to think they were really there to worship a pagan god. St Paul says that there are more important things than simply exercising one’s rights. Now that doesn’t mean we must always steer clear of any behavior that may upset others. At times that’s unavoidable. But before we engage in such behavior, we should look within ourselves to make sure that an action we contemplate is a matter of an important principle and not simply the satisfaction of a desire to exercise “our rights.”

And that brings us to the conversation many are having over the satire produced by the magazine, Charlie Hedbo. The thugs who murdered members of the magazine’s staff used their offense at the satire produced by the magazine as justification for their heinous deed. No amount of cartoon offense justifies murder. But just because the cartoonists had the right to ridicule other people’s deeply held beliefs doesn’t mean they had to do so as they regularly did. I hope we all want to uphold the right to the free expression of ideas. That doesn’t mean, however, that expressing every idea that plops into our heads is a good thing. Self-restraint is a virtue. Recognizing how expressing our ideas and exercising our rights affect others is a sign of our maturity, our respect, and it’s a way for us to honor the other, even if they don’t seem to deserve honor. For it’s not about them. It’s about us. It’s about how we conduct our lives. As Teju Cole of The New Yorker writes: “The cartoonists were not mere gadflies, not simple martyrs to the right to offend: they were ideologues. Just because one condemns their brutal murders doesn’t mean one must condone their ideology.” The cartoonists had the right to their ideology, as do we. But can’t we still show some self-restraint and honor?

+Scott

 
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When a Goat becomes a Sheep: Staying Off the Throne of Judgment (eCrozier #241)

On November 21, 2014, in Christ the King, Community, faith, grace, love, by bishopbenhase

Our Gospel for this Sunday’s Feast of Christ the King is the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats. The parable presents us with a compelling vision of God’s final judgment on the creation. Jesus tells us there’ll be sheep and there’ll be goats. And that presents us with the challenge for how we’ll live with this truth in our lives until God’s final judgment. It’s tempting, of course, to get into the judgment business now by deciding on God’s behalf who the sheep are and who the goats are. The problem is that sheep and goats aren’t always easy to name clearly and without a doubt. Sometimes they are. We can all come up with examples of sheep-like or goat-like behavior in the extreme. But it’s those areas in between where we have difficulty clearly sorting them out.

Years ago I met a real goat, or so I thought. Most people looking at this man’s life would have quickly surmised he was just no good. He was in prison for multiple aggravated assaults and for selling illegal drugs. No one would’ve mistaken him for being in the Good Shepherd’s flock. In the great judgment, he’d be a sure bet to be with the goats. Yet, some of us believed in God’s power of redemption. We gathered at the prison where I baptized him in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. After he was released from prison, I lost track of him. Many years later, I ran into him. To be honest, I was a bit anxious. But my anxiety quickly went away. He smiled, hugged me, and told me his life had changed. He was now a deacon in his Church, married, and working full time as an addiction recovery specialist. Was he a goat who became a sheep? Or, was he a sheep all along and no one saw that but God? Do you see how difficult it is when we get into the judgment business? It can lead us to behaviors that should rightly make us pause. It’s clear to me that our moral confusion around, for example, the torture of terrorism suspects comes from our readiness to judge all such suspects as goats before God.

A check on this temptation to be in the judgment business is found embedded in this parable. One of the least noticed aspects of the parable is also one of its most impor­tant. In the final judgment the sheep don’t even know they are sheep. When Jesus places them at his right hand and ushers them into eternal life, they are clueless as to why. They ask, “Lord, when did we do all these compassionate things to you?” Jesus responds to them, “When you did it to the least of these, then you did it to me.” That alone should make us think again when we’re tempted to place ourselves on the throne of judgment.

This parable then is about God’s faithfulness and love. Like with the parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard, it’s not the hard work of the la­borers that’s rewarded. Rather, it’s the faithfulness of the landowner who keeps his promise to all the labor­ers. Or, in the parable of the Prodigal Son, it isn’t the spiritual insight of the son that’s crucial. He just wanted to get out of the pig slop and back to life on his father’s farm. Rather, it’s his father’s gracious love that makes it possible for his son to be welcomed home, no strings attached. In this Parable of the Sheep and the Goats we find God’s faithfulness and God’s love combined in the King who is the Good Shepherd of our souls. Because of God’s faithfulness, God honors our human freedom to choose even to eter­nity. But also because of God’s love, God redeems us, and indeed the entire creation, through Jesus.

+Scott

 
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New Year’s Resolutions and God’s Medicine for Sinful Saints (eCrozier #202)

On January 3, 2014, in Community, culture, gospel, grace, by bishopbenhase

I’m not much for New Year’s resolutions because I’ve never been able to keep any of those ones I’ve made. All they do is make me feel bad when I fail once again to do what I said I was going to do or what I think I should be doing. This begins a downward spiral that leads me to reach the conclusion that I’m a pretty sorry human being if I can’t even keep one, small resolution. About all these failed resolutions do for me is to prove the Gospel truth that I’m a sinner with inconsistent resolve. Not a news flash. No need for film at 11 p.m. I guess I could resolve never to make another New Year’s resolution, but then that would be a resolution and I’d probably not keep that one either.

Our lack of resolve (I assume you share it to some extent) is just one sign of our sinful human nature. And you and I live in a time where any sin gets amplified by the every present media, social and otherwise, as if human sin were somehow breaking news. Whether it be Phil Robertson from Duck Dynasty whose ignorant remarks about women and race have been written about ad nauseam or New Hampshire state Representative David Campbell who recently plowed down a group of ducks that he said didn’t move out of the way fast enough in front of his BMW, our response seems to be to fly into a morally superior outrage and utter something to the effect of “how dare he!”

This isn’t to suggest that we should support either Mr. Robertson’s or Mr. Campbell’s remarks or actions, but it’s to suggest that maybe we should check out the beam in our own eye a bit more often, especially if we’re going to base our outrage on our Christian faith. You see, central to the Christian faith is the Good News of Jesus, and not the good behavior of Christians. The Good News is while we remain sinners Christ died for us (Romans 5:8). But so much of Christianity today is less about that Good News and more about how Christians, especially prominent public ones, should be living blameless lives.

I think this is one of the reasons some people would just as soon stay home on Sundays and not join the Church for worship. Why would anyone want to come to a place of worship where they have no expectation of receiving Good News? They may suspect that if they do come for worship, then they’ll be judged because their lives don’t measure up. This is akin to the cartoon of Charlie Brown preparing to kick the football only to have Lucy yank it away at the last second. Grace is dangled for them like the football in front of Charlie Brown, but as they approach it, it’s swiftly removed by an insistence on moral performance. The Church then becomes less a community where sinners receive mercy and more a community where those gathered can pharisaicly thank God that they’re not like other people who clearly must be worse sinners than they are (see Luke 18:11).

Yes, the Church is, as the old saying goes, both a hospital for sinners and an academy for saints. But sinful saints are made only through the medicine of God’s grace and never through the performance evaluation of one another. In Jesus’ cross, we sinners are given the “balm” in Gilead, not the “bomb” of Gilead. If you’re going to make a New Year’s resolution, resolve to ask for God’s help in being quicker to show mercy, but slower to pronounce judgment on those who don’t measure up to your performance standard.

+Scott

 
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The Hard and Messy Work of Communion (eCrozier #145)

On September 7, 2012, in communion, Community, by bishopbenhase

God, you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in you. – St Augustine

Kelly and I like to walk our dogs in Savannah’s Forsyth Park. It’s a beautiful park, full of every possible variation of people one can find in Savannah. And, believe me, that’s a very wide variety. As we’re walking the dogs (or they’re walking us, I can never be sure), I’m always struck by how many people are wearing earphones presumably listening to music or a podcast of something or other. They’re isolated in their own little worlds while surrounded by this beautiful collage of people and dogs. It strikes me as odd that these people are self-isolating in the midst of so many people. On some level they want to be around other people, but on another they want to stay disconnected from them.

There’s a CD I’ve learned one can buy called Lonely No More. The CD, as I understand it, is intended for the user to play while being at home alone. The CD has many tracks. One is the sound of a shower running. Another is the sound of groceries being put away in kitchen cabinets. Yet another is the sound of a vacuum cleaner running. Each of the tracks is designed to give the listener the illusion that she or he isn’t alone.

Now, upon hearing this, we can shake our heads in disbelief pitying the poor souls out there who’d actually buy this CD. The reason it’s available, I presume, is because there’s a market for it. So, rather than feeling pity (and maybe feeling a bit superior to those who’d purchase the CD), we should recognize that there are many people who are isolated and lonely. They are willing to settle for the illusion of relationships and community through technology. Their loneliness can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Yet, still more people simply don’t know there’s an alternative, or if they do, they don’t know how to break out of the trap they are in. Maybe these are some of the people we see in Forsyth Park, desiring connection with others, but not able for whatever reason to allow themselves the vulnerability that requires, protected as they are with their earphones.

Relationships are hard and messy. They require our time, effort, and attention. Other people, we surely know, will eventually disappoint us in some way and occasionally hurt us, even if they don’t intend to do so. My hunch is that some people calculate that, when all the factors are added up, it’s less painful to go their own way, be alone, and find ways to mitigate the pain that such loneliness causes. And we know it does cause pain. All the research data out there tells us that from infancy to senior citizenry, we need one another in order to thrive and be emotionally, physically, and spiritually healthy.

The truth of the biblical witness is that God has made us to be in communion with God and with one another. As St Augustine prayed, we’re hard-wired spiritually to commune with God and one another. And this is where the Church comes in. We’re called to be a people of such communion.

+Scott

 
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Connecting Personal Spiritual Practices to the Larger Mission of the Church (eCrozier #131)

On April 13, 2012, in Community, Laity, leadership, mission, by bishopbenhase

One of the recurring laments I hear from clergy is their perception that many laity in their congregations don’t have a serious investment in the Church’s mission. For the most part, clergy aren’t saying laity lack a love for God or that they don’t desire for the Church to flourish, but the clergy’s experience is that the laity are not committed enough to the transformation of their church into a vital center of mission for Jesus Christ. While there may be a few laity out there who truly fit that definition, my experience tells me that the problem isn’t a lack of commitment from the laity, rather it’s a lack of emotionally intelligent leadership by the clergy and lay leaders of congregations.

In their new book, The Progress Principle, Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer describe a widespread problem they found in many of the businesses and organizations they studied. Leaders, they contend, regularly and unconsciously inhibit the commitment and creativity of the people with whom they work. The authors make the corresponding point that this ultimately hurts the emotional inner lives of employees because as they experience this inhibiting, they lose their personal engagement and connectivity with their work. The authors conclude that all this is very avoidable.

Amabile and Kramer argue that employees both want and need to make real progress toward meaningful work. They write of the “inner work life” of employees. When this “inner work life” is attended to, even in small ways, employees become “more creative, productive, committed, and collegial in their jobs.” So, before setting production metrics, work goals, or strategic objectives, leaders would do well to focus on creating the conditions for their employees to develop “positive inner work lives.” And for this to be positive for the long haul, employees must actually experience in tangible ways some personal meaning in the work they’re doing. When that happens, the commitment and investment in the goals of the organization deepen and become widely shared.

What might we learn from this research in the Church? My hunch is our leaders often wrongly assess laity as being complacent or apathetic and lacking sufficient motivation to accomplish the goals of the Church’s mission. What really might be going on is this: Clergy and lay leaders have failed to engage the laity in their “inner spiritual lives” in such a way that helps them connect their personal spiritual practices with the larger mission of the Church. Without attending seriously to the inner spiritual lives of the laity, clergy and lay leaders unconsciously inhibit the commitment, and consequently, the creativity and passion of the laity for the Church’s mission.

Church leaders, I believe, need to spend less time on grand strategies and audacious goals. Those are important, to be sure, in the long run. But they are the cart before the horse, so to speak. When a critical mass of laity have, through personal spiritual practices, attended to their inner spiritual lives, and thus developed from the inside out a commitment to the Gospel, then church leaders will not lament a lack of commitment from the laity. They will actually find themselves leading a congregation alive with missionary zeal.  Or, they will discover that they better just get out of the way.

+Scott

 
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eCrozier #102

On September 2, 2011, in Community, by bishopbenhase

You’re in a place of worship, not a Morton’s Steakhouse. – Father Mike Gutierrez

Recently at a Roman Catholic Church in Southern California, basketball star, Kobe Bryant grabbed a man’s cell phone during the passing of The Peace, hurting the man’s wrist in the process. Apparently, Bryant was concerned that the man was trying to take pictures of him and his family during the Eucharist. It turned out, it seems, that no pictures were found on the man’s cell phone. Laying aside the issue of guilt and fault in this case, of both Bryant and the man in question, I want to know what the man was doing on his cell phone during The Peace?

Bill Plaschke, a sportswriter for the Los Angeles Times, showing sympathy for Bryant in this incident, wrote that he has been approached by his fellow church members during the Eucharist to talk about sports, not only during The Peace, but also when these same people were walking back to their pews after receiving communion. Fr Gutierrez is right: During the Eucharist we are gathered to offer God our corporate sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving. We are not gathered for informal conversation, not even on important subjects.

The Peace is a holy time in the liturgy. It is not “half time,” like at a Friday night football game. I have witnessed many times The Peace appear more like a cocktail party than a worship service. Don’t get me wrong, I believe in a vigorous, even loud and long, passing of The Peace with people moving around and reaching out to embrace one another. That being said, it is still an important and holy time in the liturgy. The focus ought to be on bidding the peace of Christ for one another, particularly with those whom we need reconciliation.

The Peace is a time and place where the people gathered get in right relationship with one another. The Peace lets us know that what we have done in the liturgy up to that point is pleasing to God and it sets us in the proper spiritual and communal framework to approach the altar for the sacrament. The Peace is actually the conclusion of a five-fold response to the Gospel proclaimed (Sermon, Creed, Prayers, Confession, & Peace) that forms a coherent narrative in the Liturgy of the Word. At the center of that liturgy is the Gospel. What we do after the Gospel is proclaimed shapes our response to that Gospel in our lives.

The Peace, then, is a profoundly holy act where we approach our sisters and brothers in Christ bidding God’s peace be upon them. It is an especially important time for those in the Body of Christ who have some level of discord. None of us should approach the altar for the sacrament if we are not seeking right relationship with God. And none of us should come to the altar if we have not made an effort to be in right relationship with our sisters and brothers. Even with those whom we have chronic discord, we can come to them at The Peace and with full hearts ask that the peace of Christ dwell with them.

+Scott

 
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eCrozier # 62

On October 22, 2010, in Community, by bishopbenhase

Community is that place where the person you least want to live with always lives… And when that person moves away, someone else arrives immediately to take his or her place. – Parker Palmer

The Reverend Peter Robinson, who is now himself with the Communion of Saints in heaven, once preached a requiem for a mutual friend, Art Henrich. He said in his sermon that: “Art was a man of enormous humor and generosity, which were very important virtues for Art to have now that he was in heaven.” Jesus, Fr. Robinson asserted, “needed people like Art in heaven because there are a lot of disagreeable people in heaven and Art will be able to help keep them all in a generous good humor.” Fr Robinson was hinting pretty directly that the Communion of Saints on earth could learn something from all this. We better get used to living with people who disagree with us because we are going to spend eternity with many of them.

Parker Palmer’s quote above is so true from my experience in parish ministry. There was always that one parishioner who seemed to make it his/her life’s ambition to make my life miserable. If I said “up,” he/she would say “down” even if he/she did not care about either up or down. The parishioner just “enjoyed” (or so it seemed) being contrary. I’ve even had parishioners who reminded me of Madame DeFarge in Dickens’ The Tale of Two Cities who sat next to me knitting while the guillotine was being sharpened. Yikes!

Life is like that. And the sooner we accept that truth the sooner we will be able to enjoy and thrive in and among our community of discipleship, also known as the Church. The Church is both a hospital for sinners and an academy for saints. It is full of all sorts and conditions of people some of whom, even when we work at it with great determination, we will not be able to always get along.

We live in a culture that is becoming increasingly fragmented. People are hunkering down among only people who look like them, share their politics, and congratulate one another for being “right” and not like those “other” people (see this coming Sunday’s Gospel for Jesus’ take on all that). Such xenophobia is the exact opposite of the Biblical virtue of showing hospitality to the “other.” Xenophobia (Greek = fear of others who are different) is countered by the Biblical virtue of hospitality, which is a translation of the Greek philoxenia (Greek = love of others who are different).

It is hard, spiritual work to love the Madame DeFarge’s (and even the less threatening among us) of this world. Yet, it is part of the spiritual discipline you and I are called to embody. What helps us on our way to such discipline is for us to remove the fantasy that such people will somehow disappear from our lives. We better learn how to love them here on earth because we will have to love many of them in heaven for eternity. As the old saying goes: “Practice makes perfect.”

+Scott

 
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