Exhorting Ourselves and Exhorting Others, Part 2

Students struggle to write an exhortation in a centered way. If one has a lifetime of hearing exhortations given in a bounded context of conditional acceptance and peppered with “shoulds” and “oughts” it is difficult to even imagine another way.  As I read their papers, I had the thought, “what if the way we exhort others reflects our internal conversations—how we tell ourselves what to do and not do?” Perhaps students’ papers reflect not just what they have heard in bounded churches, but how they talk to themselves internally. How to change that internal conversation?

Two months ago I wrote of the importance of washing away the toxins of religiosity that attach themselves to internal directives through regular showers of words of God’s unconditional love. This month I will briefly share what I have observed when I set out to apply internally what I teach students to do in their exhortations, to link commands to words of God’s action, like: having been loved by God, love others.

As a first step in this process I started paying more attention to my internal commands. There were a few “should” or “oughts.” What most caught my attention, however, was the paucity of internal imperatives. For instance, I do not actually give myself a command, “Mark, go to jail and lead a Bible study.” Or, “Mark, you should write a check to put in the offering at church.” I just do those things. I suppose I could consider my daily activity of prioritizing tasks a form of internal commands, but command language tends to only show up around the margins of that. Not, “Mark, you should get ready for class” I don’t have to tell myself that; but more probably, “Mark, you should respond to that e-mail that has been sitting in your in-box.”

I had not expected this, but a significant part of my experiment was inserting actual command language where it was totally lacking. (I couldn’t link an indicative to a command, if there was no command there.)

I intended to link indicatives of God’s action to all my commands. Some came relatively easily, “As we have received so much from God and the people of God, let us share with others. Write a check.” And I found myself using one, or a variation of it, repeatedly in different situations. “Having experienced liberation from shame through Jesus’ loving embrace, invite others into that experience.” Yet, I did not easily find linking indicatives for most commands. That is not to say, however, that the experiment failed. Let me bring you into one experience to give you a sense of its fruit.

Monday evenings presented me multiple opportunities for this exercise. We have a small non-profit, Vida en Shalom, through which we raise donations to support small grassroots ministries in Honduras and Peru. Monday evening is the time my wife Lynn and I set aside to work on Vida en Shalom tasks. We start by talking over what is calling for attention, saying things like: “I need to send the monthly report to our treasurer.” “One of us should respond to Arely’s e-mail.” “I will send money to Gustavo.” “It has been awhile since we wrote to donors.” “If there is time, I will call Doña Ena.” I made some attempts at linking these commands to an indicative of God’s action but did not get much further than a: “You have been loved, love others.” 

Soon, I found myself putting less effort into making those indicative linked commands. I did, however, continue to work at connecting the commands to God and discipleship. I found myself asking, “Mark, why are you doing this?” Why do you give your Monday evenings to this? And more specifically, why this particular Monday-evening action? And I started asking “why?” not just when there was an actual command like on Monday evenings, but at other times as well—like during my bike ride to the county jail, preparing for a class, or turning on my computer for a morning of working on my book on centered church. I would reflect on why and then articulate a command that included a sense of the why. Each time I did that I felt like my roots were reaching out, connecting to rich composted-soil. Reflecting on the “why,” even if just for a moment, brought additional energy, an added sense of purpose, and a more intentional connection with the Spirit of Jesus.

So, what happened from my experiment? A bit of what I expected, toning down a some “shoulds” and a few moments of reframing that flowed from indicatives of God action. But most prominently, the fruit was, first, an awareness that so much of what I do is like being on autopilot. It is on my to-do list and I do it. And then, secondly, the fruit was the enriching benefit that flows from reconnecting those tasks and activities with their source, God, my commitment to the way of Jesus, and experiences that have shaped me and my convictions.

This was my experience. Yours will likely be different. I invite you to try the experiment. Review the few paragraphs on different kinds of indicatives in this blog, apply them to your internal conversations, and see what fruit it brings.

The Cross: Atonement Analysis is One Thing. What does it Mean for Me?

I had already finished this month’s blog, sent it off to the webmaster. Then the cross broke into my life. Part 2 of last month’s blog will have to wait!

Good Friday. In addition to participating in a Zoom church service I decided to reflect on the significance of the day by reading two chapters from Proclaiming the Scandal of the Cross—Chris Friesen’s and Debbie Blue’s. Amazing chapters—a conversation in a coffee shop and a sermon. As I re-read these chapters the authors, once again, impressed me with their insight and the power of their images. I wish I was as smart as them and able to communicate as well as they do. In the middle of my appreciation of their atonement theology, however, an inner voice said “Mark, read this for you. What does this mean for you?” I have thought so much about the atonement, written so much about the atonement, taught so many times about the atonement, when I encounter talk about the saving significance of the cross my default is to go to analysis. I stepped aside from my appreciative awe of their excellent work and let their words and images engage my life. I am newly impressed that even with as much time as I have spent reflecting on the cross and resurrection, I have not exhausted the meaning of the atonement—neither at the level of analysis nor at its significance for my life.

I will not attempt to condense and communicate the images themselves. I encourage you to read, or re-read, these chapters yourself. I will summarize an aspect of the content of their images and focus on how they impacted me.

One of Friesen’s images is the cross as God turning the other cheek. God does not strike back to balance the relational equation. Turning the other cheek causes the math of reciprocity and retribution to unravel, leading to a relational situation with remarkable possibilities for reconciliation and growth. A beautiful, powerful message. Rather than responding in kind to our disrespect, disloyalty, disobedience (ours today and literally at the cross) God forgives. Through God’s act we are freed from the revenge and retaliation cycle and freed to forgive as well. A great message for the men in my jail Bible study, but for me? Today? I put the book down, prayed, asked God, “What does this mean for me?” Almost immediately I thought of a few students that frustrated me this week—for not following directions or for missing class, from my perspective, unnecessarily. I certainly would not call them enemies, and I am not plotting revenge. Yet I let the frustration simmer in my being; I complained about them to a couple friends. The cross of Jesus calls me to something else. I prayed and released what I was holding against them. I invite you to do the same. Take a moment, pray, listen—who or what comes to mind? And, may this, for you and me, be more than just a Good Friday activity.

Debbie Blue’s sermon on the last part of the Gospel of Mark’s passion narrative (15:21-39) begins with powerful stories of people coming together by uniting against a common enemy. She calls it the scapegoating machine. The power of the stories is not in their grandness, not Hitler uniting Germans against the Jews, rather in their everydayness. Her point is we do this all the time. Then she turns to the cross. She observes, Jesus could have done this; he could have easily unified the crowds against the religious leaders or against the Romans. But the cross is the opposite, all the competing factions in Jerusalem unifying against Jesus.

Blue says, at this point God could have responded with the ultimate scapegoating move—displaying how bad all these people are. But, she writes:

The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ isn’t a New Great Big Way to make the machine run, the Most Powerful Fuel Ever for that old mechanism, so that now God’s people can clearly unify, the believers in Jesus against the unbelievers. It collapses the machine. . . This story is not the ultimate reinforcement of over/against, this story reveals to us the destructiveness, futility, utter deathliness of all our againstness, shows us how our deeply ingrained mechanism for creating unity leads to death, even the death of God.

But surprisingly, stunningly, beautifully, unexpectedly and amazingly, the revelation does not end with utter condemnation for the violence at the heart of the social order. . .  It’s a story about Jesus absorbing, taking in, all our againstness, accepting all the death we have to hand out, all the fears that make it so impossible for us to be truly vulnerable, all the weakness that makes us mean. He takes it all totally and thoroughly in. And comes back. Comes back unbelievably undefeated by it. Comes back, not vengeful and resentful, all hyped to form some oppositional unity, some group communion against us (or anyone), all ready to get his army up against the bad stupid scapegoating people. He comes back and he comes back again and again and always, irrepressibly for them, us, all. He comes back loving and forgiving and desiring, as always, communion with the world.

It’s a little hard to get. It may not even seem entirely appealing to us, but this story isn’t told to harden our hearts against anyone. It’s given to us to break our hearts open.  To make love and communion. To make relationship with the Other (who’s the complete other) possible. To reveal to us how we are all together now, not in opposition, not in condemnation, but in forgiveness, gathered together in the love of God (68-69).

Then as I read her next lines I thought, bounded and centered. I invite you to look for that connection too.

It doesn’t seem like this story should fuel our sense of divine righteousness against bad people, wrong ways, strange, weird others, it seems like it might break our hearts open, for relationship based not on exclusion but on the ridiculously inclusive forgiving and redeeming love of God. It shows us that we can’t relieve our separateness by making a scapegoat, we can’t create love and unity fueled by againstness. The old mechanism, the old story is not creative of communion, or if it is, that love and communion is some thin false scared union compared to the new, practically unimaginable, vitally alive, thorough and wild communion made possible by the love and grace of God (69-70). 

As you know, I think relating church to bounded sets, fuzzy sets, and centered sets is a great tool. Reading this paragraph, however, reminded me that the tool is just an aid for understanding. What makes a centered church possible is the God of the center. It is through Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection that the wild, vitally alive, ridiculously inclusive communion of a centered church is possible. Beautiful thought, but then again the question: “What does this mean for you Mark?” I began to ponder, to listen. Where do I practice “againstness” rather than allow the reality of God’s work through the cross and resurrection to flow in my life? Ironically, the very first thing that came to mind was people who have attacked me because of my books on the atonement. It is not a stretch to say I have been scapegoated. Although I have not reciprocated by openly attacking as I have been attacked, I have feed the scapegoating machine with us vs. them thoughts in private and in conversation with friends (who are “on my side”). Other us vs. them dynamics easily came to mind. There is so much of it in the air in our society today.

I took a walk and pondered. What does it mean for me to let loose the resurrection reality in these us-them dynamics? What does it mean for me to practice a centered approach with these people? A key move is to distinguish agreement from communion. I feel no call from the Spirit to change my positions. Thinking of Jesus was helpful here. Jesus practiced amazingly inclusive table fellowship. He did not, however, approve of the behavior or beliefs of all those he ate with. For instance, eating with Levi, Zaacheaus, and other tax collectors was not an endorsement of their actions. What then am I called to do? Three ideas. 

First, when I feel us-them, over-and-against, type thinking in my being (or scapegoating sort of talk with others), remind myself: I do not need this for security or identity. My security and identity are found in the center—Jesus. We do not need an other, a scapegoat, to unite us. Our communion flows from God’s loving and gracious action of inclusion. We are united by the center—Jesus. 

Second, compassion. It is so easy to see a person only as their theological position or their political position. As I wrote in a blog two years ago: How might it change our days if we wrapped every thought about another person in a blanket of blessing and compassion? (See also this blog on Father Greg Boyle.) I will seek to shift my gaze.

Third, look for common ground, focus on common values and commitments.

What came to mind as you read Debbie’s words? Who came to mind? What ideas might you add to my list?

Exhorting Ourselves and Exhorting Others

Shaped by bounded group religiosity many people experience behavioral exhortations in Christian settings as life-draining—the weight of “oughtness” pressing down on their being. Fear of the shame of not measuring up fills their being. A fuzzy-church approach responds by toning down the commands or avoiding them altogether. A centered-church, committed to transformation toward Christlikeness, must include exhortation. Yet it must do so in a way that does not lead to what is experienced in a bounded church. Not an easy thing to do—especially if the people listening to the exhortation carry bounded-church ways in their beings. I dedicate almost two hours of class time to working on how to do this. Then I have students write an exhortation. They turn in their best effort; I give feedback; they revise and hand in a final draft. As I wrote a year ago, I have made significant improvements to my teaching about giving imperatives (commands) rooted in indicatives of God’s action. Even so I was sobered and discouraged after reading students’ first drafts a couple weeks ago. Only one student came close to doing well. Their papers reminded me that if one has a lifetime of hearing exhortations given in a bounded context of conditional acceptance and peppered with “shoulds” and “oughts” it is difficult to even imagine another way. Then I had the thought, “what if the way we exhort others reflects our internal conversations—how we tell ourselves what to do and not do?” Perhaps students’ papers reflect not just what they have heard in bounded churches, but how they talk to themselves internally. I invite you to reflect on your internal exhortation language as I share some of what I observed in mine.

The most problematic internal exhortations are voices that explicitly state “You should do X to demonstrate to God and others that you are a good Christian,” and add “If you do not do X you risk rejection by God and your church. How could you call yourself a Christian if you don’t? But, just think how positively people will think of you if you do it!” Yes, let’s work to strip that conditional judgmental language from our internal conversations.  It is clearly not of the Spirit of God.

Yet, in these days I have noted that most of my explicit internal exhortations are what I might call naked imperatives. Simple statements like: “Mark, it would be good for you to do X.” Or “Mark, this person needs help, do X.” Today I do not experience these simple naked imperatives as conditional statements that threaten me with guilt and shame if I do follow through. Yet, I remember when they were not so benign, the words have not changed but my experience of them has.

For instance, I think back to 1984. After four years in Honduras I was moving to Syracuse NY to work as a campus minister with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. Where to live? Others involved with InterVarsity recommended I look for an apartment near the university. Made sense. But voices within me said, “Mark, it would be good for you to live among the poor on the bad side of town.” I had just spent four years living out a bounded approach, evaluating missionaries by whether they lived with the poor or isolated themselves in nice houses behind large walls in neighborhoods of the wealthy. The internal voice did not make explicit statements about gaining, or losing, acceptance depending on where I lived. Yet I imagined the badge of honor I could wear if I was on the right side of the line drawn by activists—myself included. In the end, I opted to live a few blocks from Syracuse University, but not without some shame.

Why the difference? Why would I experience the same naked imperative so differently today than decades ago? What this says to me is that, once we eliminate explicitly problematic wording, the most important thing in our internal conversations and in our exhortations to others is not the words themselves, but what we bring to the words. In Syracuse in 1984 there was a lot of bounded religiosity in my being and a sense of God’s love being conditional. That influenced how I heard the naked imperative. Therefore, what is needed is what I call “religion undermining indicatives.” As I describe in chapter two of Religious No More, Jacques Ellul portrays religion with an upward arrow ↑ because our natural tendency is to think we must do things to earn God’s acceptance. Ellul uses a downward arrow ↓ to communicate that Christian revelation, the God of the Bible, is the opposite. Any indicative statement that points to the primacy of God’s loving action challenges our religious tendency and reinforces the gospel ↓ arrow.

What do these statements of God’s grace and loving initiative do? They clothe the naked imperatives with loving acceptance and warm invitation. The truth is that we do not actually experience commands as naked. I called them naked in the sense that they neither have explicit words of conditional religion nor explicit words of God’s love. It is just the imperative, like: “Mark, write a letter to that inmate.” Or “Mark, take a break and go talk to your neighbor.” We clothe the commands. In 1984 I wrapped that naked command in robes of bounded religiosity and a God of conditional love. Even though just months earlier I had read Jacques Ellul, confessed my religious ways, and experienced God’s grace in new and profound ways, the reality was that there was still a lot of bounded-church religion in my being. Those were the clothes I most naturally put on the naked imperatives. Today I clothe them differently. How did the wardrobe change happen?

Through reading Ellul I had discovered toxin in my system. Two things combined to make the clothes I put on those imperatives toxic—a religious concept of God and a bounded-group approach to Christianity. I later realized that it is one thing to discover you have toxins in your system, another thing to flush them from your system. I decided to pour into my being sermons that countered a religious concept of God and repeatedly emphasized God’s loving initiative. I read and re-read books of sermons by Karl Barth.[1] I listened to Earl Palmer and Robert Hill sermons. I kept at it, for a few years, until I sensed the level of toxins had diminished significantly. My default way of hearing internal exhortation had changed because my concept of God had changed. I urge you to do a flush of toxins as well. Today I would add to the list of sermons to listen to: Debbie Blue[2] and Grace Spencer.

Pouring in the good news of the God revealed by Jesus Christ will aid in diluting our internal religious tendencies. Think of it as a general shower. Yet, there will remain parts within us especially entrenched in their view of God as a judgmental, religious God of conditional love. What I think was most effective in changing the clothing I put on naked imperatives was intentionality in bringing those parts into Jesus’ presence. When I felt fear arising in my being; when I felt the threat of being found on the wrong side of a line; I would invite those shamed parts to rest in Jesus’ embrace. Not just a general cleansing, but a very directed injection of religion undermining indicatives.

This is ongoing work. I continue to need to hear the good news of God’s loving initiative, in general and directed ways. I end this blog with words that served as a toxic cleanse for me in recent days. As I read them, in the first case, and sang them, in the second, it really did feel like something cleansing and life-giving poured into my being. May it be the same for you. Read them slowly, let them sink in. Especially invite resistant or doubtful parts to trust that this is true.

This is the last paragraph from the revised version of current student John Drotos’s ethical exhortation:

See this is the beauty of the gospel; that God did not choose to stay distant and far but choose because of his great love for us to come near as the 12 and 72 spoke of.  Do you know that you have access to the world’s greatest gift?  The unfailing, intimate, reconciling love of God.  Can I urge us now to lean into this love today?  Give this love a chance.  A love that doesn’t keep a record of wrongs but is always present, close, and ready for us to turn to it.  A love that can heal our greatest hurts and pain.  A love that if allowed in will transform us and never leave us the same.  Can we then as a response to this love become a people who live transformed by it?  Sharing it with all those we know, near and far.  Can we then because of this love reveal Jesus to a hurting and broken world?  Revealing Jesus through our actions and words.  I believe the answer to this and more is yes, because of the great love that is at work within us.  Now as we leave would we be empowered by this love to share the good news with others that the kingdom of God has come. 

Former student Rebekah Townsend led worship at an event I attended. The songs she chose overflowed with religion undermining indicatives. Again, let the words of two of the stanzas sink in.

In my Father's house

There's a place for me

I'm a child of God

Yes I am

I am chosen not forsaken

I am who You say I am

You are for me not against me

I am who You say I am

(Oh) (Yes) I am who You say I am[3]

Next Month, part II of this blog. What I have observed as I set out to apply internally what I teach students to do externally in their exhortations, to link commands to words of God’s action, like: having been loved by God, love others.

[1] Karl Barth, Deliverance to the Captives, Reprint edition (Wipf and Stock, 2010); Karl Barth, Call for God: New Sermons from Basel Prison, Revised ed. edition (Hymns Ancient & Modern Ltd, 2012).

[2] A book of sermons: Debbie Blue, Sensual Orthodoxy (Saint Paul, Minn: Cathedral Hill Press, 2003).

[3] “Who You Say I Am,” by Ben Fielding and Reuben Morgan.

The Times Demand It: Something New in My 45th Time Teaching Discipleship and Ethics

This week I will begin the “Discipleship and Ethics” course differently than I ever have before. I did not choose the name for my course. It was already in the catalog. I actually did not like the name. One year I even asked the dean if I could change it. For many Christians “discipleship” refers to a method for training or mentoring Christians. That is the way I had used the word myself. I thought the word “discipleship” miscommunicated the content of the course. Therefore, I have always started the course by acknowledging how the word is commonly used, and then state: “But for Anabaptists ‘discipleship’ is often used in relation to ethics—following Jesus in terms of life commitments, living differently. So in this course ‘discipleship’ has that connotation.” Then, after that statement I have not used the word in class the rest of the semester. I will use it this semester! Why?

 A few months ago, while preparing a bed of soil to plant lettuce and kale, I listened to “This Cultural Moment” a podcast recommended to me by Brian Ross (Pastoral Ministries professor at the seminary). In the third podcast of the first season John Mark Comer interviews Mark Sayers and they reflect together on a serious error of their early church-planting efforts. In the early 2000’s they, and many others, looked to new ways of being church. They turned down the lights, sat in a circle, talked about social justice, etc. They sought to be relevant. In the same time period what Mark Sayers calls digital capitalism came to more and more dominate life. By digital capitalism he means the blending of free market capitalism and the Internet. Digital capitalism has combined with a worldview committed to autonomous individualism. The latter told people to not give themselves to any external authority yet through the former they gave themselves to Apple and Google—autonomous yet, increasingly, enslaved.

Comer and Sayers planted churches in the context of this caustic mix of digital capitalism and hyper individualism. Sayers affirms relevance, it is just not enough. They were sending Christians out to be relevant and these believers were getting sucked into and enslaved by the world they sought to be relevant to. In the podcast Comer and Sayers made bold statements like: “The I-phone is a greater threat to the gospel than secularism ever has been.” Earlier you could assume Christians read their Bible, prayed regularly, now spiritual disciplines are disappearing, “if not erased by secularism then by Wi-Fi access.”  What really caught my attention, however, was what they said is needed—discipleship!

Sayers said, “We must return to formation and discipleship. We can’t send people out into the world unformed because the world has so much sway, pull, allure to it. First we must help people be with Jesus and be formed by Jesus.”

They were using the word “discipleship” the same way I did when I worked as a campus minister with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship—of mentoring people in how to read the Bible, pray, evangelize, and lead Bible studies. But, they included more. They said “basic human wisdom is lacking. We must go way back in discipling and teach people how to live in community, how to not be flaky, how to show up, how to deal with conflict.” They seek to shape Christians who will read a Psalm before touching their phone in the morning and who will share a meal with other Christians a couple times a week. They do not assume that is happening. They now work at those things through discipleship.

I put down my garden trowel, leaned back and thought, “Perhaps I need to start talking about discipleship in my class. If Sayers and Comer are correct, without discipleship people will not be able to live out the ethics I teach in the course. The caustic floodwaters of digital capitalism and hyper-individualism are too strong.

Since that moment I have remained committed. Discipleship will be a theme in the course this semester. I did, however, wonder about the framing of it—my talk about the word the first week of the course. I will now embrace the common definition rather than saying that is not what the course is about. I will say discipleship is walking toward Jesus with new Christians, intentionally sharing life with them, guiding them, mentoring them in practices, values, character—training them so they can train others. I wondered, however, will I say what Sayers and Comer say. Is it particularly needed now?

I sought to disciple students when I worked with InterVarsity, even then, back in the mid 1980’s it did not feel like what I did was enough. I was with students a few hours a week, at best, and they were being shaped by other people and influences many more hours. In response, my wife and I decided to rent a house and invite three of the students to live with us for a year. Is the need actually greater now, or are Sayers and Comer just coming to the same conclusion I did decades ago? I asked Brian Ross what he thought. He said, yes the pressure and influence is greater now. It used to be that people had times away from cultural and societal influences—in their home or room for instance. Now, through phones, the world is in our room and everywhere else. Think, for instance, just of the difference in the distraction factor between now and 1985.

I think Noemi Vega, former student and current InterVarsity South Texas area director, would agree with Brian and with Sayers and Comer. In a recent newsletter she wrote:

College student ministry is shifting. Our freshman class is like none other I have encountered. They are our iGen students, the ones that are über connected online, but are hesitant to form face-to-face bonds and friendships. In response to our changing culture, after praying and seeking the Lord, my staff and I decided to focus on "deeper discipleship."

For Trinity University it meant calling our bible studies "Family Groups" and treating them as family. It meant having a lot of conflict resolution conversations on the leadership team. The staff and large group leaders changed the structure to make it more community-oriented and make space for more authentic conversations. Every student leader was matched with a staff to disciple them. And God moved. Trinity now has 21 student leaders, all committed to discipleship: both receiving and giving! They have the most bible studies in the last three years: 10 on campus. God is on the move transforming our student's lives.

So yes, when I talk about discipleship in the first class I will frame it the way Sayers and Comer do—of particular importance at this time. What will I do differently in the rest of the course? Go back to notes on discipleship from a college course? I had not thought of that until right now, perhaps a good idea. But no, not just that. We need more.

I will point students to ideas like ones I found in Mark Scandrette’s book, Practicing the Way of Jesus. He writes, “Too often our methods of spiritual formation are individualistic, information driven or disconnected from the details of everyday life. . . Perhaps what we need is a path for discipleship that is more like a karate studio than a lecture hall. . . action focused, communal, experiential” (14-15). Much of the book is Scandrette describing discipleship experiments that he invited others into. They are for a particular time period—a day, a week, a month or longer. They all are inspired by the life and teachings of Jesus and relate to real needs. A group of people commit time and energy to specific practices and reflect together on the experience and how they can shape ongoing rhythms of life (16). Examples include:

-  Seeing as God sees, for a week look into the eyes of each person you met, pausing to see them as loved by God (51).

- With a friend, for a week eat with the lonely--at a local soup kitchen, hospital, or nursing home (137).

- A forty-day vow: no meat, no media, no solo sex, a limited wardrobe, and memorize the Sermon on the Mount (55).

- Keep a gratitude log for one week. Another week, keep a detailed journal of where you spend your time and money (148).

- As a group pool a certain percentage of your incomes and decide together how you will spend it to bless others (149).

- Expect opportunity – each morning for a week, ask God for the opportunity to be an agent of healing (137).

The actions are important, just as valuable is what happens as they group processes their experiences.

I invite you now, as I will invite students throughout this semester, to recognize the truth in Sayers and Comer’s observation, follow Noemi’s lead, borrow Scandrette’s examples, and do against the current discipleship with others.

Automating Humans: The Costs of Amazon’s Extreme Efficiency

In my class on technique I always say: “How many of you have worked in a fast food restaurant? If you have, then, like me, you experienced the controlling influence of technique. The quantitative evaluation of actions in terms of time and money was evident in most all we did from how we put ketchup on hamburgers, how much ice to put in drinks to how we mopped the floors.” True, my 1970’s fast-food place emphasized efficiency, but how does it compare to today? Did you know that every task at McDonald’s has a target time in seconds? But, it is not just the list of times that makes the current McDonald’s more efficiency driven, it is that today they have monitoring equipment that can track those tasks—in real time. If a 2019 McDonald’s employee stepped into my 70’s chicken restaurant they would probably find it, in comparison, a relaxing work environment. And it would not just be the lack of timers, clocks, and alarms, but also the scheduling. Today’s algorithmic scheduling enables restaurants and stores to predict how much business to expect at different times in the week ahead. Thus individuals’ schedules vary from week to week, and efficiency demands, and algorithms now enable, that there are never extra workers. The computer schedules the minimum needed, or better yet, just less than minimum, for the amount of business expected.

If you have not recently worked at an efficiency driven job, I recommend talking to someone who has, or read Emily Guendelsberger’s On the Clock: What Low-Wage Work Did to Me and How It Drives America Insane. Guendelsberger did investigative journalism through getting jobs, for two months each, at an Amazon warehouse, a call center, and a McDonald’s. It is one thing for me to say in class, “Machines are pure technique, but much of life is becoming machine-like.” It was another thing to see and feel the implications of that page after page in On the Clock. “All Amazon’s metrics and ticking clocks and automatic penalties are meant to constrain the inefficiencies of human workers so they act more like robots” (87).

In an essay in TIME Guendelsberger writes, 

Technology has enabled employers to enforce a work pace with no room for inefficiency, squeezing every ounce of downtime out of workers’ days. The scan gun I used to do my job was also my own personal digital manager. Every single thing I did was monitored and timed. After I completed a task, the scan gun not only immediately gave me a new one but also started counting down the seconds I had left to do it.

It also alerted a manager if I had too many minutes of “Time Off Task.” At my warehouse, you were expected to be off task for only 18 minutes per shift–mine was 6:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.–which included using the bathroom, getting a drink of water or just walking slower than the algorithm dictated, though we did have a 30-minute unpaid lunch. It created a constant buzz of low-grade panic, and the isolation and monotony of the work left me feeling as if I were losing my mind. Imagine experiencing that month after month.

Workplace chatter undermines efficiency. Guendelsberger suspects that the system that told her what item to pick up next purposefully sent her where she would not run into someone else between the shelves. Certainly it makes for less congestion, but also less talking. The packing stations are “catty-corner from one another, making it impossible to talk” (52). She felt deeply lonely working at Amazon. What is gained and lost through making the workers more machine-like? Ponder these quotes from workers at Amazon warehouses:

“The first time I worked there was so soul-sucking I found myself nearly crying in my car right before I was supposed to walk in.”

“The pay and the benefits are usually good, but it’s just not worth it if you don’t like being a complete robot.”

“There is no room for getting tired.”

“The temp agencies that Amazon uses are atrocious. They absolutely treat you like human waste.”

“People say, ‘Well, I’ve worked for such-and-such warehouse, surely it’s not that different—’ No, it is different. It’s downright dehumanizing” (22).

On one hand I write this blog about Amazon as an instructive case study. It displays what happens when we seek efficiency above all else. Its fruit is alienation. Therefore, as I say in class (and in this sermon) let us recognize that “efficiency” and “best” are not synonymous.  Efficiency is just one of the characteristics we should use to evaluate what is the best thing to do.

But this is not a case study of just one business among many. As Guendelsberger observes in her TIME essay, “Amazon is the apex predator of the modern economy; as with Walmart in the ‘90’s, anyone who wants to compete with it will have to adopt its labor practices.” How do we as followers of Jesus respond?

Perhaps the obvious is to say, “don’t buy from Amazon.” At some level I agree with that. I now generally buy used books from Better World Books, and at times willingly pay more for a new book to support a publisher or local bookstore. But I do not protest when Amazon sells my books, and even now part of me feels like sending a bunch of e-mails telling people, “for some reason that neither I nor IVP understands Amazon has been selling my honor-shame book at, or below cost, for about month. Take advantage of it!” So, I can hardly lead the way in a boycott-Amazon-movement.

Perhaps rather than thinking about how we might influence Amazon, we need to pay more attention to how Amazon, and other efficiency-driven enterprises, are influencing us. Former student Rob Maxey made that observation and said, “we now expect to get things the next day.” So rather than pointing a self-righteous finger at Amazon (I am ok they are not), this case study calls me to reflect on how I have drunk too much from the “efficiency-is-best” well and have become Amazon-like myself. 

Yes, this is a case study to stimulate reflection on that question, but, again, I must say this is more than a case study to stimulate reflection. As I write this, not too far down the road, workers are experiencing the dehumanizing efficiency of an Amazon warehouse. How about them? What is our response? What can we do to lessen the profound alienation they experience?

I ask this out of concern for those workers, but also concern for all of us. Inequality in the United States is increasing and as I explain in this blog, it negatively affects all of us. Although we measure inequality in financial terms, as I explain in that earlier blog, social scientists point to damaged dignity being at the root of the negatives that flow from inequality. We suffer from not just economic inequality but also a huge gap between people treated with dignity and those stripped of dignity. Amazon is not, of course the sole cause of that gap. Many forces in society dehumanize, but pursuit of extreme efficiency is one of those forces.

Let us as Christian communities call business people amongst us to resist bowing down to efficiency and turning their workers into machine-like beings. Or, to say it positively, let us call Christian employers and managers to intentionally seek to add to their workers’ dignity and sense of humanness even when involved in processes that easily detract from both. If businesses do so will they be able to compete with efficiency-driven enterprises? I don’t know. I am seeking to learn more by asking business people.

I had a long conversation with former student Matt Ford about these issues. He is operations director at JD Foods—a family-owned food distribution company in Fresno. Our conversation merits a whole blog. I will share just one line. Matt told me he overheard a worker say to another, “I could go work at _______; I would make more money, but there I would just be a number.” Clearly, thanks to the efforts of Matt, Rob Maxey and others at JD that person is experiencing the opposite of soul-sucking dehumanization.

 Let’s be clear, many of us, myself included, are in no position to exhort Christians in managerial positions on how to counter the alienating ways of extreme efficiency. We can, however, do what I have done this fall. I talked with Rob and then Matt not to tell them how to run their business, but to have conversations with them about these issues, to ask questions, learn—and, especially, encourage them in every Jesus-like action I observe in them.

Still, however, there are the people down the road in the Amazon warehouse and, for instance, at the place Matt’s employee did not want to work. How are we being the body of Christ to them? What can we be doing to heal their alienation, to offset the soul-sucking extreme efficiency of their workplace? I invite your comments on these questions and thoughts on how we might change the situation, not just bandage the wounded.

Distraction: Insights from an Amish Man and a Professional Blogger

An Amish man sat down next to me in the train’s observation car. As the train climbed out of Denver we began pointing out amazing sights to each other. It was great to share the moments with someone as enthralled by the mountain vistas as I was. Part of me was just as excited about something else. An internal voice said, “Mark! You read and discuss an article about the Amish and technology every time you teach Discipleship and Ethics. Talk to him! See if the article is accurate.”

I asked questions, trying to get a feel for how direct I could be in our conversation. Harvey told me his parents were from Napanee, Indiana. He was born in Iowa where he still lives with his wife and seven children. He runs a business putting up metal pole buildings. We talked about language: was the low-German he spoke the same as the Pennsylvania Dutch my grandfather spoke? He was warm and friendly; I plunged in…

I asked him about his community’s approach to phones. He told me they did not have landline phones in their homes because they thought they would disrupt low-key family life. (They have a phone in a shed which they share with neighbors.) “How about cell phones?” He replied, “We think they would lead to a faster pace of life, which we do not want.” In addition, smart phones would open them up to inappropriate things, so not having phones acts as a helpful buffer.

Amish avoid some technology, but they are not technique adverse. As I say in class, they use a lot of technique to work around the technologies they opt not to use. So, I was curious what he would say about my thoughts on efficiency. I told him I am a seminary teacher and in my ethics class we talk about these themes. I explained my thinking about efficiency. To do something in the most efficient way means to do it in a way that uses the least amount of time, money, energy, space, etc.  Efficiency is not evil. Yet today the most efficient way is generally assumed to be the best way. It is this confusion—this equating “efficiency” with “best,” or “efficiency” with “effective”—that enables technique to act as an enslaving power.  In reality “efficient” is one of a variety of characteristics we could use to evaluate what method or approach is best or most effective. He agreed.

I told Harvey about the article on the Amish we read for class (“Look Who’s Talking,” by Howard Rheingold). The article states that a key question the Amish ask when reflecting on whether to adopt a new technology is: “Will it bring us together or draw us apart?” Harvey affirmed the authenticity of the question. I asked him about the discernment process. He replied, “I am not involved; that’s above me.” Not involved, but it impressed me that Harvey did know the “why” of decisions made. Apparently, those above did not simply hand down edicts, but explained their reasoning.

We continued talking about other things, including shared Anabaptist convictions and connections with Mennonite Central Committee. I am grateful for the opportunity to have spent time with Harvey. It made personal and concrete what I have read. I did not feel a pull to become Amish, but it reaffirmed my conviction that they have valuable things to teach us: a commitment to ask questions before adopting new technologies, the willingness to value something else above efficiency, and the practice of explaining the “why” of our decisions are worth emulating.

Part II 

“If the churches came to understand that the greatest threat to faith today is not hedonism but distraction, perhaps they might begin to appeal anew to a frazzled digital generation.” Andrew Sullivan

Not surprising that Harvey, an Amish man, would warn us of the downsides of smart phones. Increasingly, however, we hear some people deeply embedded in the tech world sounding warnings as well. A. J. Swoboda, Pentecostal pastor and professor, recently gave an impassioned lecture at the seminary on the value of times of turning off our phones: “Distracted: The Holy Spirit and Paying Attention.” He referred to an article by Andrew Sullivan, which I just read. (I recommend both the lecture and the article to you.)

In, “I Used to be a Human Being” Sullivan, an early blogger, tells what happened to him as his life became more and more absorbed by the Internet.

For a decade and a half, I’d been a web obsessive, publishing blog posts multiple times a day, seven days a week . . . Each morning began with a full immersion in the stream of internet consciousness and news, jumping from site to site, tweet to tweet, breaking news story to hottest take, scanning countless images and videos, catching up with multiple memes. . . Although I spent hours each day, alone and silent, attached to a laptop, it felt as if I were in a constant cacophonous crowd of words and images, sounds and ideas, emotions and tirades — a wind tunnel of deafening, deadening noise. So much of it was irresistible, as I fully understood. So much of the technology was irreversible, as I also knew. But I’d begun to fear that this new way of living was actually becoming a way of not-living. . . If you had to reinvent yourself as a writer in the internet age, I reassured myself, then I was ahead of the curve. The problem was that I hadn’t been able to reinvent myself as a human being.

He pulled the plug, stepped away from his lucrative blogging activity. Read the article to hear more of his story of how he sought healing and how he is trying now to live with internet moderation. He does much more, however, than just tell his story. I share with you just a few of his insights—flowing from research and reflecting on his experience.

Some point out that every new revolution in information technology has caused panicked shouts of apocalyptic doom. Sullivan observes, however, that the change this time is rapid and exponential. Think what has happened just in the last ten years.

“Not long ago, surfing the web, however addictive, was a stationary activity. At your desk at work, or at home on your laptop, you disappeared down a rabbit hole of links and resurfaced minutes (or hours) later to reencounter the world. But the smartphone then went and made the rabbit hole portable, inviting us to get lost in it anywhere, at any time, whatever else we might be doing. Information soon penetrated every waking moment of our lives.”

“We absorb this ‘content’ (as writing or video or photography is now called) no longer primarily by buying a magazine or paper, by bookmarking our favorite website, or by actively choosing to read or watch. We are instead guided to these info-nuggets by myriad little interruptions on social media, all cascading at us with individually tailored relevance and accuracy.”  

He digs deeper.

Automation and online living have sharply eroded the number of people physically making things . . .Yes, online and automated life is more efficient, it makes more economic sense, it ends monotony and “wasted” time in the achievement of practical goals. But it denies us the deep satisfaction and pride of workmanship that comes with accomplishing daily tasks well, a denial perhaps felt most acutely by those for whom such tasks are also a livelihood — and an identity. . . If we are to figure out why despair has spread so rapidly in so many left-behind communities, the atrophying of the practical vocations of the past — and the meaning they gave to people’s lives — seems as useful a place to explore as economic indices.

And shares some observations about church…

If the churches came to understand that the greatest threat to faith today is not hedonism but distraction, perhaps they might begin to appeal anew to a frazzled digital generation. Christian leaders seem to think that they need more distraction to counter the distraction. Their services have degenerated into emotional spasms, their spaces drowned with light and noise and locked shut throughout the day, when their darkness and silence might actually draw those whose minds and souls have grown web-weary. But the mysticism of Catholic meditation — of the Rosary, of Benediction, or simple contemplative prayer — is a tradition in search of rediscovery. The monasteries — opened up to more lay visitors — could try to answer to the same needs that the booming yoga movement has increasingly met.

But this new epidemic of distraction is our civilization’s specific weakness. And its threat is not so much to our minds, even as they shape-shift under the pressure. The threat is to our souls. At this rate, if the noise does not relent, we might even forget we have any.

What can you do today, this week to lessen distraction and open up spaces for silence, for listening to God? What can you do to help others in your family, in your church, those you teach or counsel lessen distraction and open up spaces for silence, for listening to God?

Deepening Already Deep Convictions Through Being on the Ground in Israel

A set of plain steps—ancient, but very ordinary. It was my first day in Jerusalem. I saw ornate churches built on holy sites, large ruins, and the temple mount’s huge walls towered over it all. Yet looking at those steps most moved me that day. The steps come up from the Kidron Valley. After leaving the Garden of Gethsemane those who arrested Jesus would have brought him up these steps to get to the house of Caiphas the High Priest. (The ruins of his house were right behind me.) I stood looking down at those steps and thought, “God incarnate, Jesus, walked up those steps as an arrested criminal.” I have heard the story countless times (Mt 26:57; Lk 22:54; Jn 18:12-24) yet looking at the steps I felt the reality of it, the scandal of it, the significance of it, in a way I never had before. Incarnation felt more real; GOD, in the flesh, walked on these steps! GOD, in the flesh, was led up these steps bound as a criminal. I thought of the men in my jail Bible study, took this picture, and looked forward to proclaiming to them with more conviction: “God knows the fear and shame of being arrested. You pray to a God who understands.”

Christians confess that Jesus was fully human and fully divine. In my Christology class I challenge students to take both seriously—to not rush past his humanity in affirming his divinity. I considered myself someone who already emphasized incarnation and the humanity of Jesus. Yet repeatedly during my two weeks in Israel I found myself pressing deeper into the reality of God’s experience of human life through Jesus. The greater the depth and breadth we give to our conception of Jesus’ human experience the more able we are to feel the reality that God understands, experientially, what we encounter in life. The greater depth and breadth we give to our conception of Jesus’ human experience the more able we are to marvel at and worship a God who scandalously entered into human life in all its vulnerability.

Just as the concreteness of seeing the steps took me to a greater appreciation of the reality of incarnation, so too being in the Garden of Gethsemane blew the dust off a story that had become dull and drama-less. Looking through the trees and imagining Judas and the guards storming in, I felt the tension of the scene in ways I had not before. Peter’s violent reaction made sense. Rather than just thinking, “silly Peter,” as I usually do when I read the story, I felt the aggressive threat and the fear it would have produced. It was no small, easy, or automatic thing to respond in a non-retaliatory way as Jesus did. My thoughts then went to the cross—forgiveness rather than revenge.

Ceremonial washing area in Roman-era temple

The ruins of Beth Shean,, an ancient Israeli city, are right next to ruins of the first-century Roman city Nyssa Scythopolis. I was just about to head up to the hill to the Old Testament-era ruins—that seemed the obvious thing to do. But then I had another thought, “This is the sort of place that Paul would have spent time in—it is from his era. Take advantage of the opportunity Mark. You may not ever visit one of the cities he actually spent time in.”

I entered the ruins and imagined Paul walking streets like these. I spent most of my time sitting in the ruins of two temples. As I looked at the altar, the big columns, a place for washing, rooms for other cultic practices I reflected on both the importance given to religion and the elaborateness and formality of its practice. Then it struck me. What a contrast to the Christians.

Instead of going to a place like this, Christians met in houses, shared a meal. Very counter-cultural. What did their neighbors and fellow workers think!? I have written about shaming and pressure early Christians experienced,[1] but seeing these temples gave me much greater appreciation for how much they were going against the current of their times. I have even greater appreciation for Peter’s efforts in his first letter to counter the shame and ridicule and honor the Christians for following Jesus. May we be as courageous to be counter-cultural today and as generous in our affirmation of other Jesus followers going against the stream.

We cannot all go to the lands of the Bible. We can, however, seek to connect with the biblical text more concretely and experience the sort of things I did. Two suggestions: 1. With intentionality imagine the concrete reality of biblical texts—don’t just read the words, imagine the scene. 2. Read books by Bible scholars who have turned their research in fictionalized narratives to help us not just know about but feel the context of the biblical times. Two I recommend:

Lost Letters of Pergamum by Bruce Longenecker

The Shadow of the Galilean by Gerd Theissen

[1] Jayson Georges and Mark D. Baker, Ministering in Honor-Shame Cultures: Biblical Foundations and Practical Essentials (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2016).

Greed + Efficiency = Poison: What to Do About Greed?

What is in the strawberry jam you bought at the grocery store? You might wonder if it is sweetened with sugar or high fructose corn syrup. Or perhaps you might look at the ingredients label to see if strawberries or sugar is the first ingredient. You would not, however, wonder: does it have strawberries in it?  You might be suspicious of whether something labeled strawberry flavored jello actually has strawberries in it, but if the label says “strawberry jam” you assume it is made from strawberries, not apples. Safe assumption today, but not in the 19th century, early 20th century United States. There were no regulations on labeling food, no requirement to list ingredients. Greed and ingenuity led people to figure out how to make something that was sweet, looked like strawberry jam, was labeled as strawberry jam, sold at the price of strawberry jam, but had no strawberries in it. Instead of expensive strawberries they mashed up apple peelings, added grass seeds and red dye and called it strawberry jam. Greed and ingenuity led others to combine sawdust, wheat, beans, beets, peas, and dandelion seeds, scorch the mixture black, grind it and sell it as coffee. Ground stone was added to flour, Milk was diluted with water and then those greedy actors would cover their deed by adding plaster of paris or chalk to the mix.

This sort of thing has probably gone on for centuries—whether through putting a finger on the scale or through deception, dishonest greedy food sellers have cheated their customers. At times the deception was dangerous—people got sick, some died—mostly they just got cheated. With greater technical capabilities, however, things changed. What happens when you combine not just greed and ingenuity, but add technique/efficiency?

Deborah Blum writes, “By the end of the nineteenth century, the sweeping industrial revolution—and the rise of industrial chemistry—had brought a host of new chemical additives and synthetic compounds into the food supply. Still unchecked by government regulation, basic safety testing, or even labeling requirements, food and drink manufacturers embraced the new materials with enthusiasm, mixing them into goods destined for the grocery store at sometimes lethal levels” (2). Chemists gave food producers new ways to deceive and profit. Formaldehyde offered new embalming practices to undertakers, not a problem, but in food?! Producers found it not only worked as a preservative—enabling unrefrigerated meat to last longer—it actually restored the appearance of decaying meat or spoiled milk. It and other chemical preservatives used at that time, such as salicylic acid, caused sickness and death.

Not just preservation, but substitution. Producers found it more efficient to substitute chemical ingredients in place of actual food—for instance, saccharine, discovered in 1879, was much cheaper than sugar. Many of these chemical additives ended up causing significant health problems. The need for regulation and labeling was obvious, legislation was regularly introduced with broad popular support, yet it failed. Food producers and new chemical companies, like Monsanto and Dow, successfully blocked it for decades.

Blum, in her book The Poison Squad: One Chemist’s Single-Minded Crusade for Food Safety at the Turn of the Twentieth Century, chronicles many examples of intentional corruption of food, the dogged efforts to expose the dangers through testing, the denial and obfuscation by the producers, and the eventual success in passing legislation and in forming the Food and Drug Administration. Certainly there is too much government regulation in places, but this book makes it clear that we cannot rely on people or corporations to self-police. Where greed is present there will be problems. (I am summarizing a whole book in a few paragraphs. I want to be careful to make clear it was not all the food producers. Some, Heinz for instance, did not deceive nor use dangerous additives. Those producers who did not deceive were leading proponents of laws about honest labeling.)

Although these are stories from the past, the combination of greed and technique continues to poison life today. Just yesterday I read an article in TIME magazine, on how in many countries generic drugs do more harm than good. How? Generics, made in places like India and China, are cheaper than the originals made in North America or Europe. They are supposed to be, and are sold as, the chemical equivalent. But in reality the generic manufacturers often put different amounts of the active ingredient in pills with the same label. If it is going to a country with vigilant regulators they include the full amount, to countries with the less regulation they put in less, and to countries with the least regulation or enforcement they include much less in each pill. Read the article to find out how that is dangerous not only for the patient, but for all of us.

The combination of greed and technique, and its destructive consequences are, of course, not limited to food and drugs. I could share many examples. Here is just one I heard a couple weeks ago. Michael Lewis, in his podcast, “Against the Rules,” tells stories of the importance of referees in our lives—both literal sports referees and people and agencies that play that role in other area of our lives.  In the middle of the second episode, dedicated to the lack of referees in the arena of consumer finance, he explains the seven minute rule practiced at Navient a student loan servicing company. Lewis recounts one school teacher’s repeated efforts, stretched over months, to get help from Navient on entering a public service loan forgiveness program. Why did she have so much trouble? A key factor is that Navient makes its money through servicing loans for the Department of Education. The less time they spend on each person, the more money they make. The goal was for employees to spend seven minutes or less with each caller. Their computer tracked their performance efficiency throughout the day with color coded bars displaying, in real time, how much over or under the seven minute average they were for the day. They got bonuses if they stayed under. So who were the most prized employees? The ones paying more attention to the clock than to what the caller actually needed. Navient did not care whether the school teacher got the help she needed to enter the loan forgiveness program—they would lose money if she did. She missed the deadline for the program because of the incomplete help she got from her many calls. Greed combined with efficiency is hurting people today as it was a century ago.

Deborah Blum and Michael Lewis share these stories to emphasize the importance of regulations and the enforcement of regulations. In essence they are saying, because of some people’s greed we need controls for our protection. We have all experienced the frustration of government regulations gone awry, but next time you read a label or look at the list of ingredients on a food product give thanks that we have those regulations.

Blum and Lewis make a good point about the need for regulations. I, however, was left wondering: How about the root problem, greed? What can the church do to lessen greed? In the middle of Blum’s book I found myself wondering how I could re-arrange my ethics course to spend an hour reviewing examples of the damaging consequences that flow from greed combined with technique and then talk about how the church could confront greed more directly.

I continue to think lessening greed is of great importance, but I am less sure that we need to talk more about greed. I do not think we need to more often say “don’t be greedy!” Would that do any good?

Jesus and the Bible do talk about greed, but not in a bounded-group, finger-pointing sort of way. Rather it is more of a warning—greed is not good for you or others. So yes, let’s talk more often about greed, but more in the sense of truth-telling, exposing—let people know it does not deliver. It is not the path to shalom. But more important than warning people to get off the greed path, let us ponder what we are doing to help them experience the alternative—the richness that flows from loving service to others and the security of rooting our status not in consumption fueled by greed but in our belovedness by God.

I am left thinking that rather than attacking greed it is much better to promote generosity. How can we increase our generosity and encourage others in generosity?

As people aware of the reality of sin and powers of evil let us affirm the need for appropriate and well managed regulations. As bearers of the gospel let us contribute to more shalom in the world through inviting others to join us in the way of Jesus and join us in practicing generosity.

Intentional Simplicity…Actions Must Follow Thoughts

Guest Blog by Rolando Mireles

Our family lives in deep South Texas, about four hours south of San Antonio right along the Mexican-U.S. border.  Besides being close to Mexico we are also only minutes away from South Padre Island, a great beach shoreline in South Texas.  During the many times we have visited the beach I am always amazed at how the longshore currents in the ocean lead to what is known as “beach drift.”  Beach drift is defined as the progressive movement of sand and sediment along the beach. It is what causes your volleyball or wakeboard to drift down the beach on their own.  For us, many times it was our kids who drifted, and it led us to constantly remind them to periodically take stock of their location on the beach in order to walk back against the current to the original spot where they began.  My wife Laura and I have found that this same phenomena of drifting takes place in our own lives. We set out to live our lives shaped by Christ’s call to ‘live lightly,’ to be content and not tied down to the things of this world.  But soon enough, the cares of this world had us drifting down the shore, far off from where we started or desired to go.

After seminary in Fresno, our family moved to Guadalajara, Mexico, where we served on a church planting team.  After two and a half years in Mexico we returned to the States and started working in education as we sought God’s direction for our lives.  We returned from Mexico with no debt and few possessions. In time, however, the grip of even modest consumerism set us on a path of drifting.  Whatever we choose to call it, it is deceptive how quickly we can live our lives and consciously or unconsciously, planned or unplanned, end up flowing in the current that leads to some kind of American dream.  Inevitably the current leads us to a place where our lives are characterized by consumerism, comfort-seeking, and the ever increasing noise and hunger that come from a busy, unthought-of, unplanned, and unintentional life.  I am not pointing fingers; I am just offering ourselves up as an example of just how powerful that current can be.

New jobs, new salaries, new distractions, and before you know it we were miles away from where we began.  We purchased a new car because we needed to build credit, we purchased a 3,000 square foot home and convinced ourselves that if this is where God had led us God would continue to provide for the mortgage and reveal a reason to live in such a large home.  But with this big home investment came many related and unforeseen expenditures. (But isn’t the majority of consumption that way?) Now I am not saying our home was like the comedic portrayal with Tom Hanks and Shelley Long in the 1986 comedy The Money Pit, but at times it sure felt that way.  In time, we found ourselves in a cycle of working just to maintain our home, and worst of all if we truly analyzed our family’s use of our house, we spent the majority of our time in 20% of our home.  Within a few years not only were we up to our necks in debt and living paycheck to paycheck, but worst of all we felt helpless, trapped; we needed a wake-up call. That call came in my decision to downsize from my school administrator role.  We were not planning on a radical downsizing, I simply wanted to secure a job in education that would give me more time to invest in my family. But as a Good Father, God was gracious and began to lead us back against the current to a place of peace through some months and years of instability.

When I could not find work and I had to substitute, God was graciously leading us to put our house on the market and reminding us that our house was not our home.  When we could not sell our house and had to start selling its contents to make ends meet, God was lovingly showing us how to rely on his provision. We began to experience God’s love for us through difficulty.  And oh the depths of his love! As a dad of teenagers I sit up many times now into the late of night waiting for my son to drive home from work. My role as an earthly father gives me just a small glimpse of what my Heavenly Father has done and continues to do for me through Jesus.  I love my kids very imperfectly, but that doesn’t keep me from constantly attempting to love them even more. In the same way I believe that God’s desire for us is to all live lives that are intentional about how we relate to Him and how we trust Him as he shapes and leads us to relate to the world we live in right now.  

I don’t know what that looks like for you, but for Laura and I it meant trusting him as we were without a home but desired to live closer to our kid’s school, my teaching job, our church, and oh yes all while remaining debt free, which was a positive byproduct of selling our large home.  Psalms 37 verse 5 reminds us to “Commit your way to the Lord, trust in him, and he will act.” For us his amazing action was on display as we were able to rent a 3-bedroom apartment located 2 minutes from my job, our kids’ school and our church family! Along the journey of downsizing, I found that our home had become, at least for me, a source of pride.  I not only drove into a nicer gated community, but I always found myself using our geography and community status as a point of reference for people to place me. Now, when I tell people about where we live, I cannot help but turn our story of downsizing into a gospel story. For it is God who provided this place. Our apartment is 1/3 the size of our former home, but I would not trade it for the world!  Downsizing improved our lives. Financially we pay less than half of what we paid before, and not having all the related costs and time-consuming responsibilities that come with home ownership has allowed us to be present in the lives of our high school-aged kids. We even had a year where God allowed Laura to experience staying at home as a mom in order to bless our kids and their Christian school, and that is a memory that she will cherish forever.  Recently I was reminded that many people think about making such changes but few actually follow through. And yes, I do believe that our thoughts must be followed by actions, or else we are just posturing words like minimalism, simplicity, down-sizing, tiny living, etc. But our actions must follow the heart of our Father. Romans 12 verse 2 says “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”  

Now I will not lie, every day that we live in this newfound freedom we are tempted to wade in the waters and be carried away by the consuming current of the American dream.  Sometimes it comes in a wave that says “you deserve a new car," at other times the waves sound like “you should stop throwing your money away in rent and buy a new place.” Whatever the wave and however strong the current, God is faithful to keep our eyes on him and on the freedom that comes in trusting him!  May we all learn to trust God and act on his calling to live our lives in an intentionally simple way!

The Power of Boundless Compassion

Father Gregory Boyle since 1984 has ministered in a parish in East Los Angeles that has the highest concentration of gang activity in the city. In 1988 he started Homeboy Industries which has become the largest gang intervention, rehab, and reentry program on the planet. They provide jobs, tattoo removal, mental health counseling, case management, and legal services. I recently read Boyle’s new book, Barking to the Choir: The Power of Radical Kinship, and then re-read his previous book, Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion. These books overflow with stories and insights gained from decades of, not just gang ministry, but a life intertwined with gang members. How do you imagine the first book might begin? The second? Not with autobiography, not with dramatic tales of gang violence, or sad stories of addiction and brokenness, nor exhortation about the necessity of providing jobs and counseling—all things found in the books. The first chapter in both books focuses on God. In the first paragraph of the first chapter of Barking to the Choir he writes, “It is indeed a challenge to abandon the long-held belief that God yearns to blame and punish us, ask us to measure up or express disappointment and disapproval at every turn” (13). In Tattoos, he writes, “It is precisely because we have such an overactive disapproval gland ourselves that we tend to create God in our image” (28). He proclaims the opposite and tells moving stories of homies experiencing that not only is God love, but that they are beloved by God. Why does he start this way? What can we learn from that?

Gang members’ relational lives are riddled with abandonment, alienation, and attachment issues. And for most, the God they live with is part of that negative stew of rejection and shame. Boyle’s starting his books with God displays that his experience leads him to passionately state the powerful role that God can play in recovery and transformation. Yet, it is also because he has seen the destructive power, and hindrance to healing, of a distorted concept of God. He begins with God because one’s concept of God matters. Living with a disapproving God of accusation is a core problem for homies (and not just homies), and experiencing the loving embrace of a God looking at us with eyes of compassion and delight is a powerful contribution to healing (and not just for homies). How might this reorient us? Is concept of God the first chapter, figuratively speaking,  in our programs, ministry, teaching, counseling, mentoring, parenting, etc.?

To be clear, it is not that Boyle just has an obligatory spiritual chapter and leaves God behind in the first chapter. Deep in the second book he writes, “’Working on yourself’ doesn’t move the dial on God’s love. After all, that is already fixed at its highest setting. But the work one does seeks to align our lives with God’s longing for us—that we be happy, joyful, and liberated from all that prevents us from seeing ourselves as God does” (111). Amen! I deeply affirm his passionate proclamation of God’s unconditional love. There was one line where he may have overstated it, “God is just too busy loving us to have any time left for disappointment” (Tattoos, 28). I wonder, because God loves us don’t our actions that hurt others and ourselves sadden God? Perhaps Boyle and I think of the word “disappointment” differently. Because, clearly Father Boyle recognizes that actions matter. His is not a fuzzy approach. Homeboy Industries has standards, they fire people. Boyle includes stories of loving confrontation of homies.

Yes, not fuzzy, but also so intentionally centered and not bounded. Boyle takes a centered approach not only as an alternative to bounded church, but, even more so, to the bounded character of gangs. He writes, “Gangs are bastions of conditional love—one false move, and you find yourself outside. Slights are remembered, errors in judgment held against you forever” (Tattoos, 94). Homeboy Industries seeks to offer the alternative, a community of unconditional love that avoids the boundedness of the gang and the judgementalism of society. I recommend reading the books and taking notes, as I did, on how to improve at practicing a centered approach. Here are just two items from my notes. 

Like many recovery programs, those who work at Homeboy must do drug testing. Yet, reflect on Boyle’s explanation for their strict approach: “Embarking on the ‘the good journey’ requires confronting the inevitable emotional obstacles in that path. It’s always a painful process, and we don’t want them to numb themselves by self-medication. Once they let go of the hatred for their gang rivals—every homie’s starting point—they are left to deal with their own pain” (Choir, 84).

When we step away from anxiety about the purity of the group and the imperative of drawing lines of exclusion, we can follow Father Boyle in turning from judgmentalism to compassionate accompaniment. He states, “the ultimate measure of health in any community might well reside in our ability to stand in awe at what folks have to carry rather than judgement at how they carry it” (Choir, 51).

I am getting increasingly uncomfortable with each additional paragraph I write in this blog. I have shared ideas, insights—and there are some great insights in the books—but first and foremost Boyle is a great story teller. His books, unlike my blog, are not essays. Immerse yourself in the stories, laugh with him, cry with him, learn with him. (To get a taste of the stories in the book listen to this Ted Talk.)

So, just one more insight to end with. Perhaps what most impresses me with the books is how much they affirm Bob Brenneman’s thesis in Homies and Hermanos, and James Gilligan’s thesis in Violence. At the root of addiction, violence, gang membership is shame. Boyle communicates this through stories and captures it in great lines like: “there is a palpable sense of disgrace strapped like an oxygen tank onto the back of every homie I know. . . they strut around in protective shells of posturing” (Tattoos, 52). Boyle seeks to counter “the wreck of a lifetime of internalized shame” by communicating the reality that “God finds them (us) wholly acceptable” (Tattoos, 44). “One of the signature marks of our God is the lifting of shame” (Choir, 135). Boyles calls us to follow Jesus in showering the shamed with love and dignity through radical inclusion and kinship. “Precisely to those paralyzed in this toxic shame, Jesus says, ‘I will eat with you.’ . . . He goes where love has not yet arrived. . . Eating with outcasts rendered them acceptable” (Tattoos, 70).

I end with Father Boyle’s words:

Soon we imagine, with God, this circle of compassion. Then we imagine no one standing outside of that circle, moving ourselves closer to the margins so that the margins themselves will be erased. We stand there with those whose dignity has been denied. We locate ourselves with the poor and the powerless and the voiceless. At the edges, we join the easily despised and the readily left out. We stand with the demonized so that the demonizing will stop. We situate ourselves right next to the disposable so that the day will come when we stop throwing people away. The prophet Habakkuk writes, “The vision still has its time, presses on to fulfillment and it will not disappoint. . . and if it delays, wait for it” (Tattoos, 190).