Tame Turkeys
November 25, 2007
by Rev. Dr. Donna Schaper

At first it was the word "account" in today's Ancient Testimony that intrigued me: "We should always be ready to account for the hope that is within us." It isn't a very biblical word, nor is it one that I enjoy hearing. "Accountability" is often a scary word to me, and I want to tell you why. I am an ordained minister in one of the greatest American institutions, the United Church of Christ. I practice, now 35-plus years, inside liberal Protestantism. Since 1960 we have lost a third of our members. When 9/11 happened, with its cartoonish and violent response, as though my boys were on the couch playing video games, the theology I profess was not even a part of the debate. The Jesus who makes and is another Way was replaced by the Jesus of us versus them. The Jesus who rent the curtain on heaven with the notion of loving our enemies was replaced by the Jesus who checks into your bedroom to make sure you're not doing something he presumably would not want you to do under the covers. Nonviolent responses were ridiculed, if thought of at all. My mainline had already been sidelined - both internally, by membership loss, and externally, by rival punishmentalist theologies. At the greatest moment in the new century so far, what hope we had to propose was invisible. Accountability, within these frameworks, is not just a scary word. It is a point of repentance. I am a failure. My ordination vows have not been kept, especially the one about speaking truth to power.

From a place deep within my despair about the American religious left - and our failure to stop the war in Iraq, much less to have tamed the nation's anger and fear after 9/11 into effective, life enhancing, world building responses - from deep within that stuffy, moldy, dusty despair, I have been peeking into other worlds. One of the worlds that I peek into is that of business. I often think of myself as a spiritual entrepreneur, one who practices hospice in the mainline church and does turnarounds. I believe my turn at some of the helms of Protestantism has been a bit of a bust, but I don't think that means the Protestant interpretation of Jesus' message is a bust. Failure is such a harsh word. But if I were to refuse to start there, in accounting, I would be so grotesquely sentimental that I hope King and Coffin, Reinhold Niebuhr, Valerie Russel, Letty Russel, and Walter Rauschenbusch would roll over in their respective graves. I have to take seriously that 9/11 changed the world, that the picayune responses of my nation in Iraq and somewhat in Afghanistan, probably soon in Iran, are a humiliation. They humiliate my nation, my ordination, and Jesus. They act as though love and enemy are not related - and they are. They are deeply related. We are to love our enemies, be good to those who hurt us - and these are not stupid responses. Hate is the stupid response. Violence is the stupid response.

I can begin my accounting here. Hate and violence have been tried, for six years now, and they have produced nothing but their own reproduction. On purely pragmatic grounds, Jesus' nonviolent way deserves a try. The other ways don't work. The other ways endanger the earth and you and me and those we love. Violence is not the answer. How American society, culture, and politicians managed to keep nonviolent alternatives out of the potential responses and go straight to violence, as though they had never heard of Jesus, is amazing to me. And if not my fault, the invisibility of nonviolence in a world destroying itself is my responsibility. You have heard me say what Stokely Carmichael said many times, "Racism may not be my fault but it is my responsibility." This is the Protestant impulse at its best, to pull the world close to its chest and befriend it. At its worst, of course, the Protestant impulse is grandiosity incarnate. Perhaps that tension is the reason some other words in the passage intrigued me, beyond accountability and being ready to account.

When we are ready to make an accounting for the hope that is within us, we are to do so "with gentleness and reverence." When we speak about nonviolence, we are not to do so violently, not to ourselves or to others. We are to speak of nonviolence, or love, nonviolently, with love. And in that very gentleness and its grace, I shiver. I shiver with grace. Can you imagine someone who has failed her ordination vows and been rendered inarticulate, obsolete, speechless, invisible, and useless, still being able to hope? Still being gentled by a loving God? If you can imagine that, you can imagine me. You can imagine American Protestantism and what it might yet be. We might have our own Jon Stewart, our own Stephen Colbert. There is no reason for Protestants to be excluded from the late night humor mill. We might actually matter again, if we can shiver with grace.

My turn and the turnaround of these institutions pivot right here. The tipping point is here. When I account for the hope that is within me, I tell you that it is deeper than American culture being able to listen to us again. It is replacing the market - you are what you earn - with grace - you are what you've been given and can give. It is offering a place of grace in a world that has forgotten the term. Ask any young person, they will tell you that they are what they can be, do, and earn, against ridiculous odds. The message of works righteousness is etched on their souls. We have trained them well. Our failure is not just in nonviolence being ignored as a possible solution, but also in works righteousness having such a systemic apparatus for its teaching. Jesus and our version of God are widely ignored, misinterpreted, misunderstood, abused, and manipulated.

I hear today's passage recommending an accountability that is gentle and loving, even under these terrifying circumstances. I hear some cynicism in it, too. Basically it says, look, you are going to be in trouble, whether you do good or don't do good, so why not do good? What comes to mind is the folk wisdom that Good Deeds rarely go unpunished. You all have heard that, right? No good deed goes unpunished. That is very cynical wisdom that pertains to so much that most of us have said it in the last month. It describes reality. The writer in Peter tells us that since we are going to get punished for doing good and for doing bad, we may as well get punished for doing good. He is talking about evangelism and how we get our message out from under the tyrant's barrel.

I know evangelism is as scary a word as accountability. Today I want to give you the bad news that these words have been tamed. They are like a dead turkey carcass with most of the meat picked off, ready for the soup. There is another way - and it is the liberation of the words accountability and evangelism by an act of grace and gentleness. Both words are too important to stay tamed for long. So let me take the text's energy and apply it to evangelism and accountability.

Good evangelism is an accountable response to good news. It sources and accounts for the hope that is within us. Good evangelism is not quiet, nor loud, but gentle and reverential toward the other. And finally good evangelism has a folk wisdom about it. It does not expect success so much as a redemptive punishment - and it's a bit cynical. Good evangelism has a "why not" attitude. It does not have an outcomes outlook, nor does it ignore outcomes. It is simply bigger than outcomes, and it refuses the straight line between good behavior and good outcomes. It has a sneaky feeling that God is not tamed and that some good deeds are done just for the heck of it.

What do I mean by evangelism? I do not mean the current understanding - evangelizing you, getting you to know my way of thinking about faith; I mean pointing to the Evangel or the good news that we know. That good news can be as narrow as Christ or as broad as shalom. Like so much that is good, evangelism has been stolen by the religious right, narrowed, straightened, given a straightjacket, and manipulated to the point that all reverence and all gentleness is gone from it.

Good evangelism means getting down to what we really mean by Jesus. Not all the additions and manipulations, but what we really mean by Jesus. Here at Judson we have the very best of Protestant freedom and can think about Jesus our own ways. This is how I - and I only - think about him: Jesus is love of the most powerful kind, the kind that is unearned and unconditional, meaning graceful; and Jesus is power, the power large enough to forgive and love its enemies. Most recently, we have seen Jesus' love in the Amish who forgave the man who murdered their children and then took care of his children. I daresay something similar might have worked with Arab nations. Jesus is also power spent, power given away, power used differently than blow up and bang bang. Jesus is grace, love, and power, all given away, nonviolently, gently. People always want me to talk about Christ when I give this simple definition of Jesus - and I usually say that Jesus wouldn't ask that question. The Christ question goes immediately to the power question, and Jesus' way with power was to spend it, release it, give it away, not hoard it, as in "I am the biggest and best version of God, you call me Christ." That is not a Jesus way. A Jesus way is nonviolence, power expelling, love gentling, and grace emerging. Jesus is more like a pitcher than not. He pours as his primary action. So Jesus is a stranger to earth, as love, as power, as grace. I am crazy about this Jesus. He comes into my failure with hope. I may still have a chance to be ordained and carry his bread and wine around with me. Again, I shiver.

Today I want to advocate that congregations like ours be evangelical, pointing to the good news we know and accounting for it and holding ourselves, gently and reverentially, accountable to outcomes. I want to offer some self-criticism about how fuzzy I, as a leader on the religious left, am. I want to talk about institutional buildings in a very specific context, that of Judson Church, and hopefully to do so gently and reverentially.

Judson has a special history with regard to evangelism, called the "Growth with Integrity" Commission. This commission wrestled beautifully with the grace/works conundrum at the heart of evangelism. We also join that part of the religious left that imagines heroic self-marginalization as a certain kind of accountability. We imagine our small size as a testimony to Jesus - and surely being big is not a Jesus-like objective. Nor does being small exempt you from grace. The issues are not about size or numbers: they are how we think love and power and grace and hope should be handled and managed. Small is one good way; big is another good way. The point is the Evangel, not the evangelism. The point is knowing just how many ways grace can be tamed - and then liberating it.

As is usually the case, we can approach evangelism from the "do not" side first. We have to be accountable to our membership because it is the right thing to do. And we have to think about numbers because that is also the right thing to do. What intrigues me about contemporary Protestantism is how we misinterpret Jesus: we think that having power might corrupt us, instead of thinking about how beautiful it would be to have power to pour and give away.

Growth in numbers is one form of accountability. Growth in spirit is another form of accountability.

When confronted with the tamed results of the Protestant energy, we shiver again - and not from the bright side. Another of the big hopes of Protestantism was that people could read their own bibles and interpret the word of God for themselves. That hope spawned the hope that the middle classes could govern themselves and a state. That hope also spawned the hope that we could live undivided lives. These are big ideas and big hopes. Always be ready to account for the hope that is within you. Do we still believe that the middle class can govern a state, or has it been too polluted by bad theology? Do we still believe that we can live an undivided life? Or do we simply lie flat on our beds and enjoy it as the state shreds our hopes into little pieces?

And if your answer is one of hopelessness instead of hope, join me now in a few metanoias, the Greek word for turnaround. They will be very simple.

Evangelism starts in our own hearts. In our own shiver of grace, where we pick up the pieces of our divided lives and, by the grace of God, live toward wholeness again. We turn from tame and tepid to vital and vigorous. We break on through to another side and imagine a little love for a few of our enemies. What we cannot forgive is our jailer. We break out of jail.

Evangelism moves to unlocking our minds. It allows us to look at the contemporary American church (yes, Judson is much better than most, if also locked in its own unique cages) with some humor. I just love the way we talk all the time about getting young people involved and still hold services at 11 on Sunday mornings, one of the least interesting times to a 20- or 30-year-old. The fact that the 11 a.m. service is an antique doesn't seem to have occurred to the mainline churches. Yes, we are starting a midweek service on Tuesday evenings, beginning January 8.

In "The Last Protestant Dinosaur", a blog about the Episcopal Church, Jarrett Kerbel suggests that evangelism may involve removing the Book of Common Prayer, making the collection plate optional, and helping clergy not act like liturgical experts all the time. He recommends inviting a few friends to visit as "Secret Shoppers" and then to really listen to what they experience.

Tony Robinson has posted these "Seven Habits of Highly Ineffective Churches" on his site:

1. Elevate mediocrity to a spiritual discipline.

2. Take no risks whatsoever. A successful systemic practice of risk avoidance is often best achieved by sending any and all new ideas to as many groups, Boards or Committees, as possible for their review and authorization. The riskier the idea, the more groups must review it. Most groups understand that it is their role to say "No" to new or interesting ideas, but this may need to re-enforced by remarks that note ways that the particular new idea under consideration might make the church liable, cost money, or ruffle feathers.

3. Practice the following Evangelism strategy: "If they want us, they know where to find us."

4. Blame early and often.

5. Always be prepared to make an account of the excuses that are within you. 6. Make it clear to all that the job of the Pastor(s) and staff is to keep everyone happy.

7. Spend as little money as possible, considering success the under-spending of all budgets.

He then follows with these "Seven Habits of Highly Effective Churches":

1. Strive for excellence in service to Christ; give God your best.

2. Cultivate a spirit of innovation and experimentation.

3. Take the initiative to build relationships with people and groups in the wider community beyond your congregation.

4. Learn from mistakes, accept responsibility and in all things, let grace abound.

5. "Always be prepared to give an account of the hope that is within you." (I Peter) Recognize excuses for what they are, a sign of insufficient commitment.

6. Be willing to let people go in order to stay focused on your core purpose and vision for ministry.

7. Splash it on! Expect to make lots of mistakes on your way to witnessing to a word all but forgotten. Don't expect cultural support for non-violence so much as cultural ignorance and rejection. Be prepared to fail, early and often.

What do these things mean for Judson? So many things, I only dare mention one here. Christmas Rappings has presented us with a range of institutional challenges and joys. Most of you know that Rappings is one of many works done by Al Carmines, a former spiritual entrepreneur here at Judson. He was the associate minister (words that bring music to my ears) and he often led, on-site and on salary, musical extravaganzas. We had an opportunity, in the pouring out, Jesus-like, power gift of professional director Russ Treyz, to revive the show this year. It came up late - and its $20,000 bargain price tag competed directly with our pledge campaign.

We could have said no to Russ's gift. We could have said the past is the past, let it lie. We could have been careful. We could have admitted that we did not have the institutional or office oomph or infrastructure to make this work. Had we said no, we would not have 80 marvelous young voices practicing here every night for a December of performances. We would have kept that 11 a.m. Sunday service going, going, gone. We would not have received the populist gift of art at bargain, gifted rates. We would not have put $20,000 venture capital toward a (at least) $100,000 production. We would not have set a table in the Christmas wilderness of high-priced Christmas music. We would not have cultivated a spirit of innovation and experimentation. Nor would we have shivered with grace when we heard the first sounds. And wouldn't it be wonderful to be the kind of congregation that six months from now would evaluate our experience, recommend changed behaviors, and learn from our mistakes and our virtues?

Evangelism: being able to account for the hope that is within you. I hope for a Judson that shows the world how to jump over, under, around, and through the generational divide. Liberal Protestantism has lost a full generation: that fact, and our declining birth rate, all but gives a certain kind of victory to certain kinds of theologies, which may not have the finest hopes for America in mind. I hope for a Judson in which people live undivided lives and expect to manage themselves, their congregation, and their government. I hope for a Judson that is not intimidated by ridiculous punitive conversations about driver's licenses - but loves the stranger and makes room for them as a matter of course. I hope we make many fine mistakes - and every now and then have a victory large enough to pour its power all over the city.

Evangelism: speaking gently and reverentially, toward self and other. I accept forgiveness for my failures, which are many, and I pray for a repentant American Protestantism as well.

Evangelism: doing what is right, not because you want to avoid punishments, but because you want to have fun. Good deeds never go unpunished - and always there is a world beyond punishments, a world not yet tamed by terrorism, but a world shivering with grace. Amen.

Ancient Testimony: I Peter 3: 13 - 17