“Give the Man a Chance”

FYI- this is part of a series on how to live out our faith in a positive way. Click here.

I, like many people, am a huge fan of the movie Die Hard. I probably watch it twice a year. Once in December- because it’s the all time greatest Christmas movie, and then once in July because I just can’t wait to watch it again.

Die Hard was directed by John McTiernan- a guy with a very odd career (a story for another day). For a brief time, McTiernan knew how to make action thrillers better than anyone else. Another example is The Hunt for Red October, a movie about a disgruntled (yet highly decorated) Russian submarine commander (played by Sean Connery- with his native non-Russian accent) who tries to defect to the US with a brand-new, untraceable submarine filled with nuclear warheads.

The plot is complicated. But the simplified version is something like this: Connery can’t tell anyone on the American side that he’s trying to defect because word would eventually get back to his Russian higher-ups that the new sub is now in American hands- which would ignite a war. So, he has to leave a trail of breadcrumbs for the CIA to follow so that they can discover that he is defecting, rather than traveling to launch nuclear warheads at New York or wherever.

Only one man in the CIA gets it: Jack Ryan (Alec Baldwin). He then spends a good portion of the movie convincing his higher-ups that Connery is defecting and not starting a war.

You’re probably wondering why I’m telling you the plot of a forgotten sub movie. Well, here we go. John McTiernan liked to have a theme in mind when making movies. His theme for The Hunter for Red October is this: Give the man a chance.

Jack Ryan’s job is to convince every higher up above him to give Connery (Captain Ramius) a chance- rather than to assume he’s the threat he appears to be and to simply blow him out of the water. He begs person after person, give the man a chance.

This, to me, speaks to a very key skillset to have when it comes to trying to live our faith in a positive way. If and where you can, give people the benefit of the doubt. When our survival instincts kick in in life, they warn us of danger- even when danger isn’t there.

It’s easy to assume someone is out to get us, or trying to harm us. It’s less easy to give the man (or person) a chance.But our faith calls us to speak back into our survival instincts, to look for the good in others, and to offer the benefit of the doubt not only as an act of mercy but also as an act of imitation of Christ himself when he says, “Forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

I believe this is Christ’s way of saying: Give the people a chance.

What helps you offer the benefit of the doubt?

What If it Works?

Our tendency to redouble our efforts, to love the devil we know rather than explore different options, is caused by the changes stress creates as it relates to decision-making. The more stressed we feel about change, the less likely we are to change.

In the early days of the pandemic, Pete's office went to full on virtual working. Pete has always worked mostly from home, so this was not a change for him. His team had a huge adjustment. They needed to find a place at home to set up their laptops and join zoom calls without revealing their sloppy housekeeping. Folks needed to figure out a mute button so that the barking dog or yelling kids (or spouse) did not disrupt meetings. There was so much complaining! Pete did not understand it. Most of his team had a 90 minute commute each way to work - on a good day. Parking in D.C. costs as much as many people spend on their entertainment budget per month! What's wrong with this picture? Virtual working is awesome according to Pete.

A year later, his team agrees. Productivity has increased. People have figured out that having an extra 180 minutes a day is pretty sweet. Spare bedrooms have become home offices. Parents have more time with their kids even though sometimes there are awkward interactions, like the time someone's toddler appeared in the screen lamenting, "Dad, can you please come wipe my butt?"

When we are afraid and anxious, it is harder to think about making changes. But change can be a blessing. One way to try to shake up your survival instincts is to start asking a different question, "What if this works?"

So...explore! What change have you been contemplating? Flooded with doubt and indecision? Ask yourself, "What if this works?"

Trusting

I have a hymn I hate. I used to love to sing it; it always made me cry. But then I really thought about the lyrics and today it makes me cry thinking about ever singing it. Here goes...

When we walk with the Lord in the light of His Word, what a glory He sheds on our way! While we do His good will, He abides with us still, and with all who will trust and obey.

Just say no. This is not ok. It implies that he withdraws his had of support if we do not trust and obey. But the scripture says otherwise. How did Jesus handle "doubting" Thomas? He let him touch his wounds. (Read John 20 if you want the nitty gritty details.)

Now, perhaps I have giving the hymn too much grief. Let's keep going and see what you think…

Trust and obey, for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.

Don't get me started. Since when does trusting and obeying guarantee happiness? You see where I'm going with this. This is tiptoeing too close to the line of living in illusion not reality. This reads like a sales pitch to me. Maybe I am too cynical….

Not a shadow can rise, not a cloud in the skies, but His smile quickly drives it away; not a doubt or a fear, not a sigh or a tear, can abide while we trust and obey.

I beg to differ. How many funerals have I tended over where families have trusted and obeyed; prayed and pleaded with God to save their children from addiction or the effects of a mental illness? I've lost count. But what I do know is that the sighs and tears continue even when families trust and obey. It feels like adding insult to injury to ask these families to abandon doubt, fear, sighing and crying as an act of obedience.

"Someone gave me a cartoon of a street preacher with a sign around his neck that said, "The world is not coming to an end; therefore you must suffer along and learn to cope."

Barbara Brown Taylor, Teaching Sermons on Suffering: God in Pain p.85-86

Carry on. Cope. Just understand that suffering is not a sign of disobedience and happiness is not a guaranteed outcome of faith. I hope this helps you breathe if you happen to be suffering right now.

Our Calling May Feel Like a Cluster Cuss

Mother Teresa of Calcutta is an iconic figure. She dedicated her life to the marginalized people in India and died at the age of 87 with an unblemished record of selfless and tireless ministry in the name of her faith without a single scandal, sexual or otherwise, throughout her life of service. Now THAT'S saying something!

People revere her. But Mother Teresa herself was deeply troubled, even tormented about her faith and periods of doubt about God. In a collection of letters she wrote over 66 years ("Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light") we see a woman whose experience of her purpose was wildly different from our perception of her calling. And guess what? She never wanted any of us to know this about her. The Vatican did not accede to her wishes and destroy her letters, keeping them instead as potential relics of a saint. I bet she is spitting mad.

Here's an excerpt. "I spoke as if my very heart was in love with God - tender, personal love," she wrote to one advisor. "If you were (there), you would have said, 'What hypocrisy.' " Although I would not want to meet Mother Teresa on the other side of eternity if I had published those personal outpourings of suffering, I am grateful to have the opportunity to read them. They provide me some perspective when I think about my own life, when I doubt my own value, when I question my own calling.

Mother Teresa made service a requirement of living without asking it to make her happy. Like that awful parable that Jesus wrote about the hard and relentless life and times of a servant, I appreciate the perspective and how it might inform my own sense of calling.

Living a purposeful life does not require it to be meaningful but instructs: JUST DO IT. (Nike stole it from Jesus is how I'm seeing it from Dr. Willimon's perspective.) Maybe you, like me, are having a sad day, week, month or year. Maybe you are questioning yourself, wondering if you are a lazy pastor because you couldn't figure out how to create magnificent worship experiences in a parking lot of a commercial office park. Ok. Have a good cry. But then get off your ass and do the next right thing for the role into which you were called: spouse, parent of an addict, daughter of an alcoholic, lawyer, IT professional, and or - God bless your soul - pastor. Whatever role is assigned; just do it. If it were easy and glamorous and personally fulfilling, Mother Teresa would not have 66 years of intimate letters (written to trusted advisors who turned her stuff over to the Vatican) filled with doubt and dissatisfaction.

Making Time to Play

“It takes courage to say yes to rest and play in a culture where exhaustion is seen as a status symbol.”

Brene Brown

Before spending a few minutes blogging I zoomed with a young woman who is terribly certain of who she is and what she wants out of life. She is driven and ambitious. She is hitting her “targets” and taking no prisoners. She is checking off the boxes and I can only guess that her family must be very proud and probably a bit intimidated by her. She is living the American dream. And she is miserable.

Almost a year into the pandemic, she is beginning to question herself. This is new and quite scary for her. I suggested she take some accrued vacation time and find sanctuary. We talked about what that might look like, and she could barely stand the idea long enough to hold up her end of the conversation.

Finally, she said - “What if everything I thought I wanted in life was someone else’s idea?”

Great question.

So, in solidarity with my melting down friend, I’d suggest we all take some time to consider whose dream we are living. This will need to include rest and play more than another self-help book or redoubled efforts at the current favorite spiritual practice blowing over the religious landscape.

Yesterday Pete and I went walking in the snow. Baby, it was cold outside. But the snow crunched under our boots and our skin tingled with the fresh air. My heart soaked in the silence that only a snowfall can bring to our suburb. Afterwards, I spent several hours working on a puzzle of tea cups. It’s 1,000 little pieces consisting of shards of various bright colors sneakily repeated through the picture and devilishly creative shapes were challenging. I focused hard and then upped my game. I worked in silence in front of a warm cozy fire. I talked to no one and replied to zero texts.

Finally, my eyes worn out and squinting, I went to bed.

In the middle of the night I was startled awake by a solution to a problem that I had been noodling over for 6 weeks. I grabbed a pen and wrote it down in a notebook that I keep in my bedside drawer for situations like this. This morning the solution seems as plausible and well-formed as it did in the darkest part of the night.

Listen, I do not think our obsession with success is going anywhere in this country. We can rail about what we’re missing with this singular focus or we can work with it. Want to succeed? Then rest. Want to feel like your life was worth living? Play. Maybe as we rest and play we will find new ways of being in a world that values what we do sometimes to the exclusion of what our actions cause us to become.