Lesson from Hawaii

I had the privilege to spend last week in Kauai. I became aware of something while I was there. Are you ready for this groundbreaking statement?

People go to Hawaii because the island is beautiful.

Shocking, I know.

Everyone I have spoken with who has been to Hawaii says says the same thing but phrases it as a question, "isn't is beautiful?" It as though everyone is overwhelmed by the beauty of the island that you almost have to say that in the form of a question just to make sure that what you saw was real.

What strikes me about this is not that Hawaii is beautiful, but that the Hawaiian natives are nice! In fact they are more than nice, they all seem to embody a spirit that is engraved in their DNA or their souls. They are crazy nice to everyone almost all the time. And you know, they do not have to be.

In fact I would be willing to bet that Hawaiians can be total jerks and people would still visit Hawaii in mass numbers because people visit Hawaii for the beauty of the island not for the people. And yet, the people are insanely nice and hospitable.

Why?

I asked several native Hawaiians why they are so nice to tourists. I expected to hear some statement about how natives don't really like tourists but are nice to them because they supply money to the economy. But I did not hear that. Not even from people who were in the hotel or restaurant business or even the locals I met on the peer. Rather they all said basically the same thing.

"Well, I guess we are nice because we understand it is a real gift to live in such beauty."

They live in a place of such beauty. They identify they are not entitled to the grace and beauty around them. There is a humility that seems rooted in their voice as they talk as though they take such pride in the island that they cannot help but share it.

I think there is a message here for the Church. What would our lives looked like if we stopped treating hospitality as something we do but as something we are because we too identify that we are not entitled to the grace and beauty around us? What if we took so much pride in the beautiful message we call "Good News" that we could not help but share it.

The Hawaiians I encountered were hospitable as though they needed to be in order to survive. The church speaks of hospitality as though it is something we do in order to get members.

I desire a faith that I cannot help but be hospitable because I identify the beauty around me and know that grace that is in my life is not earned. I want a faith that is hospitable because it engraved in my DNA or my soul.

When I sin

Currently there is a practice in the Senate known as the "Secret Hold". The Secret Hold is the ability for anyone to anonymously object to someone being appointed by the President to a position. Here is an NPR report on the practice which both sides of the isle are moving to remove the practice.

The Secret Hold is an odd thing to me, one which I am not sure I can imagine a world which would originally think this practice would be a good idea, but I am not that good with my imagination. However as I think more and more on this practice I see such great connections to the cycle of violence and scapegoating which God through Jesus came to expose and eradicate.

The crowd standing around the woman caught in adultery are all nameless in the Bible. Not even the names of the accusers are given. They are all anonymous. They all object to something of Jesus and bring this woman before Jesus in order to justify their own understanding of the Law (that is that God demanded this woman be stoned). Jesus interpreted the same law a bit differently.

He knew the first stone was the hardest stone to throw. It is always hard to be first and much easier to follow a crowd. So Jesus made it even more difficult for those who would be brave enough to throw a first stone - to actually throw the first stone in this situation. As a result, the anonymous crowd, who are convinced they are doing Good by the Word of God, disperses without casting a single stone. Not one stone was thrown.

I think that I am generally a compassionate person. I think that I am generally a kind person. I think I am generally a decent guy. Yet, there are times when I can do so wrong. And the times I do so wrong (aka in Christianity as sin) that I am acting not on my own but acting as part of a crowd. When I lose my individual self to an anonymous crowd I cast a ton of stones. in these moments I even think the stones I cast are good and I sometimes even think that I am doing right, but I am not.

This is why, in part, I am Christian and attend a worshiping community. Worship allows me not to lose myself to an anonymous crowd but to become an individual in the Body of Christ.

I don't fear much, but I fear the times when I am wrapped in an anonymous crowd.

My last failure in ministry

Recently I failed in ministry:

I met a man at McDonalds, John was the name he gave. John engaged me as I stood up to refill my cup with water and asked what I was reading. As I filled my glass I told him it was a Kindle, of which he had no idea what that meant. John asked for any spare change to buy a meal. I did not have money but I had a gift card to McDonalds with just under $10 on it. I handed John the gift card and walked out. I failed because I had the time, John engaged me in conversation and I did not engage him. I failed to build a relationship and rather kept John's exchange with me at the level the cashier might have when he gave John the gift card back.

But really this is not the type of failure I am talking about in ministry. I wonder when were the times when we stuck our neck out and tried something new and that attempt failed. When did we try to enact new or alternate ministries in order to help build new ways to see the world and this attempt just did not work out?

Recently I failed in this way:

I failed when I put information in the Church newsletter which challenged the community to become and live into the calling of a "Cultural Architect". Little did I know that few people read these articles and the only feedback I received was two comments. First - "I liked one of the articles". The other - Your language is not accessible.

I count this as a failure in that it has exposed much of my hand and what I feel called to do and be at AHUMC and I have not been able to find or identify the "early adapters" of AHUMC who can help me enact these cultural shifts. I failed to articulate clearly and I have failed to inspire much of anything. It makes me wonder why I even should take time to write in the paper at all. At least with this blog I know there are at least 50 people each day who check in, who knows if those who check in are inspired in any way at all. I wonder if this experiment in blogging is a failure for what I envisioned.

This is just one of the more recent failures I have noticed in my call to ministry. What about you?