Prophets of a Future Not Our Own

The following prayer was shared with my by a professor a couple of weeks ago, Prophets of a Future Not Our Own, in memory of Oscar Romero (1917–1980).

It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view. 
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
it is even beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction
of the magnificent enterprise that is God's work.
Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of saying
that the kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the church's mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.

This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted,
knowing that they hold future promise.

We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation
in realizing that. This enables us to do something,
and to do it very well. It may be incomplete,
but it is a beginning, a step along the way,
an opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest.

We may never see the end results, but that is the difference
between the master builder and the worker.

We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.
Amen.

Yes, Productivity is not Working

There is a fantastic article called “Productivity is not Working” by Laurie Penny. Take time to read it here.

Penny suggests that so many of us are addicted to the treadmill of our work lives, not because it takes us anywhere but only because it is comfortable and known:

This is how most of my peers have experienced the modern economy. We were told that if we worked hard, we would be safe, and well, and looked after, and the less this was true, the harder we worked.

The idea that hustling can save you from calamity is an article of faith, not fact—and the Covid-19 pandemic is starting to shake the collective faith in individual striving. The doctrine of “workism” places the blame for global catastrophe squarely on the individual: If you can’t get a job because jobs aren’t there, you must be lazy, or not hustling hard enough. That’s the story that young and young-ish people tell themselves, even as we’ve spent the whole of our brief, broke working lives paying for the mistakes of the old, rich, and stupid. We internalized the collective failures of the ruling class as personal failings that could be fixed by working smarter, or harder, or both—because that, at least, meant that we might be able to fix them ourselves.

Penny comes to the obvious conclusion that “the cult of productivity doesn’t have an answer for this crisis. Self-optimizing will not save us this time…”

Really, you should read the article.

While Penny’s article ends with a word of hope, I would like to offer what might be the Good News hidden in the title.

There are several ways to read this title (“Productivity is not Working"). One way is to say that being productive in the traditional economic sense is not helping right now. There may be a day in the future when we can all be “productive” again, but today is not that day. To put it another way, it is saying that “productivity isn’t working”. Like the refrigerator that isn’t working, in time we can fix it and it will work again.

Another way to read the title is that is productivity equals (is) not working. But how can this be? How can productivity BE not working? This is the mystery of grace in the world. If we want to gain our life, we have to loose it. The only way that God can produce fruit (be productive) in our lives is when we are not working. When we step aside and realize that we cannot save the world. When we submit to the reality that all our works can never fill the deep desires of our hearts and souls. That we will be “restless until we rest in thee.”

You may be tempted to think that what this suggests that the Good News is to live a lazy life of not doing anything. This is the false choice given to us by the soul-sucking economy - we either are working or we are lazy. We are either striving or we are abdicating. We are either growing or we are dying. These are all false choices because there is another way to life - not by working and not by being lazy but by receiving.

We have such a cult of productivity that even today some of the “best” leaders of our time are encouraging us to use this time to think through how we can be better and more productive in the future. These liturgical sermons from the priests of productivity are not new. We have heard them before. And for many of us, we build our lives around their gospel. As Penny says, “There is nothing counterrevolutionary about keeping busy.” There is something that is counterrevolutionary and that is by receiving the Gospel that productivity is not working.

Which can only mean that God is.

Fear of the Lord is the Beginning of Wisdom?

In Philippians 2:1-11 we read the following:

If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, 2 make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. 3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. 5 Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,

6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, 7 but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, 8 he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

This is among the richer scriptures in the New Testament regarding Christ. There is debate if this is a song or poem, if Paul wrote it or if he just knew of it. It is identified as a “Christological hymn” however let us not forget that it is not just about Christ. It is an invitation for each of us on how to live our lives after the example (pattern) of Christ.

What is this pattern? In short it is the pattern of kenosis - the pattern of divesting power. Here is what that might look like:

First we begin with fear of the Lord. This is not that we are “afraid” of the Lord but that we do not compare ourselves to anyone else but the Lord. In doing so, we begin to see that we are in fact not the Lord and that our Sin is ever before us. If we compare ourselves to others, then we become prideful and boastful to the point where we begin to feel like we are “above” or even “godlike” to others. Thus fear of the Lord is knowing who/what to compare yourself to.

When we compare ourselves to God, we are face to face with the shortcomings we have. These shortcomings are the very things that keep us from union with God, others, world and self. And so, if unity is what we seek, we must renounce our current way of life.

When we renounce ways of living that keep us from union, we become a learning again. The idea that “what got you here cannot take you there” is at play. So as ones who have renounced “what got us here” because it “cannot take us there” we are humbled as one who is just beginning a new journey. We have to learn again a new way to live that is without that which we renounced. (Thus, religion is about helping us unlearn before it is about helping us learn.)

Once we renounce our previous ways and in a posture of a humble learner, what are we to do? We need a teacher to show us and tell us what to do. When you are taking a class, the teacher will often tell you to do things that you do not fully understand at the time. However, you trust the teacher and you do what they tell you to do hopeful that in the doing you will come to a greater understanding. Trusting the teacher and doing what they ask is called obedience. Obeying is not a high value in the individualist times we are in, and maybe this is part of our resistance to the spiritual life.

Finally, even if you obey the teacher, the lessons of how to live a life like Christ will take patience. We will not learn over night. It was said that one monk put a stone in his mouth for three years just to learn to be silent. It was said that one monk was in the desert for over fifty years and was just beginning to tame anger. It was said that Jesus Christ himself took forty days in the wilderness to overcome the temptations. It took God in Christ three days to defeat death. Needless to say, if it takes God in Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit some time to overcome things, it will take you time as well.

This is a pattern to consider as the spiritual life:
1) Fear of the Lord
2) Renunciation
3) Humility
4) Obedience
5) Patience

Now, if only I could get that first one down…