Phrases We Should Stop Using, Pt. IV: Least?

I'm returning to my series of "Phrases We Should Stop Using" to highlight another one that has made me uncomfortable for years.  I'm finally speaking out against the Biblical term "the least of these."

I mention that it's a Biblical term because that has made me wary of writing this post.  It's hard to say "We should stop saying this phrase" when Jesus used it and it's recorded by Matthew.  Yet I believe the phrase is overused and used to mean something that Jesus didn't.  We use the term to refer almost exclusively to the materially poor and disadvantaged.  I've written before about how one of the foremost disadvantages of the poor is a broken identity, but we continue to damage the poor's identities by calling them "the least!"  The tale is told of the youth group that wears t-shirts about "serving the least of these" while on a mission trip.  The recipients of such service, no doubt, would not be spiritually inspired if they could read the shirts.

What then did Jesus mean when he talked about "the least" anyways?   Sometimes I find it helpful to set aside deep study of the Scripture and return to what I call a "casual read."  If I simply read the passage like I might read a novel, what does it plainly say?  This can be a helpful tool when you miss the forest for the trees.  A casual read of Matthew 25 makes me think, based on the pronouns, that the use of this phrase hinges on a misreading.  We tend to attribute "the least" to the list of disadvantaged people in the passage, but what if "these" was the intention?  Then Jesus would be making a hyperbole by saying, "If you serve the least of all these poor and imprisoned folks, you're serving me."  A very different reading!

The Bible talks elsewhere about "the least."  In Matthew 5, Jesus defines "the least in the Kingdom of Heaven" - it's people who ignore parts of the law.  Paul, in 1 Timothy 1, calls himself the worst by saying that he is the chief of sinners and God's grace redeemed him.  Scripture would hardly tend to define the materially poor, the disadvantaged, the imprisoned, or the alien as "the least."  In fact, Scripture tends to express a preference for such people!  When we identify these folks as "the least," we are building an impasse between us and them, by inference saying that we are not the least.  This is clearly contrary to what Scripture teaches.  Let's agree together to stop making this distinction and instead think of Jesus as making an extreme statement: "Imagine the least desirable type of people to be around.  Now think of the very 'least' of these.  Go and serve that person."

Catalysts

Originally published at LINC North Texas:

It’s in vogue these days for mission developers to call themselves “catalysts.”  Church planters are catalyzing a new mission, organizations are catalysts in their communities, and so forth.  Catalysts tend to enthusiastically gather people and make things happen.  They are action-oriented people, often daring, and excitedly creating the future of the church day by day.  I have fond memories of science classes in school, so I recently gave myself a refresher on the roots of the term “catalyst.”  Catalysts, in science, are substances that either speed up or slow down reactions and processes.  The catalytic converter in your car has a precious metal in it (platinum, palladium, or rhodium) that speeds up the breakdown of noxious exhaust.   The two key features of catalysts are that they are only needed in very small amounts, and that they are never used up in the reaction.  Not part of the actual reaction, they go on to help over and over again.

This got me to thinking about our use of the term for mission developers, and for LINC North Texas.  Is there something we could learn from science’s original definition of the term?  When thinking about a catalyst in mission developing, I’m now more likely to think of a facilitator, a networker, or a collaborator.  I think of someone who brings together diverse people and then releases them.  They would make things move more rapidly with only very slight nudges of their own action.  Their passion, energy, and resources would not be used up, but after launching something, they would move on to the next mission.  I am reminded of Paul, spending just enough time in many cities to launch churches and then move on.  A catalyst’s focus would be on people, not programs, organizations, or structures.  Then they would have to leave.  It’s a special calling – different from a pastoral calling, a teacher calling, and many of the other ministries that Scripture speaks of.

This sounds very different than what some of today’s mission developing catalysts are doing.  Launching new missions is exhausting work.  Their leaders work 100-hour weeks building things from the ground up.  They are the clear leaders of the processes, and without them things can quickly fall apart.  These leaders deserve a great deal of respect for the challenge they take on and I wouldn’t take a thing away from what they do.  But I wonder if there’s a way to be a catalyst for mission development in the way that science speaks of catalysts.  Could a catalyst launch self-propagating missional cells and release the process from his control and begin a movement?  Here at LINC NT we are trying to see if this is possible in North Texas.  In the process, there’s a lot of 100-hour weeks.  But, Lord willing, can we not be used up by our efforts, but remain ready to launch over and over again?  Join us in prayer as we try to discover what the role of a catalyst would look like in our communities!

Stewardship

Many of you may have seen last week's fiasco about the Pastor leaving a cheap tip at an Applebees.  Apparently a Pastor decided that 10% was enough for God, so it's enough for the waitress who served him. There's more to the story, but there's a couple of glaring problems here.

God doesn't demand 10% of our gross income.  As has been documented elsewhere, the Old Testament required three different "tithes", one of which was only due 2 out of every 7 years.  These tithes supported the entire nation of Israel, including the government.  Thus, it's a bit of a distortion to say that the Bible calls people to give 10% of their income to their church.  The New Testament says that each person should give what they have decided in their heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion.  I believe that 10% is a great target to shoot for, but that there's also no reason not to reach higher!

Secondly, I believe that there may be a need for a larger definition of stewardship.  When "stewardship" is taught as a Biblical topic, often it descends into "give 10% to the church and save wisely for the future with the rest."  I think that we can do better than that.  Stewardship must grow to encompass all of our dealings with money.  I've heard too many waiters and waitresses complain that Sunday lunch is the worst time for tips.  The Bible doesn't seem to make generosity optional - wise stewardship should include generous gifts to others.

What we do with our money says a lot about what we value in terms of justice.  I'm grossly guilty of failing to be a wise steward with my money in terms of where I shop.  When I pick up a clearance-rack $10 dress shirt at Kohl's, I know in my gut that I'm buying a shirt that was probably handled at one point by a slave.  I know that Kraft earned a resounding "F" on BetterWorldShopper for justice issues, but when the coupon and the sale line up, I just can't resist!  Perhaps when we teach stewardship, we should talk about not just what we spend money on, but where our money goes when we hand it to a cashier!

Slow and Steady

It's been at least 2500 years since Aesop told his fable to his Greek friends and family about the tortoise and the hare.  Slow and steady wins the race, we say today.  The story came to mind recently reading about the trouble with Haiti earthquake relief.  In the social service sector, we talk about "emotive giving."  People give money, and large amounts of money, when they are emotionally charged.  Estimates are that $9 billion was given after the catastrophic earthquake devastated the already-impoverished island nation.  Questions abound in the whole situation, but one thing I do know is that the days and years after a crisis are not the most effective time to spend money.  It's absolutely necessary to spend whatever necessary on emergency relief, but I can't help but think about that $9bn.

A quick check on the USAID website shows that from 2001-2009, US foreign aid to Haiti averaged $162 million per year (that's a total of $1.5bn).  At this point, it deserves to be mentioned that I'm very suspicious of foreign aid and its purported benefits, but it's entirely necessary.  My guess is that it takes $10 of official aid to equal the impact of $5 of private giving to better organizations.  Problem is, private donors still can't afford aid in that scale.  Hard to say what the private giving toward Haiti projects was over that time period, but I'd bet it doesn't add up to much.  I'm curious what progress could have been made in Haiti over that time period with $1bn per year rather than $162 million.  How much stronger would have the nation been and better prepared to deal with it?  USAID disaster preparedness giving to Haiti didn't begin until 2007 and in 3 years added to less than $10 million.

Everyone knows an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.  We're all guilty of this kind of emotive giving.  We'd rather write a $10,000 check at a big fundraising event than find a cause we believe in and pledge $1000 per month over the long haul.  We're swayed by fundraising appeals that hit our emotions rather than well-researched and professionally presented strategies for progress.  We'd rather have booming 10% market growth for a few years followed by recession than a century of steady 6% growth.  None of these are rational thought processes - in each case we're choosing the option that is neither best for us nor for anyone else.  Let's get back to the original point - when it comes to the developing nations in our midst, will the world get serious proactively working for development, or spend another century responding to expensive crises?

We Are More Alike Than It Seems

People know me for not being afraid to speak politically.  There's a lot of voices for Republicans and Democrats speaking loudly, and our modern communication technologies have given everyone a megaphone and made it easier for people to be heard.  Unfortunately, they've done something else in the meantime: they've made it appear that we're more divided than we are.  Because the only ones speaking are the radicals on either side, the centrists aren't heard.  The reality is, we've all got these little micro-networks made up of largely people similar to us, and when we log into Facebook we see a lot of people speaking.  It's easy to see a half dozen people saying one thing on Facebook and draw the inference, "Wow everyone is talking about this!"  That's the reason why I don't mind speaking politically, because I view myself as a centrist and I don't mind having a voice from the middle in the mix.

There's a great 20-minute video from TED on the reality of American politics.  The truth is that we're not nearly as divided as it seems.  In fact, 40% of Americans describe themselves as independents.  Us independents are somewhere between the two parties - we pick and choose different stances on different issues, rather than aligning on one party.  And we have an impact - the video shows how polls on a variety of issues rarely show the radical divisions that the news media would make us think exist.  There's a lot of radical rhetoric out there, which is disappointing because issues are rarely as clear-cut as that.  We need clear thinkers who consider both sides of issues, and there are a lot of us out there.  There's also a lot of misinformation (how many times have you heard lately that Congress gets full-pay-for-life after one term in office?) making the waves, and it's important to have level-headed truth seekers who evaluate claims before spreading them like gossip.

Independents and centrists are critical to the working of a political system, and when 533 out of 535 members of Congress are members of a political party, it's easy to forget that we outnumber either one.  I get upset at radical rhetoric that ignores the centrists because they polarize issues, and I have personally seen the results of polarization in Kenya in 2008.  After a bitterly contested election, both sides rose up in arms and literally began to slaughter each other.  Some estimates show as many as 1500 killed.  I have photographs of the results of excessive polarization.  Having nearly half the population calling themselves independents can help prevent this sort of thing.  I fully appreciate both Republicans and Democrats and I'm glad we have them, but I generally believe that neither has a hold on "truth" or "right" and that neither is a route to greatness for our nation.  Politics will never get us there.

So in the end, yes I will continue to speak politically.  It's the duty of the citizens of a democracy to be involved in politics.  It's moreover the duty of Christians to be involved as prayer and Scripture study leads them.  You can rest assured, however, that my speech will rarely be anything radical (unless the Bible is clear on the issue and it's radical).  It will usually be either clarifying an ignored side of an issue or defending truth in the face of misinformation.  It will generally be a centrist and independent point of view.  And you are welcome to tune me out if you'd prefer.  But unity is better than disunity, and diversity does not preclude unity.  Americans are more alike than it seems.

Phrases We Should Stop Using, Pt. III: Dying?

Part III of Phrases We Should Stop Using.....

There's a mildly-sappy and moderately-depressing country song by country star Tim McGraw called "Live Like You Were Dying."  It is about how if you knew you were dying, you'd do all sorts of crazy things you wouldn't do normally (and that it's a good thing).  A movie called The Bucket List tackled a similar subject, although the themes were much deeper and more complex.  People of all faiths have discussed how you would live if you knew that the world were ending in a very short time.  Surely you'd live your life differently, grasping onto each day and living with remarkable purpose.  Why can't we live this way all the time, these people ask?  Why do we waste so much time?

It's a valid question.  Why do we waste so much time?  I don't want to demean the question, because it's a great one that should be asked.  However, the phrase to "live like you were dying" or like the world were ending is a bit ridiculous, and the answer isn't likely what we intend.  Would we really like people to live like the characters in The Bucket List all the time?  For that's surely how people would live.  You would have no cares about the future, or about saving money, or preparing for things.  You wouldn't spend time resting or investing in long-term things.  This isn't the way we should live!  If I knew I were dying in the next six months, I'd probably drop out of school and burn my savings.  But I don't live like I'm dying - I know that school is worth it for my future.

Living like you were dying is not the right perspective.  The right perspective is to balance the interest of intentionally seizing every day with the interest of long-term planning.  We should certainly have an eye toward today and recognize the reality that any day could be our last on earth.  We should be ready to die any day, but plan as if we'll live to be 100.  Every day can have purpose in this sense, even if the entire day is spent resting and relaxing.  Rest is a God-given gift that is valuable for the future.  Let's live intentionally, but with a long-range vision!

New computer backgrounds

I love custom computer backgrounds that have song lyrics or Bible verses....I had free time today and felt like playing around in Photoshop some, so I ended up with 4 new backgrounds.  I'm happy to share them with anyone who wants them!  They are 1920x1080 since that's the resolution of my monitor at work.

Enjoy!