a sermon preached by the Rev. Dr. Tim W. Jensen
at the First Religious Society in Carlisle MA
Sunday May 16, 2004
Early in my career as a Parish Minister, I got into the habit of preaching once a year, on the date of the Annual Meeting, on the subject of “The State of the Church.” The logic of this seemed obvious at the time, and hasn’t really changed that much. To my mind the only thing more tedious and deadly dull than listening to a traditional annual report is writing and presenting one. But making this subject the topic of a sermon, moving the issue of “the state of the church” from the nuts and bolts context of a business meeting to the inspirational forum of public worship, effectively shifts the focus from one of dry reporting to a dynamic exploration of questions of meaning and value. Rather than looking backwards, it becomes an invitation to look to the future, to examine the purpose and effectiveness of our religious society in the light of a shared and articulate vision of our mission and future goals. Or at least that’s the theory. It could also turn out to be just another one of those tedious and deadly dull sermons that every preacher seems to preach once in awhile, no matter how hard they try to avoid it....
But having said all that, let me just begin by saying that from where I stand, the state of the church looks good. It could be better, of course -- it can always be better -- but it could certainly be a lot worse as well. It seems to me that there’s been a lot of positive energy in the congregation this year, lots of optimism and enthusiasm, lots of good feelings. And of course, for all I know, it’s always like this around here; because, after all , I am still a relative newcomer to Carlisle and the First Religious Society, so there is certainly plenty left for me to learn about this place, and all of you. I was talking with a colleague about this the other day, and she told me that it really wasn’t until after the start of her third year, when she knew that she was really a “settled” minister, and not just serving as another interim. And the literature suggests that it’s typically not until the sixth or seventh year of a ministry that clergy truly “come into their own” as the “leader” of a congregation -- a phenomenon which seems to coincide with the moment that the number of people who have joined the church since the minister’s arrival begins to approach the number of people who have been there all along.
For my own part, I already feel very much at home here. But I’m also kind of hoping that the novelty NEVER really wears off -- that amidst our growing sense of comfort and mutual familiarity there will always be something new to learn, something different to try, some undiscovered territory to explore. And the thing that makes this possible is often simply the recognition that nothing in life is ever truly “settled” once and for all, and while at times this can feel unsettling, it’s also what makes life interesting, what keeps us lively and on our toes. Of course, this insight can sometimes be taken to the opposite extreme as well. There also always seem to be some people who like to shake things up simply for the thrill of the adrenaline rush, because they crave excitement of change for its own sake. But between these two extremes there’s a pretty broad path that we can follow, which allows us to be both creative and innovative while still enjoying the things we have always enjoyed, without getting stuck in a rut.
There’s one other thing I’ve noticed about my experience settling in here, which is that in ever other congregation I’ve served, without exception, I’ve been brought in to serve as a troubleshooter -- there was some specific problem or set of problems that needed to be fixed (or at least addressed), and it was my job to see to it that it happened. This wasn’t really the career I’d planned for myself; things just sort of worked out that way. But one of the big attractions of this congregation was that I liked the things that you were doing here, and simply wanted to be a part of it all -- maybe help you learn to do things a little better, or even just bring my own talents to the party, in the expectation that my contributions would add to the overall quality of the experience. So I’ve been trying to break my old habit of always looking around for problems to be fixed, and to learn instead how to look for new opportunities to be embraced, along with ways that I might best fit in and contribute to what you are already doing well together.
At our leadership retreat last fall, facilitated by our District Executive Lynn Thomas, we tried as a group to identify priorities for my first year of ministry here in Carlisle. And obviously, near the very top of the list was what we are doing right now: our Sunday morning worship service. Any time you add a new member to a team, any kind of team, regardless of how skilled or talented they may be, it takes a little time for the team to really “gel” again-- for the various teammates to get to know one another’s skills and abilities and how they all fit together in a supportive, synerystic and harmonious way. Preaching is obviously a very important part of what I do as a minister: it is certainly the most visible part of my job, and also probably the most time consuming...and although a lot of this work, the writing and the reading, I have to do alone that still doesn’t mean that I can do it all myself or that it happens in a vacuum.
A sermon is just one part of a larger experience of public worship which has a structure and a dynamic all its own. My job as a preacher is “to instruct, to delight, and to inspire” -- to take what I have learned through my education and experience, about our shared Unitarian Universalist faith, and to examine what is happening in the world in the light of what I know, in such a way that others might find it enlightening as well, not just spiritually or intellectually or in the abstract, but in the place where people actually live their lives. And the context of this activity is a time that we set aside each week to gather together apart from the distractions of the rest of the world, and to reconnect to one another as a religious community, to center ourselves and explore our lives more deeply, share our joys and our sorrows, sing out loudly in celebration of the things that we hold sacred, and then to return to the world inspired and encouraged to put our values and our principles into practice in our daily lives.
This worship, this “liturgy,” literally is “the work of the people” -- something that we do together. And all my ideas -- every one -- ultimately originate from listening carefully to you. If it’s on your mind, eventually I want to get around to talking about it from the pulpit -- not because I want to tell you what to believe, but because “the unexamined life is not worth living,” and our tradition of the Free Pulpit is grounded in presenting to thinking people thoughtful opinions slightly different from their own.
This brings me to what has been a second priority for this first year, which is simply trying to get to know all of you as well as I can. Obviously, this remains an on-going process, complicated by the fact that I don’t always see all of you as often as I would like. My head-counters tell me that the average attendance has been good this past year, although it has dropped off a little here in the spring; I fully expect that next September it will be a little lighter than it was last September (now that the novelty of seeing the new minister has worn off), and that basically by a year from now we will have a pretty good idea of what the new baseline is. And then we will begin to grow the church from there.
Growth in average attendance is the product of two things: an increase in the absolute number of people who attend church, and an increase in the number (or frequency) of times that each individual attends. Population times Frequency: how many, how often. And it is the single most important statistical indicator of the health and vitality of a congregation: more important than formal membership, more important even than the budget. All good things in church begin by people showing up, not just on Sunday morning, but at the various other activities of the church as well. And churches grow when people invite their friends. It’s really just that simple. One of the unanticipated benefits of the activities we have organized this past year to help me meet people is that they seem to have helped many of you to get to know one another a little better as well. I fully expect that we will try to continue to organize these kinds of events far into the foreseeable future.
There are a lot of other things I would like to talk about here this morning, such as our recent pledge campaign, and the efforts we have made together to build upon the work this congregation did with Michael Durrell during Diane’s interim ministry, as well as some of the plans to begin to create a more systematic program of Adult Religious Education here at FRS, together with the development of what are sometimes called “Chalice Circles” -- small, lay-led “covenant group” ministries of six to ten souls who meet together on a regular basis simply to share with one another, in an open yet structured way, their insights and experiences as spiritual seekers. But time is short, and I don’t want to leave here this morning without saying a few words, at least, about the Welcoming Congregation Program.
I have to admit that becoming a Welcoming Congregation wasn’t really something that was very high on my priority list when I was called here. It was (if I can borrow some language from Richard Clarke) something I thought was important, but not very urgent...and I knew that it had been somewhat controversial here, and thus needlessly divisive, and so I was perfectly willing to let it simmer on the back burner for awhile until there was some compelling reason to bring it up again. But we don’t always get to decide the timing of these things for ourselves; sometimes someone else decides to turn up the heat, so that things start to boil over and demand our attention.
Tonight at midnight same-sex couples will at long last have the right to become legally married here in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and while many (though not all) religious conservatives tend to view this development as either the work of the devil or the product of a sinister conspiracy of activist judges and secular humanists, I suspect that the response of most religious liberals (including Unitarian Universalists) ranges somewhere between benign ambivalence and outright joy. But regardless of how people may feel personally, the principle of “the inherent worth and dignity of every person” is now once more, for better or worse, front and center on the battlefield of the Culture Wars, in the midst of what is perhaps the most acrimonious and polarized political campaign of our generation.
There are a lot of misconceptions, right here in this church, about what it means to become a Welcoming Congregation, and while it would obviously be impossible to clear them all up right this second, the most egregious goes something like this: becoming a Welcoming Congregation means taking a vote to change the by-laws to declare that you are a “Gay Church” -- then you fly a Rainbow Flag above the front door, and suddenly anyone who ISN’T Gay is no longer welcome here. I know it sounds silly, but don’t laugh...because I’ve heard it described in almost just so many words on more than one occasion right here in this building, sometimes even by people who were basically in favor of the program.
What the Welcoming Congregation is REALLY all about, is essentiallly a systematic and on-going comprehensive process of Adult Religious Education designed to help churches learn how better to create the kind of safe space where ANYONE can come, along with their families and their loved ones, and talk openly about mundane things like where they went on their summer vacation, and NOT have to worry about about being shunned or ridiculed, or beaten up, or fired from their jobs, or thrown out of their homes, simply because God made them a certain way, and they are tired of always trying to hide who they are from their neighbors and fellow creatures.
The Welcoming Congregation Program is about building mutual respect and trust, along with a tolerance for diversity which is grounded in a better understanding of the value of pluralism, and of the wide range of human experiences that make up the human race. And the reason that it focuses so specifically on the LBGT community is that so much of the so-called “traditional religious values” crowd is so overtly hostile toward them. Thus we are called by our faith tradition to answer that hostility with hospitality, just like it says in the Bible....just like Lot took the two strangers into his home, in order to prevent the male citizens of Sodom and Gomorrah from abusing them, and thereby entertained angels unawares.
I think that it is only natural for human beings, or any kind of animal really, to be suspicious (and maybe even a little fearful) of the unfamiliar. This cautiousness concerning things that we don’t really understand is probably hard-wired into our brains -- a kind of “safety mechanism” which typically errs on the side of caution by keeping us out of harm’s way even when we’re not really sure what the harm might potentially be, or even whether there is any real danger at all. Homophobia is basically just another form of Xenophobia: a fear of the foreign, a fear of strangers. Like all prejudices, it is generally rooted in ignorance and misunderstanding, and tends to disappear rapidly in the presence of improved knowledge and increased familiarity. But we all come to this issue at different places on the learning curve, each of us with our own backgrounds and experiences. And as we learn together about one another from one another, our shared experiences eventually drive out the stereotypes and the misconceptions, and replace them with healthy relationships that affirm our similarities as well as our differences, always within a larger context of mutual respect and understanding.
And this is why I’m so confident that once we begin this process in earnest, it’s all going to go a lot more smoothly than you might suspect. Because after a year here, I feel like I am starting to get to know you -- and I know that you are all basically good, decent people: intelligent, curious, open-minded...who care about one another and the world around you, and who want nothing more than to do the right thing. You’re Unitarian Universalists, for crissakes! -- you really do possess the one true faith, but you don’t want to say anything about it because you don’t want those other folks to feel badly about theirs. But let’s not let that keep us from practicing what we preach. Because practice is what keeps a faith like ours alive. And it is through our good example that we begin to change the world, one good deed at at time.
Sunday, May 16, 2004
Sunday, May 2, 2004
PASTOR AND COMMANDER: ANOTHER SIDE OF THE WORLD
a sermon preached by the Rev. Dr. Tim W. Jensen
at the First Religious Society in Carlisle, Massachusetts
Sunday May 2rd, 2004
I thought I’d start out this morning simply by taking a couple of minutes (more or less) to say a few nice things about President Bush. I know this may seem a little out of character for me, and that therefore some of what I have to say may sound like damning faint praise, or insincere, or even ironic, but I can’t really help that. This seemingly interminable electoral contest is steadily emerging as the most acrimonious in MY memory; and even though I know as an historian that elections often resemble open warfare (which is why they call them “campaigns”), and democracy itself many times seems like not much more than a rough and tumble, bare knuckled brawl, I still believe that at the end of the day a functional civilized society requires civil behavior, and that as a spiritual leader I ought to somehow try to model that. Not only is the ability to recognize (and even admire) the positive qualities of those with whom one disagrees an important step toward dialog, compromise, and eventual reconciliation, I also know that whenever people succumb to the temptation of “demonizing” their opposition, they run the serious risk of “misunderestimating” them as well. Even the most evil and odious political figure of the 20th century, Adolf Hitler, was a decorated war veteran wounded on the battlefield, as well as a committed and disciplined vegetarian who loathed both smoking and drinking, and loved both dogs and small children. Not much of a writer (although apparently he’s better in English than in his native German, because his translators have tended to clean up his grammar), but certainly a dynamic and inspiring public speaker, whose rabid patriotism was unquestionable. Simply to dismiss him as a madman -- a monster and an abomination -- actually minimizes the true magnitude of his evil-doing, because it ignores both its banality and its mass appeal.
But I digress. What I meant to say is that if I can find something complimentary to say about Adolf Hitler, even if it is essentially irrelevant in the greater scheme of things, I can certainly find something nice to say about George W. Bush. In fact, I can think of three things, right off the top of my head. And the first is that I know for a fact that the President is neither as dumb as he sounds, nor is he as sanctimonious and insincere as he sometimes seems to those of us who do not share his views. Let me take these one at a time. I first realized that the President is a lot smarter than he looks when I saw his SAT scores published in one of the national news magazines, and realized that they were virtually identical to mine. Not that the results of some stupid standardized test probably mean that much anyway. But personally, I’m not too sure that I’m really smart enough to be the President (and I can’t imagine any possible circumstance where I might actually have an chance to find out either -- thank God!), but I’m certainly no dummy; and I suppose that if I had the opportunity to watch my father do it first, I might feel a lot more confident that I was capable of doing the job myself as well. But my main point is that just because the President isn’t in the top one or two percent of the population intellectually doesn’t mean that he isn’t plenty smart enough to lead. If anything, the fact that he’s NOT a “wonk” is what makes him seem so personable and approachable. And if there are times when he appears a little smug and self-righteous, or even vindictive and mean spirited toward his antagonists...who isn’t? Those of us on the other side certainly haven’t been too kind to him either.
The second nice thing I wanted to say about the President is that he knows who he is and he knows his limits without surrendering to his limitations; he isn’t ashamed of being himself, and he isn’t afraid of surrounding himself with strong, smart, and outspokenly opinionated people. And this is actually relatively rare in a leader. Many leaders, I think, tend to assume that because they are in charge, their followers are all looking to THEM for direction and guidance, and sometimes they get a little swept away by this, and start to believe that they always have to be “the smartest guy in the room” -- that their leadership depends on providing the right answer in every situation every time, and that they can therefore never afford to be wrong or to appear foolish. And there are certainly times when the President appears to have fallen into this trap as well: when his need to present a strong, principled, and decisive image in public really just make him seem (at least to those of us who disagree with him) stubborn and ideologically obsessed (not to mention a little out of touch with reality). But it also seems to me that (in private at least) the President is quite adept at listening to the opinions of his advisors and other experts, as well as gauging the mood of the public (and especially his core constituencies), and then modifying his own views based on what he has learned. And this too is a positive quality in a leader: the ability to listen, to learn, and to lead your followers in the direction they want to go.
Finally, the one quality I truly admire in the President above all others is his singular ability to earn and inspire the loyalty of those who support him. On one level, there is nothing particularly mysterious about this quality: people are loyal to the President because they know he is loyal to them -- it is a reciprocal relationship of mutual obligation and responsibility. One hand washes the other. But there’s actually a lot more to it than that. I think the President inspires such strong feelings of loyalty among his core supporters because he articulates and defends a view of the world that is strongly held by people who feel that their opinions and beliefs have been profoundly marginalized in contemporary American society, and who see in him a leader who will restore that worldview and its moral values to the heart of our government’s foreign and domestic policy. They believe in him because he believes what they believe, and they all believe it with all their hearts.
I’ve been thinking a lot about leadership lately, and not just because there will be an election in six months which will once again determine the leadership of our nation for the next four years. This first Sunday in May is also the first anniversary of my election as the minister of this congregation, so I’ve also been thinking quite a bit about the differences between political and religious leadership, and likewise where they overlap, and where they ought to leave one another alone. Political leadership, at least in a democracy, is an expression of the will of the people through the principle of majority rule. Thus politics is all about the art of the possible: not merely an unvarnished manifestation of what is sometimes called “the tyranny of the majority,” but more typically a subtle combination of compromise and coalition building, together at times with a little judicious arm twisting, the ubiquitous quid pro quo, and no small amount of inflammatory pandering to the fears and prejudices of the electorate.
But religious leadership ought to be about helping people to discern the Will of God, together with a humble submission to divine authority (however you may choose to understand that concept of a “higher power”) -- not my will, but thine Oh Lord be done. Keeping these things clearly distinguished in one’s mind is not always the easiest thing to do. What’s wrong with twisting a few arms, or even knocking a few heads and kicking a few butts, when you know that God is on your side? The answer, of course, is this notion of humility -- the realization that no matter how powerful our convictions may be, we will never FULLY know and understand the mind of our Creator, and that to believe otherwise is arrogant idolatry. Faith is less about certainty of belief than it is the trusting confidence that we must act in good faith even in the midst of our uncertainty, not knowing for sure whether God is on our side, but hoping that we are on the side of God, a God who is both Just AND Merciful, Righteous AND Compassionate, and who loves All Souls with the same unconditional affection that a perfect mother might feel for her children. The experience of faith is something which should be freely shared, but never forcibly imposed; there is no place for coercion in the Kingdom of God. Or at least this is what Unitarians, Universalists, and other religious liberals have traditionally believed. Faith is a Gift of God. And we best discern God’s will for us when we are free to share our faith openly with one another, without duress or fear of reprisal.
Of course, religion and politics are not the only fields where quality of leadership significantly determines both the quality of the experience and the quality of the results. I strongly suspect, for example, if we were to do a quick survey of the number of books on the subject, most of them would deal with issues of Leadership in Business, where it is sometimes said that “managers do things right, but leaders do the right things.” And yet I wonder whether this dichotomy is really fair. Which is preferable: to do the wrong things well, or to do the right things poorly? (Actually, that statement pretty much describes the differences between our two political parties, doesn’t it?) Clearly, the best alternative is to do the right things well: in other words, to be attentive to both the process and the vision -- the quality of the relationship between the leader, the followers, and their task -- as well as the ultimate worthiness of the goal itself, and how that worthiness is best determined and communicated.
Business leaders often look to sports for metaphors that can help them understand and explain what it is they are trying to do when leading a “team” toward a “goal.” Sports are a lot simpler than life: the rules are reasonably clear and fixed, the goals are pre-determined by the rules, and both the size of the field and the duration of the game are relatively limited in scope when compared to “real life.” The job of a coach basically has three parts. The first part is to come up with a “game plan” -- a strategy that will allow the team to achieve a victory. The second part is to teach their players all the skills they will need to have in order to successfully carry out the plan. And the third part is to motivate the players to make their best possible effort, to play up to the level of their ability and maybe even a little beyond it -- to inspire and encourage, threaten and cajole, reward, punish, praise, prod, criticize, challenge, support...and so on and so on. No two coaches are exactly alike, and no two players respond to exactly the same set of motivators -- yet often a feeling of pride in the quality of one’s effort and achievements, together with fear of the shame of letting one’s teammates down, are at the heart of all these other motivations; and good coaches, good leaders in general, seem to know instinctively the exact combination of each that will work best for every player on the team. Or perhaps they know because they listen, and because they know their players as well as their players know themselves, and therefore know also what makes them tick, and how to communicate with them in a manner that that the players can easily understand.
Of course no discussion of leadership can really be complete without some exploration of the role of leadership in the military. Warfare is the attempt to impose one’s will on another through force; and the mission of the military is the management and effective application of lethal violence. Over the centuries, military organizations have turned the process of leadership development into a science, because professional soldiers know from experience that no matter how carefully you plan, no matter how rigorously you train, no matter how good your equipment is, there inevitably comes a time in combat when someone has to stand up in the face of danger and say to his comrades “follow me.” Planning, training, good equipment, unit discipline and morale, camaraderie and trust, obviously all play an important role in what happens next. But without leadership, nothing happens at all. The common assumption about moments like this is that these leaders must somehow be more courageous than the soldiers they lead, that they are so naturally brave that they simply aren’t afraid to risk their lives in the face of the enemy. But according to those who have had the experience, this isn’t the case at all. Courage under fire has nothing to do with not being afraid. True courage is about being afraid, and doing your duty anyway, because you know that the others are depending on you, and the example of your leadership, for their survival.
Here’s another interesting thing to ponder. A standard light infantry platoon in the US Army is comprised of 35 soldiers (or, as the Army would put it, “34 men and one officer” -- typically, a 2nd Lieutenant, who is probably still in his early twenties). Yet this young Lieutenant doesn’t lead this entire platoon all by himself: he is assisted by a Platoon Sergeant, three Squad Leaders, six Fire Team Leaders, and two Weapons Team Leaders...35 soldiers, and a full third of them are designated as “leaders” -- each of whom is prepared to assume the responsibilities of their superior should the latter be killed in battle. And, of course, the platoon is also supported by an entire “chain of command” which coordinates their movement with the movement of other units, resupplies them with food and ammunition, evacuates casualties and provides reinforcements, along with all of the countless other things (including chaplains) that are necessary in order for this particular platoon to be able to accomplish its assigned operational mission. It’s a pretty elaborate organization, all of which can be sent into action at the word of a single individual, the Commander in Chief, whose leadership “by precept and example” trickles down through the ranks. Yet ultimately the success or failure of our military in actual combat (and its aftermath) relies far less on the leadership of the individual at the top of the chain of command than it does on the morale, the training, and the leadership of the soldiers whose boots actually ARE on the ground, and who rely on one another in order to survive, safely, to the end of another day.
We’ve seen two vivid examples representing both the best and the worst of American soldiery just within these past few weeks. The positive example, of course, was Ranger Specialist Pat Tillman, 2nd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, who was killed in action in Afghanistan during an ambush on April 22nd. Tillman, as you probably already know, had been the starting strong safety of the Arizona Cardinals, who left his lucrative professional football career to enlist, along with his brother Kevin, in the Rangers following September 11th. My big concern, both when I first heard about Tillman’s enlistment two years ago, and when I learned of his death last week, was that people would get the wrong message -- that they would look at his example and somehow equate being a soldier with being a professional athlete, and assume that combat was just another game. I don’t think Tillman ever felt that way, and I’m pretty sure he never intended to send that message...although you never know. Yet there aren’t that many people on this planet who are willing to walk away from a seven-figure income, and all that goes with it, in order to put themselves in harm’s way fighting for what they believe in the rugged mountains of Afghanistan. Pat Tillman was one. Osama bin Laden, interestingly enough, is another. I’m not really sure what to make of that, but there it is.
The shameful example involves the report, with explicit photographs, of the systematic abuse and humiliation of Iraqi prisoners by US Army Reserve military police at the Abu Ghraib prison. This is a complicated situation, and details are still emerging from the on-going investigation, so doubtlessly there will be much more to be learned in the weeks and months ahead. The President has said that he feels a “deep disgust” at the way these prisoners were treated (as he should), and that the behavior of these few guards does not represent the values of most American soldiers or the American people...which is certainly true. But I also believe that the President is wrong if he thinks that this is just an isolated anomaly that can be blamed on a handful of inadequately-trained and poorly-led reserve soldiers. The tone for this treatment was set much higher up the chain of command, and by decisions we have made as a nation about how we will treat the “enemy combatants” who come into our custody.
I’m not certain which profession is older -- that of the warrior, or that of the shaman -- and I’m not really sure that it matters that much either. I do know that in many ancient societies they were one and the same: the warrior king was also the chief priest, to whom the people looked for leadership at times of both military and spiritual crisis. Nowadays the two vocations don’t really appear to have much in common, although they intersect in intriguing ways. The trained, professional killer is also a dedicated professional peacemaker, whose strength deters conflict, and whose judicious use of force or the threat of force can sometimes prevent more widespread violence. Professional religious leaders, in every major religious tradition (including Islam), are typically taught that all men and women are brothers and sisters to one another in the eyes of their Creator, and that we should do unto others as we would have others do unto us; that the redeeming power of God’s love is more powerful than our own human desire for revenge, and that we most completely destroy our enemies when we make them our friends. But when righteous anger becomes wedded to religious zeal, bad things happen. Call it Jihad or call it a Crusade, when we dehumanize our enemies we dehumanize ourselves, rationalizing and justifying our evil behavior with the lame excuse that we are only doing God’s will.
Here “in the trenches” of religious life in America, in the day to day activities of local congregations like our’s, we don’t often talk about these “big issues” of leadership. Here the talk is all about “shared ministry” and the role of the “equipping pastor” -- a leader who gives to the people the tools, and training, and guidance they need to pursue effectively their own “call” to serve. A “coach.” Yet what we do here is not unconnected to what is happening in the wider world. Our faithful attempts to do the right things well, to inspire and encourage one another to excellence, and to lead by example as well as by precept, are not confined just to this building, or even to our little town. In some abstract, spiritual way, the light we bring to our endevours truly does shine beyond ourselves. So carry this flame of peace and love in your hearts, in everything you undertake. And may the light you bring to all you do become a shining example to all the world.
READING
[Ft Lewis] Installation Chaplain's Office
Unit Ministry Teams Mission
• Operate a state-of-the-art spiritual power projection platform for the warfighter by providing them a superior religious support program and infrastructure that ensures the well being of our soldiers, civilians, retirees and their families through free exercise of their beliefs and gives them the opportunities for the positive life changing lessons, power and stability that transform people of faith.
I Corps Unit Ministry Teams Mission
• To provide or perform religious support for all authorized personnel of I Corps and Fort Lewis during peacetime and across the full spectrum of war in order to support the command in the facilitation of the free exercise of religion.
• To advise the command in matters of religion, morals, morale, and ethical issues in order to support the unit mission.
at the First Religious Society in Carlisle, Massachusetts
Sunday May 2rd, 2004
I thought I’d start out this morning simply by taking a couple of minutes (more or less) to say a few nice things about President Bush. I know this may seem a little out of character for me, and that therefore some of what I have to say may sound like damning faint praise, or insincere, or even ironic, but I can’t really help that. This seemingly interminable electoral contest is steadily emerging as the most acrimonious in MY memory; and even though I know as an historian that elections often resemble open warfare (which is why they call them “campaigns”), and democracy itself many times seems like not much more than a rough and tumble, bare knuckled brawl, I still believe that at the end of the day a functional civilized society requires civil behavior, and that as a spiritual leader I ought to somehow try to model that. Not only is the ability to recognize (and even admire) the positive qualities of those with whom one disagrees an important step toward dialog, compromise, and eventual reconciliation, I also know that whenever people succumb to the temptation of “demonizing” their opposition, they run the serious risk of “misunderestimating” them as well. Even the most evil and odious political figure of the 20th century, Adolf Hitler, was a decorated war veteran wounded on the battlefield, as well as a committed and disciplined vegetarian who loathed both smoking and drinking, and loved both dogs and small children. Not much of a writer (although apparently he’s better in English than in his native German, because his translators have tended to clean up his grammar), but certainly a dynamic and inspiring public speaker, whose rabid patriotism was unquestionable. Simply to dismiss him as a madman -- a monster and an abomination -- actually minimizes the true magnitude of his evil-doing, because it ignores both its banality and its mass appeal.
But I digress. What I meant to say is that if I can find something complimentary to say about Adolf Hitler, even if it is essentially irrelevant in the greater scheme of things, I can certainly find something nice to say about George W. Bush. In fact, I can think of three things, right off the top of my head. And the first is that I know for a fact that the President is neither as dumb as he sounds, nor is he as sanctimonious and insincere as he sometimes seems to those of us who do not share his views. Let me take these one at a time. I first realized that the President is a lot smarter than he looks when I saw his SAT scores published in one of the national news magazines, and realized that they were virtually identical to mine. Not that the results of some stupid standardized test probably mean that much anyway. But personally, I’m not too sure that I’m really smart enough to be the President (and I can’t imagine any possible circumstance where I might actually have an chance to find out either -- thank God!), but I’m certainly no dummy; and I suppose that if I had the opportunity to watch my father do it first, I might feel a lot more confident that I was capable of doing the job myself as well. But my main point is that just because the President isn’t in the top one or two percent of the population intellectually doesn’t mean that he isn’t plenty smart enough to lead. If anything, the fact that he’s NOT a “wonk” is what makes him seem so personable and approachable. And if there are times when he appears a little smug and self-righteous, or even vindictive and mean spirited toward his antagonists...who isn’t? Those of us on the other side certainly haven’t been too kind to him either.
The second nice thing I wanted to say about the President is that he knows who he is and he knows his limits without surrendering to his limitations; he isn’t ashamed of being himself, and he isn’t afraid of surrounding himself with strong, smart, and outspokenly opinionated people. And this is actually relatively rare in a leader. Many leaders, I think, tend to assume that because they are in charge, their followers are all looking to THEM for direction and guidance, and sometimes they get a little swept away by this, and start to believe that they always have to be “the smartest guy in the room” -- that their leadership depends on providing the right answer in every situation every time, and that they can therefore never afford to be wrong or to appear foolish. And there are certainly times when the President appears to have fallen into this trap as well: when his need to present a strong, principled, and decisive image in public really just make him seem (at least to those of us who disagree with him) stubborn and ideologically obsessed (not to mention a little out of touch with reality). But it also seems to me that (in private at least) the President is quite adept at listening to the opinions of his advisors and other experts, as well as gauging the mood of the public (and especially his core constituencies), and then modifying his own views based on what he has learned. And this too is a positive quality in a leader: the ability to listen, to learn, and to lead your followers in the direction they want to go.
Finally, the one quality I truly admire in the President above all others is his singular ability to earn and inspire the loyalty of those who support him. On one level, there is nothing particularly mysterious about this quality: people are loyal to the President because they know he is loyal to them -- it is a reciprocal relationship of mutual obligation and responsibility. One hand washes the other. But there’s actually a lot more to it than that. I think the President inspires such strong feelings of loyalty among his core supporters because he articulates and defends a view of the world that is strongly held by people who feel that their opinions and beliefs have been profoundly marginalized in contemporary American society, and who see in him a leader who will restore that worldview and its moral values to the heart of our government’s foreign and domestic policy. They believe in him because he believes what they believe, and they all believe it with all their hearts.
I’ve been thinking a lot about leadership lately, and not just because there will be an election in six months which will once again determine the leadership of our nation for the next four years. This first Sunday in May is also the first anniversary of my election as the minister of this congregation, so I’ve also been thinking quite a bit about the differences between political and religious leadership, and likewise where they overlap, and where they ought to leave one another alone. Political leadership, at least in a democracy, is an expression of the will of the people through the principle of majority rule. Thus politics is all about the art of the possible: not merely an unvarnished manifestation of what is sometimes called “the tyranny of the majority,” but more typically a subtle combination of compromise and coalition building, together at times with a little judicious arm twisting, the ubiquitous quid pro quo, and no small amount of inflammatory pandering to the fears and prejudices of the electorate.
But religious leadership ought to be about helping people to discern the Will of God, together with a humble submission to divine authority (however you may choose to understand that concept of a “higher power”) -- not my will, but thine Oh Lord be done. Keeping these things clearly distinguished in one’s mind is not always the easiest thing to do. What’s wrong with twisting a few arms, or even knocking a few heads and kicking a few butts, when you know that God is on your side? The answer, of course, is this notion of humility -- the realization that no matter how powerful our convictions may be, we will never FULLY know and understand the mind of our Creator, and that to believe otherwise is arrogant idolatry. Faith is less about certainty of belief than it is the trusting confidence that we must act in good faith even in the midst of our uncertainty, not knowing for sure whether God is on our side, but hoping that we are on the side of God, a God who is both Just AND Merciful, Righteous AND Compassionate, and who loves All Souls with the same unconditional affection that a perfect mother might feel for her children. The experience of faith is something which should be freely shared, but never forcibly imposed; there is no place for coercion in the Kingdom of God. Or at least this is what Unitarians, Universalists, and other religious liberals have traditionally believed. Faith is a Gift of God. And we best discern God’s will for us when we are free to share our faith openly with one another, without duress or fear of reprisal.
Of course, religion and politics are not the only fields where quality of leadership significantly determines both the quality of the experience and the quality of the results. I strongly suspect, for example, if we were to do a quick survey of the number of books on the subject, most of them would deal with issues of Leadership in Business, where it is sometimes said that “managers do things right, but leaders do the right things.” And yet I wonder whether this dichotomy is really fair. Which is preferable: to do the wrong things well, or to do the right things poorly? (Actually, that statement pretty much describes the differences between our two political parties, doesn’t it?) Clearly, the best alternative is to do the right things well: in other words, to be attentive to both the process and the vision -- the quality of the relationship between the leader, the followers, and their task -- as well as the ultimate worthiness of the goal itself, and how that worthiness is best determined and communicated.
Business leaders often look to sports for metaphors that can help them understand and explain what it is they are trying to do when leading a “team” toward a “goal.” Sports are a lot simpler than life: the rules are reasonably clear and fixed, the goals are pre-determined by the rules, and both the size of the field and the duration of the game are relatively limited in scope when compared to “real life.” The job of a coach basically has three parts. The first part is to come up with a “game plan” -- a strategy that will allow the team to achieve a victory. The second part is to teach their players all the skills they will need to have in order to successfully carry out the plan. And the third part is to motivate the players to make their best possible effort, to play up to the level of their ability and maybe even a little beyond it -- to inspire and encourage, threaten and cajole, reward, punish, praise, prod, criticize, challenge, support...and so on and so on. No two coaches are exactly alike, and no two players respond to exactly the same set of motivators -- yet often a feeling of pride in the quality of one’s effort and achievements, together with fear of the shame of letting one’s teammates down, are at the heart of all these other motivations; and good coaches, good leaders in general, seem to know instinctively the exact combination of each that will work best for every player on the team. Or perhaps they know because they listen, and because they know their players as well as their players know themselves, and therefore know also what makes them tick, and how to communicate with them in a manner that that the players can easily understand.
Of course no discussion of leadership can really be complete without some exploration of the role of leadership in the military. Warfare is the attempt to impose one’s will on another through force; and the mission of the military is the management and effective application of lethal violence. Over the centuries, military organizations have turned the process of leadership development into a science, because professional soldiers know from experience that no matter how carefully you plan, no matter how rigorously you train, no matter how good your equipment is, there inevitably comes a time in combat when someone has to stand up in the face of danger and say to his comrades “follow me.” Planning, training, good equipment, unit discipline and morale, camaraderie and trust, obviously all play an important role in what happens next. But without leadership, nothing happens at all. The common assumption about moments like this is that these leaders must somehow be more courageous than the soldiers they lead, that they are so naturally brave that they simply aren’t afraid to risk their lives in the face of the enemy. But according to those who have had the experience, this isn’t the case at all. Courage under fire has nothing to do with not being afraid. True courage is about being afraid, and doing your duty anyway, because you know that the others are depending on you, and the example of your leadership, for their survival.
Here’s another interesting thing to ponder. A standard light infantry platoon in the US Army is comprised of 35 soldiers (or, as the Army would put it, “34 men and one officer” -- typically, a 2nd Lieutenant, who is probably still in his early twenties). Yet this young Lieutenant doesn’t lead this entire platoon all by himself: he is assisted by a Platoon Sergeant, three Squad Leaders, six Fire Team Leaders, and two Weapons Team Leaders...35 soldiers, and a full third of them are designated as “leaders” -- each of whom is prepared to assume the responsibilities of their superior should the latter be killed in battle. And, of course, the platoon is also supported by an entire “chain of command” which coordinates their movement with the movement of other units, resupplies them with food and ammunition, evacuates casualties and provides reinforcements, along with all of the countless other things (including chaplains) that are necessary in order for this particular platoon to be able to accomplish its assigned operational mission. It’s a pretty elaborate organization, all of which can be sent into action at the word of a single individual, the Commander in Chief, whose leadership “by precept and example” trickles down through the ranks. Yet ultimately the success or failure of our military in actual combat (and its aftermath) relies far less on the leadership of the individual at the top of the chain of command than it does on the morale, the training, and the leadership of the soldiers whose boots actually ARE on the ground, and who rely on one another in order to survive, safely, to the end of another day.
We’ve seen two vivid examples representing both the best and the worst of American soldiery just within these past few weeks. The positive example, of course, was Ranger Specialist Pat Tillman, 2nd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, who was killed in action in Afghanistan during an ambush on April 22nd. Tillman, as you probably already know, had been the starting strong safety of the Arizona Cardinals, who left his lucrative professional football career to enlist, along with his brother Kevin, in the Rangers following September 11th. My big concern, both when I first heard about Tillman’s enlistment two years ago, and when I learned of his death last week, was that people would get the wrong message -- that they would look at his example and somehow equate being a soldier with being a professional athlete, and assume that combat was just another game. I don’t think Tillman ever felt that way, and I’m pretty sure he never intended to send that message...although you never know. Yet there aren’t that many people on this planet who are willing to walk away from a seven-figure income, and all that goes with it, in order to put themselves in harm’s way fighting for what they believe in the rugged mountains of Afghanistan. Pat Tillman was one. Osama bin Laden, interestingly enough, is another. I’m not really sure what to make of that, but there it is.
The shameful example involves the report, with explicit photographs, of the systematic abuse and humiliation of Iraqi prisoners by US Army Reserve military police at the Abu Ghraib prison. This is a complicated situation, and details are still emerging from the on-going investigation, so doubtlessly there will be much more to be learned in the weeks and months ahead. The President has said that he feels a “deep disgust” at the way these prisoners were treated (as he should), and that the behavior of these few guards does not represent the values of most American soldiers or the American people...which is certainly true. But I also believe that the President is wrong if he thinks that this is just an isolated anomaly that can be blamed on a handful of inadequately-trained and poorly-led reserve soldiers. The tone for this treatment was set much higher up the chain of command, and by decisions we have made as a nation about how we will treat the “enemy combatants” who come into our custody.
I’m not certain which profession is older -- that of the warrior, or that of the shaman -- and I’m not really sure that it matters that much either. I do know that in many ancient societies they were one and the same: the warrior king was also the chief priest, to whom the people looked for leadership at times of both military and spiritual crisis. Nowadays the two vocations don’t really appear to have much in common, although they intersect in intriguing ways. The trained, professional killer is also a dedicated professional peacemaker, whose strength deters conflict, and whose judicious use of force or the threat of force can sometimes prevent more widespread violence. Professional religious leaders, in every major religious tradition (including Islam), are typically taught that all men and women are brothers and sisters to one another in the eyes of their Creator, and that we should do unto others as we would have others do unto us; that the redeeming power of God’s love is more powerful than our own human desire for revenge, and that we most completely destroy our enemies when we make them our friends. But when righteous anger becomes wedded to religious zeal, bad things happen. Call it Jihad or call it a Crusade, when we dehumanize our enemies we dehumanize ourselves, rationalizing and justifying our evil behavior with the lame excuse that we are only doing God’s will.
Here “in the trenches” of religious life in America, in the day to day activities of local congregations like our’s, we don’t often talk about these “big issues” of leadership. Here the talk is all about “shared ministry” and the role of the “equipping pastor” -- a leader who gives to the people the tools, and training, and guidance they need to pursue effectively their own “call” to serve. A “coach.” Yet what we do here is not unconnected to what is happening in the wider world. Our faithful attempts to do the right things well, to inspire and encourage one another to excellence, and to lead by example as well as by precept, are not confined just to this building, or even to our little town. In some abstract, spiritual way, the light we bring to our endevours truly does shine beyond ourselves. So carry this flame of peace and love in your hearts, in everything you undertake. And may the light you bring to all you do become a shining example to all the world.
READING
[Ft Lewis] Installation Chaplain's Office
Unit Ministry Teams Mission
• Operate a state-of-the-art spiritual power projection platform for the warfighter by providing them a superior religious support program and infrastructure that ensures the well being of our soldiers, civilians, retirees and their families through free exercise of their beliefs and gives them the opportunities for the positive life changing lessons, power and stability that transform people of faith.
I Corps Unit Ministry Teams Mission
• To provide or perform religious support for all authorized personnel of I Corps and Fort Lewis during peacetime and across the full spectrum of war in order to support the command in the facilitation of the free exercise of religion.
• To advise the command in matters of religion, morals, morale, and ethical issues in order to support the unit mission.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
