The Good That I Don't
The Challenge of Doing What's Right
I was sick of hearing the phone ring.
I was sick of hearing the phone ring. There is a kitchen just off of the rear of our sanctuary, and the telephone inside is on the church's main phone line, and is the principal telephone access for the building. As no one was in the offices during worship services, the church phone became, primarily, the phone in the kitchen, a Trimline phone possibly bought in, of course, 1965. When it rang, it rang very loudly, loud enough to be heard throughout the building. Loud enough to interrupt prayer and sermons. Loud enough to wake the dead. So loud, in fact, I am certain you, whoever you are and wherever you live, have actually heard this phone ringing. Months of this, of my wrestling with my conscience and with the certain knowledge that, whatever action I take would likely not be appreciated and would likely be met with some hostility, and I decided I couldn't stand it anymore: Bruce Willis was coming to the rescue. I was going to silence that ringer with a strobe light.
Of course, you do realize, Church Folk and Technology Don't Mix. Anything with flashing lights or LCD displays is largely regarded with dismissive disdain, as in, “Oh, it don't take all that,” from the old guard at church. The church is The Church, where everyone, from diapers to Depends, has a place, a home, and a voice. But programs and policies developed by and focused on the young must often squeeze through the needle eye of elder scrutiny: a scrutiny practiced by people who have no way of identifying or emphathizing with the needs of a youth culture. It can be liturgical gridlock, a competitive struggle between Them and Us, wherein the winner takes great satisfaction in knowing they've won: they've beaten us. Winning and losing become more important and more the focus than the larger Truth we supposedly espouse. And the whole thing is so exhausting, so absolutely debilitating, that it inevitably evolves into The Good That I Don't. I mean, really, what's the point of even bothering.
The younger folks, say, 25-35, by and large, do not seek or participate in church leadership. Well, for one thing, the elders vote in blocks and tend to elect, well, elders. And, yes, these are the nice folks who figured an extra-loud ringer in the kitchen was more appropriate than a silent ringing phone at the rear usher's station, with a flashing light so the usher in charge could field the telephone calls. In the middle of most any important activity in the sanctuary— BRRRRRRINNNGG—!! the deafening, blood-curdling scream of the damned. And I was sick of it.
So
Bruce Willis went to Radio Shack and got a strobe light, a small unit
that flashes like a camera's flashbulb, and mounted it discreetly
under a shelf at the rear of the sanctuary near the usher's
station. Then Bruce Willis bought a new phone with a ringer that could
actually be shut off. Bruce Wills then burnt off a few hours wiring everything together, and
voila, a silent ringing phone. The ushers see the light, they go
in and answer the phone. Simple enough, yes? Bruce Willis The Hero.
Except some people lost their minds. They roared and whined and
vilified— the light! The light! It's so ostentatious! It's so
distracting! It's too bright! They wanted me to put duct tape over
the light so it wouldn't be so bright, which completely defeats
the purpose. They wanted me to mount it outside the sanctuary, in
the hall, which completely defeats the purpose. The Flashy Thing became this raging debate, splintering the
church between Anti Flashy Thing, Pro Flashy Thing, and I
Don't Care About The Flashy Thing factions. The Anti Flashy Thing
group held secret conclaves and conspired to put a stop to this
technology gone wild. I became a magnet for loathing, for those
whom I had prodded out of their comfort zone by removing the 1965
telephone.
The first month or so was hell, as some truly disliked
The Flashy Thing and started turning it off behind my back. I
finally had to duct tape over the on/ring switch because, when you
switch The Flashy Thing off, it turns its own internal ringer on,
which was even louder than the 1965 phone. Weeks after I'd spent
the money and time to install The Flashy Thing, we were still
being jolted out of our seats in the midst of service by the
ringing phone, and the Anti Flashy Thing faction took great
satisfaction in this. Not that they enjoyed the phone disturbing
service, but that they had beaten me. Beating me on this Flashy
Thing issue became the focus of people with far too much time on
their hands.
I began the practice of making sure, as soon as I arrived in
church, that the ringer on the telephone was off, and the Flashy
Thing was on and set properly. Frequently, I would have to go back
in the middle of service to make sure the Anti Flashy Thing folk
had not, in fact, gone back there and turned the ringer on again.
There were bitter complaints about how bright the light was and
how it disturbed the service— which was untrue since it was
positioned at the rear of the sanctuary and under a shelf which
largely muted the overall brightness of the thing unless you
happened to be standing right by it, which was where the usher's
station was.
The Anti Flashy Thing movement threatened to divide the church
and aggravate the pastor to death. My mere existence was a certain threat to
their way of life, to the comfy church they have built for
themselves, and to the staunch tradition that has endured in this
church for 88 years. Me and my modern music and my long hair and
my Flashy Thing may be received as an indictment of their
lifestyle and cherished traditions. I doubt there's any
insidious motives behind the undercurrent of hostility I perceived
from this faction, they are simply nice people who had a good
thing going, something they were happy and content with, until me
and my little buddies came along with our modern ideas.
The choice to do good, or do right, or simply
do what God has asked you to do, is never an easy one. In his
book, Nehemiah, Bruce Willis circa 432 BC, tells a fairly
contemporary story of a man who strives to do good, and the Anti
Flashy Thing factions of the day who make every effort to stop
him. The Israeli tribe of Judah, newly freed from Babylonian captivity, had
migrated back to Jerusalem. The Jerusalem wall, destroyed by
Nebuchadnezzar's army, was still in ruins. Nehemiah, a Jew in
captivity in Babylon, held a position of high trust with the
Babylonian King Artaxerxes, and had not returned with his people
to their ancestral homeland. Nehemiah had a great job: he was the king's cup bearer,
responsible for the king's life by tasting all the wine and food
served to the king. The fact that a Jewish man, a de facto slave,
won this level of trust from his enslaver, spoke directly to
Nehemiah's character and integrity.
When visitors to Susa informed him of the wall's dilapidated
condition, Nehemiah mourned for days. Like the 1965 phone
ringing in the middle of service, it grieved him that the Lord's
work was in such shambles. King Artaxerxes allowed Nehemiah to
return to Jerusalem, leaving his cushy job to go rally the Israelites to
finish the work of the repatriation— completing the rebuilding of
the wall.
Of course, there were Anti Wall folk, a guy named Sanballat chief among them. Sanballat was a Jew, but he played both sides of the fence, keeping the Persian name imposed on him when the Jews were captured (Babylon was a satrapy of Persia; a great many Jews had their names forcibly changed in an effort to strip them of their identities and separate them from their God). Sanballat was the governor of Samaria, and his daughter was married to Jerusalem's high priest, which suggested a harmonious relationship between Samaria and Judah. Nehemiah referred to Sanballat as the “Horonite,” which suggested Sanballat had influence among the cities of Upper and Lower Beth-horon, which controlled the major highway between Jerusalem and the Mediterranean Sea. If Sanballat had influence in these cities, then he potentially had a great deal of influence on Jerusalem's economy as well, as he likely controlled the supply lines in and out of the city. If Jerusalem rebuilt its walls, that would certainly return the city and the Jews to greatness while eroding the prominence of the surrounding cities as well as, likely, Sanballat's political influence, kickbacks, mistresses, beachfront property and Taco Bell franchise.
Thus, for largely political reasons, Sanballat conspired with like-minded Anti Wall folk Tobiah and Shemiah to try and talk Nehemiah out of rebuilding the wall. The story reads like an adventure of The Road Runner, with Sanballat as Wyle E, Coyote, going after Nehemiah for several chapters with his lame Acme rockets and spring-loaded anvils. This is, likely, the earliest example of Church People Mentality, where presumably religious persons (Sanballat was a practicing Jew, although he made consistent references to, “You Jews”) conspire to undermine the work of the Lord, and work actively to discredit God's servants. Sanballat and the other two stooges were comical in their lame efforts to trip Nehemiah up, in their efforts to divide Judah and, incredulously, convince Judah the Jerusalem wall didn't need to get fixed; these are people who could rationalize the blaring telephone in the sanctuary because the issue of the phone ringing would be secondary to whatever meager gain they achieve by beating us.
Sanballat tried to extort Nehemiah (Neh 51-19), compromise with him (Neh 61-4) and, ultimately, seeing the wall half-finished, slander him. Church people, religious people, are way better at this kind of treachery than anyone else, largely because the ears of your typical church goer are itching for gossip, which can spread like wildfire within a matter of hours, completely ruining someone's reputation and destroying their credibility. Sanballat sent a peon to Nehemiah with an unsealed letter— a letter that had been made public and likely had been read in village squares or posted in public places. This letter, a “private” warning to Nehemiah from a “dear friend,” attempted to lure Nehemiah out of the relative safety of the city, where Nehemiah would likely have been killed. In the letter, Sanballat “warns” Nehemiah about a rumor, “reported among the nations.” I guess it was reported among the nations, considering Sanballat's man was wandering around reporting it:
Sanballat sent his aide to me... and in his hand was an unsealed letter, in which was written:
“It is reported among the nations— and Geshem says it is true— that you and the Jews are plotting to revolt, and therefore you are building the wall. Moreover, according to these reports you are about to become their king and have even appointed prophets to make this proclamation about you in Jerusalem 'There is a king in Judah!' Now this report will get back to the king; so come, let us confer together.”
I sent him this reply “Nothing like what you are saying is happening; you are just making it up out of your head.” They were all trying to frighten us, thinking, 'Their hands will get to weak for the work, and it will not be completed.' But I prayed, “Now strengthen my hands.”
—Nehemiah 6:5-9 (NIV)
Having failed via the direct route, Sanballat convinced Shemaiah, a close friend of Nehemiah's and a man actually working on the wall, to tell Nehemiah his life was in danger. Shemaiah claimed to have a special revelation about a plot against Nehemiah's life and suggested that the Holy Place in the Temple would be the only safe place for Nehemiah. But, under Jewish law, only the priests could enter the Holy Place (Num 18:7). Had Nehemiah done as his “fiend” urged him to, Nehemiah's reputation would have been destroyed, and his great efforts to rebuild the wall would have been destroyed along with it.
One day I went to the house of Shemaiah son of Delaliah, the son of Mehetabel, who was shut in at his home. He said, 'Let us meet in the house of God, inside the temple, and let us close the temple doors, because men are coming to kill you— by night they are coming to kill you.'
But I said, 'Should a man like me run away? Or should one like me go into the temple to save his life? I will not go!' I realized that God had not sent him, but that he had prophesied against me because Tobiah and Sanballat had hired him. He had been hired to intimidate me so that I would commit a sin by doing this, and then they would give me a bad name to discredit me.
—Nehemiah 6:10-13 (NIV)
As the story goes, in spite of tremendous opposition— largely by the religious people of the day, men who should, by all rights, greatly desire to see the wall rebuilt— Nehemiah got the job done in a record 52 days, restoring Jerusalem to some semblance of her former greatness, reforming the nation and renewing their covenant with God.
“For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.”
—Romans 7:19
The Flashy Thing has now been in service for about eight months. Nobody pays it any mind anymore. The ringer on the kitchen phone is now always off unless the church is empty and someone needs to have the ringer on in the back. The Flashy Thing has become so accepted, in fact, that we now have to nudge the ushers when it is flashing because they no longer see the flash as they once did. We frequently have to point out that the Flashy Thing is, in fact, flashing. The Anti Flashy Thing faction is no more, having long forgotten the issue.
The greatest temptation we as Christians, as
humans, face is to do nothing at all.
The Good I Don't Do. The whole Flashy Thing business has made me
extremely reluctant to step in when I see other things done at
the church inefficiently. Trying to drag us out of 1965 is a brutal and
demoralizing process. For every good thing I do, now there are
ten that I don't. And, The Good That I Do is weighed against how
important it really is, overall, to the church versus how much
hell I am sure to catch for doing it. All of which makes me wonder
how much other good is not being done, how many other people have
thrown their hands up and said, “Not worth the hell.”
This is, of course, a largely human response, a
vitiation of our Christian duty to do good. Just Do It. If you see something
that needs doing, Just Do It. Give the guy a buck, whether he's a
wino or an angel. Install The Flashy Thing and defend it until the
nice old folk grow accustomed to it.
The status quo is the most powerful current of thought within
most any religious organization, as it represents the prescient state of
mind and state of affairs of a social organization. New and
different ideas are, more often than not, viewed with fear and
suspicion, and those who raise their hands and raise the question
or idea end up on a mental hit list of rabble rousers and trouble
makers.
Sanballat, of course, had more sinister motives for defending
the status quo. But, for most of us, these days, such irrational
defenses boil down to simple issues of fear— a certain awareness of
our own mortality, that life (personified, in my example, by this “new” technology), has passed us by. Admitting that it
is no longer 1965 is a difficult thing for most black Church Folk
to do. After all, if it's not 1965 anymore, they're not 25
anymore. The threat of newness is more about our insecurity in
that “new” somehow devalues, mitigates or challenges who
we are.
Our real challenge,
though, is to evolve beyond who we are into something greater. Something
no new idea, no unbuilt wall, no Flashy Thing could possibly
threaten. When the Word takes root in our lives and truly feeds
and empowers us, we move beyond such pettiness. Beyond jealousy
and insecurity.
And we receive the power to do good when good
needs doing. And grace to endure the foolishness of people made insecure
by our giving, our caring, or our vision.
Christopher J. Priest
17 February 2002
editor@praisenet.org
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