To Speak or Not to Speak

When conflict arises are you a fight or flight person? Or, when you want to make a point are you a fight or flight person? This morning I read an article in the Wall Street Journal that used different language for the fight-or-flight paradigm. The economist Albert G. Hirschman wrote a book in 1970 called Exit, Voice and Loyalty where Hirschman studied people and organizations' decisions to voice or exit--or in other words to fight or flight. Roger Lowenstein, the author of "The Choice: To Squawk or to Go?", the article in today's WSJ, writes, "Hirschman saw that when organizations make it easy to exit, voice is weakened. Yet, for voice to be effective, a possibility of exit must be present...Exit and voice must coexist in 'seesaw'...Exit is forceful, but it rules out using voice later. However, the reverse isn't true...and Hirschman's third leg of his stool, "loyalty" holds exit at bay." 

Lowenstein points out that "American culture generally have become more fickle." That means the loyalty leg of Hirschman's model is weakened, unstable and perhaps in many ways broken. This also means that exiting is a lot easier, and I would argue that exit is our culture's default at large rather than voice. We've largely become people of flight rather than fight. This is a problem for the United Methodist Church, and many other mainline denominations that are declining and living everyday in the shadow of the inevitable death tsunami predicted by Lovett Weems. We are living in an environment where voice is weakened and because loyalty doesn't hold much weight with people anymore, exit is all too easy. What pastor hasn't made a member upset and the member's threat to the pastor is, "Well, I'll leave the church if you do X." Exiting is not just a present option, but it is the easy default option of many church goers. It is often chosen over voice. Though there are exceptions to the rule, for which I am very thankful.

I've seen this at a pastor of a small church going through transition and change. Environments characterized by a lot of transition and change and rebuilding are ripe for conflict among members who are responsible for working together to build a future. Such a task is not easy, requires a lot of patience, investing time, energy and resources with out any immediate return and people do not agree, so I've seen many people throw their hands up and simply exit because that is easier than voice. But exit does nothing to help, or change, or better the situation of our aging, declining church. The only point "exiting" makes to those of us left behind to carry on is a reminder of the difficult task--sometimes seemingly impossible task--of being, doing, and growing church together.

I've also felt the urge to exit as a young clergy very frustrated with the United Methodist Church. Between the hoops we have to jump through for ordination, the politics of the church, the lack of support and connectionism, the dated structure, the focus on numbers through new initiatives such as vital congregations, the forms, the burden of apportionments that--however good--prevent small churches like mine from having funds to do hands-on outreach ministry in our community because we have very few loyal tithers and $15,000+ is sent to the conference for apportionments, to the daily tasks of "maintaining the aquarium" with little time or support from church loyalist to cast nets on the other side of the boat. The exit option, at times, is very, very tempting.

But exiting is not in our DNA as Methodists, or as Christians. John Wesley--to whom I have more loyalty than to the UMC--chose voice rather than exit; he chose to fight rather than flight, and his life was not easy because of his decision. Even on John Wesley's death bed, his intentions of the Methodist movement was to reform the existing Anglican church. He never wanted a new denomination; he only wanted to reform the current one. He was not always liked. He fought hard battles. He sacrificed a lot in the way of personal happiness and comfort to see the church changed and disciples made. At the end of his life--as hard as it was--I am sure Wesley said choosing to voice, to fight was well worth the impact his life and movement made on a lukewarm church.

As loyal as I am to John Wesley, I am even more loyal to a radical prophet named Jesus who being God could have chosen the easy exit, to have the burden of his cup lifted at any time, but who chose to be loyal to God's will to reconcile humanity through him to the point of death on the cross. Holy Week begins tomorrow with Jesus' "triumphal" entry into Jerusalem which was a loud, defiant voice in the face of the oppressive Roman regime. I learned from Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan in The Last Week that as Jesus rode in to Jerusalem on a donkey, on the other side of Jerusalem, Pilate rode in on a horse with 600 hundred foot soldiers. Pilate paraded in that way every Passover season. Jesus could have chosen to exit, to flee, but he chose to "fight," to have a voice when it was very dangerous to do so.

Lowenstein ends his article with a challenge, "So perhaps it is time for some balance, for social structures that listen better and slow the impulse to quit...we should give voice--lest it atrophy--a chance." Churches can learn a lot from Lowenstein and Hirschman. How are we, church, working to listen better and slow our people's--and our own--impulse to take the easy way out? As Christians in the Methodist denomination, we inherit many examples of people who refused to take the easy way out, refused to exit, refused to be silent. We have the opportunity to join our voice to those who have come before whose voices changed the world. So, before you give up on the church, have you tried using your voice to activate much-needed changes? To remain silent is a type of exit. Silence means you may be physically present, but you are mentally, emotionally and spiritually checked-out. Exit, flight, avoidance, silence is easy, is safe, is comfortable. But such a life does nothing for the present state of church and world. Don't waste the voice God has given you; our world--our church--needs people who aren't afraid to risk speaking up.

Lessons From My Dog

Life lessons from an unlikely teacher, my dog, Zip.

I learn a lot from my dog. That may sound ridiculous to non-dog lovers. Dogs and other animals may seem like unlikely teachers; we're the "masters" after all, right? But seriously animals can teach us a lot about life if we take the time to observe them closely. For example, yesterday I preached on Ruth 1:15-22 about Ruth's devotion to Naomi--and thus illustrating God's devotion to us in hopeless times. As I was writing my sermon at 4:30am on Saturday morning (yes, cutting it close to the ever nearing Sunday morning deadline!), Zip, my beloved JRT-chiuaua mix, sat curled in my lap. Every time I took an extended pause or sighed a frustrated prayer for inspiration, she would look up at me with eyes that said, "You can do it!" I had been sick with a stomach bug all week, so I think she intuitively knew I needed some extra love, encouragement and support. She never left my lap until I was finished. There was a night also this week I just slept in the bathroom, and Zip never wandered from my side, choosing to sleep curled up next to me on the hard bathroom floor instead of our comfy bed. There is a reason dogs are called a human's best friend. Loyalty. Devotion. Faithfulness. Companionship. All things the story of Ruth taught us this past Sunday.

My faithful companion; always by my side.

Zip's life and behavior have illumined other biblical lessons for me. For example, when we were reading the story of the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11, I thought about how Zip gets on the tallest piece of furniture she can, so she can be taller than me and Hiram, illustrating her desire to be greater than her masters just like the people building the Tower of Babel. Our dog trainer tells us that we're to make her get down when she tries to assert her dominance in such a way. God had to do the same thing with those humans trying to be greater than their Creator. Or Zip embodies all too well the cycle of obedience and disobedience of God's people wandering in the wilderness. Zip is trainable, but she is stubborn and has a mind of her own; she wants to do things her way. Sound familiar? Slowly she is learning that obedience and discipline--rules--are actually for her own good. Or, it is not in Zip's nature to willingly share; whether toys, bones, bed space or mommy time, Zip is quite selfish and likes to hoard everything for herself. Though she is relatively silent, you can see her say with her eyes and a snarl, "Mine, Mine, Mine!!" Hmmmm...sound familiar again? Zip's nature doesn't sound too far from our own human nature, does it? She is a mix of good and bad, making good decisions, but also making some bad ones. Sometimes--more often than not--teaching me what not to do as much as what to do! I guess we humans, despite our higher cognitive abilities, are really just animals. My dad told me that once when he was giving me the birds and the bees talk. I thought he was ridiculous (not to mention slightly awkward), but having been a dog owner for 3 years now, perhaps dad was right; at the end of the day we are part of the animal kingdom!

Zip is named for Zipporah, Moses wife.
I guess I shouldn't be surprised that she
is full of biblical lessons for me!

These are the kinds of things I think about on long runs when I'm out on the roads in the wee hours of the morning all by myself. I was thinking about this as I returned from my run this morning to find Zip in the only piece of sunshine in our backyard. She often does this--seeks out the one sunny spot in our oak-tree shaded backyard. Another life lesson brought to me by Zip. Often we feel darkness around us--hard times, valleys, pain, suffering, struggles--and we do nothing to move to find that one spot in our life where light is shining in. There's always light shining somewhere; Zip always finds sunshine even if it is off her beaten path. Instead of seeking out sunshine, many times, we wallow in the shade, shivering and shaking in our own misery. We feel stuck in under a rain cloud much like Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh who lives under a perpetual grey cloud. Such a spot can make us blind to the sunny spots in life. We convince ourselves that light cannot break into our darkness. But didn't Jesus tell us that the darkness of this world has been overcome with the Light? Like Zip--in such a simple and intuitive decision--we must see where Light is breaking into the darkness of our life and world, and sometimes that means we must move to that light, not waiting for the sunny spots to come our way by-chance.

My mom used to say to me when I woke up in a bad mood, or came home from school in a bad mood that I can choose not to be in a bad mood; I can choose how to respond to present circumstances. This advice used to annoy me, and only make me hold on to my bad mood longer. But my mom was right--so many of the lessons she taught me as a child have panned out to be true and valuable, and I am thankful, now that I am an adult, for her pearls of wisdom. My mom's advice and Zip's chase for the sunniest spots in our yard teach us the same lesson: we do get to choose how we respond to "dark" days--whatever that may look like for you. God does not want us to be miserable. But we live in a broken world where broken people do broken things, so there will be those down days, or weeks or months, but we must remember that "the Light shines into darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it." Our God is Emmanuel, God with us--yes, with us even in the middle of all the brokenness of our world and our lives. There's always light shining somewhere; sometimes you have to just seek it out.