Leading For Good, For All

Your influence is your leadership.

For a community and organization to forsee and flourish, people must use their influence for the common good or what our founders referred to as the Commonwealth.

That means character and integrity must be evidenced every day, along with accountability and friendship, since no one can be successful alone.

There must be a spiritual center to the common good- we are not just thoughts and actions, we need a power greater than ourselves to guide, convict, and compel us to do what is good, true, beautiful and just for all.

The following Psalm was part of the Scripture for the lectionary reading this morning:

“But they flattered the LORD with their mouths;
they lied to him with their tongues.
Their heart was not steadfast towards him;
they were not true to his covenant.
Yet God, being compassionate,
forgave their iniquity,
and did not destroy them;
often he restrained his anger,
and did not stir up all his wrath.
He remembered that they were but flesh,
a wind that passes and does not come again.”
[Psalm 78.36-39, NRSV]

Psalm 78 is a poetic summary of the turbulent relationship between God and the leaders of Israel. It highlights God’s faithfulness to them and their inconsistent loyalty. It’s a vulnerable song, laying open the reality of being God’s people.

God has to put up with leaders who don’t trust him, who profoundly wrong one another, and bring shame on his name – and yet God has bound himself to his people and must find ways to care for and correct them, to reprimand and transform them.

People follow leaders. God works through leaders.  I look up to leaders who help me look up to God. It’s so painful when the leaders I looked up to who helped me look up to God were also at the same time looking down on other people and taking advantage of them in despicable ways.

The psalm puts in perspective the stories that continue to emerge of abuse by Christian leaders towards women, children, other men, the church, and the world.

While this news is “old news” in that abuse and sin has always been part of humanity, America and the Christian religion, it also highlights the need for “good news” – the leadership of Christ Jesus the Lord.

Through his example and Spirit, Christ convicts a society and people of sin, humbles us to repentance and fosters transformation towards loving kindness in all things.

It’s disillusioning to hear of Christian leaders who hurt those they serve.

Especially when it is influential American Evangelical Church pastors. It’s not just “those Christians” who do terrible things, it’s now my tribe, my role models, the pastor that deeply shaped how I think about and do ministry with the church.

This renews my resolve to treat everyone with dignity, to not abuse anyone, and faithfully follow the Lord. But it also makes me question myself and to be brutally honest about “but for the grace of God, it could have been me.”

Like the psalmist recalls, it is easy to flatter God and others while ruminating and planning dark things. No one is righteous, everyone has sinned, which is why lament and repentance are essential to the Christian community.

We lie to God and ourselves when we insist on how good we are while glossing over what is wrong with our culture, our thoughts, and actions. Sometimes it takes death and brokenness to open our eyes to the sins we’ve committed and been blind to. 

It’s not just a matter of will-power to resist the temptation to lust, greed, gluttony, pride, and envy. It’s not just a mind and body struggle, but also a spiritual struggle with power.

The more influence one accumulates, the more checks and balances, the more accountability and friendship is needed to support spiritual practices so that you and those you influence become more humble and kind, wise and just in your dealings with everyone.

Staying attuned to the presence of Christ in all places and times is central to it. The sacrificial, generous, wise, courageous, patient and compassionate leadership of Jesus can be real within us, and through us.

Lead for good, for all.

 

 

 

 

 

 

You Are What You Remember

Memories make us who we are.

The memories you hold on to, record, photograph, retell, shape who you become.

We know that humans equate perception to reality. We participate in reality based on what we choose to remember. These chosen memories shape how we perceive ourselves, our family, our marriage, our children, friends, work, church, neighborhood, our county, etc.

For some of us, we have a disposition to only remember the sunny stuff, that which makes us smile, look good, and be happy. Others of us tend to remember what went wrong, what we regret, and how life has not gone how we wanted it.

Remembering is also a central part of the Christian scriptures. 

The Eucharist, or what Christians also call Communion and the Lord’s Supper is given to us by Christ Jesus as a way to remember him, the gospel, and his call on our life to follow him. We read Scripture to remember God. It’s how we become Christians, “remembering” the stories that came before us to make it possible now to have a life in communion with Christ.

The New Testament Gospels and Epistles are shaped by memories, written by Christians to remember the life, ministry, crucifixion, resurrection and ascension of the Lord Jesus and the acts of the apostles across the Middle East, Europe, Asia, and Africa.

In the Gospel according to the apostle Matthew, he includes some of the story of Judas betraying Jesus at the Passover Meal. The story of betrayal is fascinating and heart-breaking, and by remembering it, we learn more about the depths of Jesus faithfulness to his disciples and his forgiveness of our sins.

St. Paul writes to Christians in Rome, a collection of believers made up of Jewish merchants and synagogue attenders, Greek and Roman citizens, and those from many different tribes and socio-economic classes – soldiers, slaves, barbarians, the poor and crippled, reminding them: “Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.”

What do the Christians in Rome choose to remember about the poor among them? That they are children of God or lazy? What do they decide to recall about strangers? That they are to be feared or to be given hospitality? What do they recollect about their enemies? That they are to be punished or to be blessed?

Our memories of Jesus will shape what we bring to mind about the poor, strangers, and enemies.

Memories aren’t passive though, they don’t just randomly come to surface, and you are not beholden to what you “happen” to remember. You can do memory work, and you can choose what to emphasize when you remember an event.

There are no “neutral” or “natural” rememberings – all memories are biased, edited, and distorted in some way.

That’s why remembering in community can be so powerful, retelling shared memories helps you remember elements you had forgotten, misunderstood, or edited in such a way that they are now wiser and encouraged because of what others remembered alongside you.

This is central to the Christian practice of Communion, and why it is central to our worship gatherings in church. 

You are what you remember. The YMCA. Church. Home. Neighborhoods. Nations.

You get to choose alot of what you remember.

Becoming grateful for what you remember – in an honest, courageous, humble way – helps you accept yourself and what has happened in your life.

This is important to confessing and repenting, to making amends, and helping heal who you’ve wronged and what’s been broken.

We don’t have to like the pain and suffering that we remember.

But if want it to become a part of our Christian story such that it fuels courage, resiliency, and loving-kindness, then we need to learn to accept what we remember with gratitude and submit it to the Lord (like Matthew and Paul in the New Testament).

The stories you remember and choose to tell around the table, at work, on long car rides, relaxing on vacation, during family celebrations powerfully shape who you are, and obviously how people see and understand you.

We are what we remember. 

Remember faithfulness. 

 

 

Young and For All

The Y inspires me by their never-ending quest to be “for all.” They are always looking around the community to see who we are not for yet, and then working with them to see how we can be for them.

In June of 1844 George Williams and 11 of his British Christian friends prayerfully launched the Young Men’s Christian Association. It was a sincere and inspired attempt to be for all the young men they could see coming from the rural regions of England seeking work in urban London.

Young men were being exploited in the factories, Christians were divided by politics, income, and dogma, and the class system of Britain sought to keep people in their place.

From the beginning, the YMCA successfully brought together many different kinds of Christians together from different classes, sects, backgrounds, languages, politics, and countries.

The Y cultivated new opportunities for the poor and marginalized but also leveraged the power and privilege of the wealthy to sustain flourishing for all.

Central to this was the idealism of youth – George and his friends were in their early 20’s when they started the YMCA. Also central was their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

The YMCA continues to be at its best when it draws on our faith as well as the energy and idealism of the youth in our association who live out our mission of being “for all.”

The Bible has these encouraging words to say to us about the joy of youth:

Young men, it’s wonderful to be young! Enjoy every minute of it. Young women, do everything you want to do; take it all in.

But remember that you must give an account to God for everything you do. So refuse to worry, and keep your body healthy.

But remember that youth, with a whole life before you, is meaningless. Don’t let the excitement of youth cause you to forget your Creator. [Ecclesiastes 11.9-12.1/NLT]

Christians young and old in the YMCA must continue to draw on the Bible as our guide and inspiration for how to live. But we must be careful that our use of Scripture doesn’t become a grasp for security that impoverishes our neighbors, demeans women and children, or shackles our youth.

We perpetuate injustices amongst us when forget that we have a common bond, when we forget that we are all made in the image of our Creator.

Our amnesia can fuel the meaninglessness of poverty and wealth, driving us to worry about a security that enslaves our spirit, mind and body.

The YMCA can subvert our nation’s addiction to violence and slavery when we empower the youth amongst us to celebrate life, to remember our Creator, and use their energies for a more just society where there is flourishing for all.

Being for all requires us to learn to love our neighbor. This is at the heart of the Christian gospel, it’s what we were created to be, it’s what inspires a meaningful life for young and old.