AGAINST THE FLOW
FBC, February 7, 2010
Readings: Isaiah 6:1-13
Selection from The Teaching Tales of Milton Erickson
“The holy seed is its stump”: last Sunday this church had its annual meeting, as it has done countless Januarys before. The congregation did not have a lovely picture of the previous year to contemplate, as committee reports described reduced activities, membership and attendance figures reported declines, and the budget for 2010 predicted a deficit greater than any year in recent memory, perhaps ever. There were high points, to be sure, but the overall pattern was discouraging. The potential for conflict percolated through the meeting at some points, not surprising in the face of grim statistics. Yet energy was high as a flurry of creative proposals were offered for increased building use, fundraising possibilities, a willingness to sacrifice, possible changes in our decision-making processes, beginning work on a church covenant with our consultants that will draw us into deeper and healthier relationship with one another. We should have been wringing our hands, bemoaning our fate, blaming one another and the world in general, for some might have regarded that meeting and the information being presented as sure evidence of a church standing at death’s door. So why the energized mood? What justifies anything other than despair over the present state of our church?
“The holy seed is its stump”: most Protestant churches have engaged in the same exercise as we did at some time in the months of January or early February, holding annual meetings to approve new officers and adopt a budget. And countless such churches confronted the same harsh realities as we did last Sunday, reports of declined activity, shrinking membership, increased costs and deficit budgets—all trends with no end in sight. This national phenomenon among Protestant churches is known, in churchspeak, as “mainline decline.” It describes a trend that has been going on for almost decades now, a trend that has accelerated particularly in the last few years and even more so in this time of general economic hardship. We have lots of company to share our church woes. Whether that is a good thing, since it means we here at FBC have not done something wrong to bring this on ourselves, or whether that is a bad thing because it means it will not be possible to assign blame to any single pastor or decision or committee or community and so leaves us without a clear solution, depends on your particular perspective. What it does mean is that the church as we have traditionally known it is indeed disappearing, will likely continue disappearing no matter what we try to do to stop it, and what comes next in terms of church experience is anyone’s guess.
“The holy seed is its stump”: today’s reading from the book of Isaiah includes the famous story of Isaiah’s experience of being called to prophethood, and the less famous account of the difficult message he is given to preach. We are more likely to know Isaiah for the beautiful passages that show up in Handel’s Messiah, for the lovely promises of healing and peace, of lions lying down with lambs and swords being beaten into plowshares, that fill this particular Biblical book. Yet at this point, as a newly commissioned prophet for the Lord, Isaiah (probably expecting those lovely words to be put in his mouth right away so he could quickly gain the approval and affection of his listeners), was charged instead with a relentlessly negative message of resistance and absolute decline. Like congressional Republicans who are always ready to vote against Democratic proposals, always ready to denounce but seldom offer a compelling alternative, Isaiah was to preach “no,” “not you,” “not now,” “not this,” “not there,” not sweetening his prophecies with any images of better days to come. The message Isaiah is given is completely inexplicable, as he is commissioned to preach in such a way as to guarantee failure, sort of like asking a teacher to teach so that children can never learn, or road construction crews to construct roads that will be sure to cause accidents, or doctors to treat patients with methods that worsen illness, not heal it, or like encouraging preachers of declining churches to preach in favor of further decline, of lowered pledging, telling members to stay home on Sundays because nothing that matters will ever happen in the worship service.
But those of us who serve mainline churches know that if we want to keep our jobs, we had better not follow Isaiah’s charge, had better come up with some optimistic words and soon. So how do we find hope in the relentlessly depressing trends we see?
Therapists of all kinds will sometimes remark upon the amazing lengths people go to in order to resist something that would be in their best interest, to avoid feeling better or being more successful in their lives. Humans seem to be wired in such a way that it is built into us to push back at anything which might help us, ease our pain, clarify our confusion, set us on a happier and more fulfilling path. We are creatures of considerable resistance, not readily accepting of improvement, often far more committed to our bad habits than to getting better. Perhaps there was a time in our evolution that this resistance to what helps us served a meaningful purpose, but it is difficult to imagine what that might be. Instead, you recommend a change to me that could improve my life, and I am likely to respond with sixteen different reasons about why that change is impossible, misguided, likely to produce the wrong result, wrong for me at this time, not backed with adequate scientific proof, against my value system, against my religion, just downright unappealing.
Faced with such formidable resistance, some therapists have come up with wonderfully creative strategies for getting around the resistance and opening up the possibilities for change in a client’s life. One such strategy, illustrated in the reading from Milton Erickson’s work, involves what is known as prescribing the symptom. In this instance, a therapist, rather than encouraging a client to try something new or to change, instead urges not trying anything new, not making any changes, but instead advises intensifying the symptom. For example, if I go to a therapist seeking help to quit smoking or lose weight, using this strategy the therapist might recommend that I increase my food consumption or smoke even more cigarettes than I do currently. The thinking behind this strategy is that the client will either resist by making the desired change, or, after a time of indulging a symptom even more, grow so sick of it that s/he will do anything asked in order to end the distress.
This therapeutic strategy is not new, for it has long been in evidence in the teaching style of some spiritual leaders, and even shows up from time to time in Biblical passages, with the parables of Jesus being perhaps the most noteworthy instance. And I believe something like this strategy is at work in the message Isaiah is given to proclaim. Rather than urging his listeners to take heed and change their ways, Isaiah is told to in effect prescribe the symptom, encourage continued faithlessness: “Go and say to this people: ‘Keep listening, but do not comprehend; keep looking, but do not understand.’ Make the mind of this people dull, and stop their ears, and shut their eyes, so that they may not look with their eyes, and listen with their ears, and comprehend with their minds, and turn and be healed” (Isaiah 6:9-10). Isaiah is not to save anyone; he is instead to preach in such a way that everyone is lost and the land is destroyed. For only by defying expectations and preaching faithlessness does Isaiah stand a chance of saving anybody, so deep is the resistance of the people to change, so cynical have they become in their ability to imagine a life of justice and meaning. The strategy is a risky one. Yet Isaiah is promised that at the very end, at the last possible minute, the necessary change will come, that new life will ultimately appear, for “the holy seed is its stump.” Anything less than such an extreme strategy is likely not to work, to end up with only the stump, nothing more.
Some church experts, in surveying the mainline decline, have pronounced it to be a positive development—painful, yes, but positive. For Christianity first developed as a spiritual path that was outside the tradition, a marginal movement that tended to attract people who were marginalized themselves. The teachings that Christianity offers are certainly not ideas that should appeal to most people: who wants to love enemies, to sell possessions and give all the money to the poor, to live without thought for tomorrow, to see in sacrifice and suffering signs of God’s love? None of this is a message that will be embraced by more than a few, and it is deliberately shaped so that it resonates more with folks on the outside than with folks on the inside, with those who have little or no power or influence rather than the movers and shakers in the community. Following this argument, Christianity took a seriously wrong turn when it became mainstream, the most acceptable choice in the spiritual marketplace. The radical teachings were massaged into more polite forms, the demands for commitment and sacrifice were lessened, the messages were shaped in accordance with whatever the latest opinion polls showed people wanting to hear, and after a time Christian churches grew fat and lazy and lost their edge. All strategies designed to appeal to ever greater numbers of followers, strategies that worked for a long time, worked quite well—until, as inevitably happens when consumer choice drives decisions, people noticed that churches looked no different than any other social institution, had nothing special to offer that could not be found elsewhere, and more cheaply and conveniently, and began leaving churches in droves. Mainline decline is the direct result of trying to fit in and please everybody. The Christian path was never intended to be popular, and once it became popular it lost all claim to any unique insights.
“The holy seed is its stump”: so perhaps there is cause for hope as we confront the grim statistics that give us a relentless portrait of decline, loss, and more decline. We are no longer mainstream, cannot by any stretch of the imagination see ourselves as the most popular and powerful game in town—and that is a wonderful development. A church in decline is a church that is returning to the outsider status first held by the earliest Christians, a position that perhaps we should never have left. Outside the mainstream, our preaching about loving enemies and giving up possessions and practicing peace will once more have a power that comes from lived experience. On the margins, we will be able to make real connection, offer real hope, to those who have been consigned to the margins because they did not fit social expectations.
Having said this, however, I do not mean to suggest that we can simply sit back and enjoy our ride down, watch our resources and members disappear and do nothing. Decline may be a necessary corrective, but it need not result in death. Rather, I believe our decline will enable us to get back in touch with the work we have always done best, as a church that has not been afraid to be on the outside and to stand with those whose lives have been spent on the margins. In this stump to which we have been reduced, we will find a holy seed that needs all the care and attention we can provide. If we can give it that care, the holy seed that is right here among us, right now, even in this time of loss and struggle, that holy seed will, with our care, grow into a gracious and beautiful tree once more, with spreading branches that provide shelter for many, with a strong trunk that supports us when we cannot support ourselves, with roots that go deep into the mystery of God’s love and grace. May we be faithful and committed tenders of this holy seed.
