Grits

Please read Matthew 14:22-33, Gospel for the 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time, August 9, 2020.

When he stepped out of the boat during a storm and walked on water, all the while keeping his eyes on Jesus, Peter demonstrated what leadership in the Church—and perhaps leadership in general—should look like. He acted with vision and audacious faith, trusting in Christ alone to keep him afloat on a turbulent sea. Indeed, not just pastors, elders, and deacons should look to Peter for inspiration and example, but every believer should act as he did when the storms of life threaten, and we are in danger of drowning. As the classic, beloved hymn says: “Turn your eyes upon Jesus; look full in his wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace.”

It’s a familiar Christian trope, and one I bought into for many, many years. But then an Episcopal priest friend reminded me: Jesus doesn’t commend Peter.

Yes, our Lord bids the disciple come to him on the waves. And he rescues him when he begins to sink. But remember why Peter wanted to get out of the boat to start with. Despite our Lord’s assurance that the disciples were really seeing him and not an astral projection or some other apparition, a phantasm, Peter didn’t buy it. He refused to believe what he was seeing was really Jesus walking on water.

I’m not saying Peter isn’t an example of faith. He is, and Matthew means him to be so. The apostle went against all his natural instincts and his experience as a fisherman and sailor when he stepped out of the boat in the middle of a storm without any means of flotation. He believed that if Jesus called him to come, then that same Jesus would sustain him no matter what.

So it’s true that God invites us sometimes to get out of our comfort zones and act in a way that to others may seem even a little crazy. We step out into the waves without a life preserver and change careers because the current one is not fulfilling. We undertake some project that looks impossible, and we have no idea where the resources will come from. We attempt to do something we never imagined doing. We make a commitment, while our friends and family think we should simply be committed. All because we believe this is what God wants us to do. With such assurance, we climb over the gunwale and put our feet on the fluid surface of the future, not knowing whether we will sink or saunter.

But Peter’s call and experience are extraordinary, not the everyday model of faithful living. We wish it were otherwise, don’t we? I suspect we’re envious of and thrilled and inspired by Peter’s gutsy take-charge attitude, his readiness for adventure, and his focused devotion. And this little vignette tracks well with the I-come-to-the-garden-alone, victory-in-Jesus, hyper-individualistic spirituality that has dominated American Christianity for quite a while now. We like to think we’re saved by ourselves, for ourselves, and it’s just Jesus and us on a happy journey to heaven, rescued from the cares of the world now and from Hell later as we stare lovingly into his eyes.

No, Jesus wasn’t going to let Peter drown, but when the apostle was plucked from the waves, he got a talking to, what we now call a “come to Jesus talk.” “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” The Greek is singular, addressed to him personally, not as leader of the disciples. In other words, why did you get out of the boat in the first place? Why did you create this situation? Why did you leave the others to struggle and worry while you went adventuring? Eugene Boring, a wonderful commentator, observes that while Peter uses the right title for Jesus and displays great personal faith, “he leaves the boat and the community.” He shouldn’t have left his companions to struggle while he went off to seek proof of the presence of Christ (Interpretation, Vol. XIII: 328). And even his faith is portrayed as vacillating, going back and forth between options. Matthew uses a rare Greek word for “doubt” that tells us Peter isn’t skeptical, but indecisive and unsure.

So it’s not Peter who’s an example of everyday faith, but the disciples who stayed in the boat. They are all afraid, but they find comfort and courage in the word of Jesus. They attend to their hard task of keeping the boat afloat, knowing that their Lord is near even when their craft, which is an image for the suffering church, is being “tortured” by the waves, as the literal Greek has it.

No doubt both Church and society need bold leaders who take risks and get out of the boat. But mainly our Lord works through faithful people who keep on rowing and bailing and conquering their fear to do what needs to be done. He values those who take him at his word and know that he is indeed here and coming. It’s not those kinds of people he chides for little faith and for their doubt, but the ones like Peter who insist on following him all by themselves, going it alone on their own private pilgrimages, leaving others behind. The lone apostle may be the kind of brash, take-charge, Wild West hero we’ve gotten used to from movies and crave in our culture, but he’s not the ancient, classic sort. Those kinds of men and women, as Fr. Richard Rohr has noted, instead “go the distance,” whatever that takes, and serve the common good, not just their own curiosity or need for assurance or recognition (Falling Upward: 20). They not only say “We’re all in this together,” as the common pandemic exhortation goes; they live it every day.

There’s an old story about a guy from the North who came to the South for a business meeting. This was back in the day before hotels offered free breakfasts, so he went to the local diner nearby. When his eggs, toast, and sausage came, there was a dollop of buttered white stuff on his plate as well. “What’s this?” he asked the server. “Grits,” she said. “What’s a grit?” said the man. “Honey,” the waitress replied, “grits don’t come by themselves.”

The Church is a pot of grits. We don’t come to Jesus, to faith, to the Lord’s Table, to our times of crisis or of death by ourselves. We belong in community; we serve in community; we are shaped by community; we are saved in and for community. And we are as diverse and adaptable in our life together as grits, which can be stone ground or creamy, garlic or cheese or buttered, served in a cake with shrimp Low Country-style or with ham and red-eye gravy like on my grandma’s table back in the day. Thanks be to God, we aren’t all the same, but to return to the metaphor of the text, we all pull on the oars in the boat together; we are all buffeted by the torturous waves; we all need Jesus to be with us. Again with Eugene Boring: “Faith is not being able to walk on water—only God can do that—but daring to believe, in the face of all the evidence, that God is with us in the boat, made real in the community of faith as it makes its way through the storm, battered by the waves” (op. cit. 330).

Sometimes a situation calls for people to step out as Peter did, and take risks that inspire the imagination and embolden hearts. But mostly we need folks who stay in the boat, work faithfully whatever the circumstances, and trust that Jesus is truly with them. They’re the real heroes.

 

Real Leadership

Raymond Burse, interim president of Kentucky State University, has given up more than $90,000 of his salary so university workers earning minimum wage could have their earnings increased to $10.25 an hour from the current $7.25.

Burse, a former president of the university, retired from an executive position with GE with good benefits and says he doesn’t need to work. His voluntary salary reduction is a way to recognize the needs and importance of those who are on the lower end of the pay scale, but, as he says, “do the hard work and heavy lifting.” “I did this for the people,” he explained. He still will make almost $260,000 for his twelve months as interim (note 1).

Burse has set a wonderful example of real leadership that every high-paid executive (is there any other kind?) could and should follow. What if the “Christian” CEOs of a well-known big box store and a certain craft chain that has been in the news would take similar steps to ensure that their employees make a wage that would lift them out of poverty, so the cashiers and stockroom workers wouldn’t have to rely on food stamps for groceries and could afford basic health care? Suppose football coaches, paid obscene salaries and benefits by universities, didn’t live in million-dollar homes, but insisted on lower pay that would go to fund the custodians’ and groundskeepers’ and cafeteria workers’ wages? Or maybe the “rock-star” preachers on TV could donate the royalties of their books and videos to Habitat for Humanity or their local food pantries.

Pope Francis recently said that “Jesus teaches us to put the needs of the poor above our own. Our needs, even if legitimate, will never be so urgent as those of the poor, who lack the necessities of life.” He has set an example by driving a Ford instead of some luxury car and living in the Vatican guesthouse instead of the Palace (note 2). Of course, his opinions and lifestyle have not endeared him to some “Christians” in our Congress. Too “liberal.”

If two men, one in a secular university, the other the world leader of a church, can live so, why can’t others with wealth and power? Why can’t some do with a (relatively) little less so others may simply have enough? Those who keep amassing more and more while other suffer want may not answer me or you, but they will have to answer to Jesus.

Note 1: http://www.kentucky.com/2014/08/01/3361549/ksu-presidents-gives-up-90000.html

Note 2: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/06/pope-francis-poor_n_5654732.html

 

Where Were You?

Billy Crystal: “Of course, when I asked her where she was when Kennedy was shot, she said ‘Ted Kennedy was shot?!’”

Bruno Kirby: “No! No!”—dialogue from When Harry Met Sally

Where were you when Kennedy was shot? It’s a question that defines and is shared by a generation. My generation, the Boomers.

My answer to the query is that I had just turned 12 and was sitting in a seventh-grade classroom when the news broadcast was piped in over the speaker above the blackboard. I remember very little else—not my reaction or that of my classmates or that of my parents (who were no fans of Kennedy) when I got home that afternoon.

It would be years later, at my high school graduation, before I thought much again about John Kennedy. Because the valedictorian didn’t like to speak in public, I, as salutatorian (by a fraction of a grade point) was tapped to give the speech instead. My first, hastily written and lazy draft wasn’t approved by the Powers That Be, so I had to get to work on a real talk. When I went to the library and started looking for resources and direction, Kennedy provided the inspiration.

Here is what I said:

‘WHEN AT SOME FUTURE DATE THE HIGH COURT OF HISTORY SITS IN JUDGMENT ON EACH OF US… OUR SUCCESS OR FAILURE… WILL BE MEASURED BY THE ANSWERS TO FOUR QUESTIONS: WERE WE TRULY MEN CF COURAGE… WERE WE
TRULY MEN OF JUDGMENT… WERE WE TRULY MEN OF INTEGRITY… WERE WE TRULY MEN OF DEDICATION?’ THUS SPOKE THE LATE PRESIDENT KENNEDY BEFORE THE MASSACHUSETTS LEGISLATURE IN 1961. HIS WORDS ARE TO BE
HEEDED BY US TODAY AS WE SEEK THE TRUE MEANING OF COMMITMENT.

What if the values Kennedy recommended, and I found inspiring in 1970, were embraced by all of us, especially public leaders, in 2o13?

© 2013 Tom Cheatham. All rights reserved.

 

Everything I Need to Know about Leadership I Learned from Watching “Dog Whisperer”

Susan and I have gotten hooked on watching “Dog Whisperer” with Cesar Millan on the National Geographic channel. If you’re not familiar with the show, Cesar goes into homes with, we think, troubled dogs. But it usually ends up that the owners are the ones who need help, especially with how to be leaders.

So it occurred to me that, even though Cesar teaches about leading dogs, his lessons are useful in the worlds of business and church. Here is what I have gleaned from just the few episodes I’ve watched so far:

1. Look first to yourself. The only thing we can really change in a system is our reaction to stimuli. How do you or I contribute to the “presenting problem,” as they say? How is our energy, our approach, our attempt to attend to our needs/agendas negatively influencing outcomes?

2. Be calm and assertive. In family systems theory, this way of acting is known as maintaining a “non-anxious presence,” though these days theorists speak of the “less-anxious presence,” realizing that no one is totally free of anxiety. When everyone else is falling apart in a crisis, the leader of this sort sees and thinks clearly. In Cesar’s terms, he or she gives off a “positive energy.” Dogs, intuitive as they are (and also with their sensitive noses) can tell if their owners are on edge, and they exploit that. Some folks are intuitive as well and will also exploit the leader’s lack of confidence. So be calm and at least act like you know what you’re doing!

3. Respect the needs of those you lead. Cesar reminds the owners that dogs need to be dogs. They aren’t people (especially not babies/children) no matter how much we may try to make them such. In the same way, those we seek to lead have particular needs that they are trying to have met, from the most basic ones of food and shelter to respect, intimacy, and accomplishment. How does our leadership create conditions and support to enable those in our charge to prosper and succeed?

4. Teach what you learn. Cesar’s whole approach is teaching dog owners the techniques they need to lead their dogs. He even sat down with a group of little kids the other night and taught them how to handle a rambunctious standard poodle. When we know helpful approaches and techniques, we ought to share them as well, with all sorts of constituencies. Indeed, Jesus commands us to teach everything he has commanded us. Our job as leaders, in the church at least, is not to do everything ourselves, but to make disciples, who make disciples, and on and on.

Thanks, Cesar!

© 2010 Tom Cheatham

 

Alternate Tunings

O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand (Isaiah 64:8).

I’ve been an amateur guitarist for about 40 years now. I started playing at sixteen, primarily learning by teaching myself from books. Over the years, I’ve discovered a great many fascinating things about the guitar that I had no inkling of when I started out.

One of those discoveries has come only in this decade. It’s the concept of alternate tunings. In an earlier blog, entitled “DADGAD” (October 9, 2008), I talked about the lesson changing and playing one of my guitars in that tuning taught me. In this post, I want to share a couple more insights I gained while talking with some folks about leadership at a conference last month.

In our small group, we were discussing various ways of leading, specifically making changes in our approaches as necessary for a situation. I said that reminded me of the capability of a guitar to be tuned different ways depending on the preference of the musician and the piece being played. Standard tuning (EADGBE, low to high) is fine for strumming chords or leading singing. DADGAD is great for “fingerstyle” as played, for example, by Pierre Bensusan. “Drop D,” in which the lowest string is tuned down from E to D is useful in rock, while open tunings (like tuning the guitar to play an E or G chord on open strings) are great for slide and blues.

All that on the same instrument. Of course, a standard guitar can’t produce the resonant tones of a bass or the mellow sounds of a baritone (tuned a fifth lower than standard). But it’s still incredibly versatile.

My point here is that all of us have our standard tuning, as it were. That’s our typical way of responding to a situation, the default setting that we go back to in a crisis. Anyone who has ever taken the Myers-Briggs Type Inventory has discovered his or her standard approach to the world around. Sometimes our normal way is helpful and appropriate. We are served well in our work by being a “commander,” for example. Or our family has appreciated our intuitive grasp of others’ feelings and needs.

At other times, though, we will need to adapt, to tune ourselves (or allow ourselves to be tuned) differently, if only for a time. The introvert has to draw on his or her opposite pole, the extrovert, in order to relate well to someone else, even though the effort is emotionally, even physically, draining. The commander will need to discover how to collaborate when part of a team, contributing ideas, but not pronouncing final judgment on them.

The good news is that we can in fact adapt. We each have it within ourselves to change a little bit (“drop D”), moderately (“DADGAD”) or even a great deal (open tunings). The key factor is what we most care about. Do we value above all our comfort with what’s familiar, whether our usual approach works or not? Or do we care most about effectively carrying out God’s call to us, even when it’s clear we must adapt by, say, giving up control or deciding to listen seriously to someone else’s viewpoint?

The Chief Musician wants to play beautiful music through us. And he will if we are simply open to his creativity in our lives.

© 2009 Tom Cheatham