Focus on the Good Stuff

DATE: November 24, 2013
SCRIPTURE:
Deuteronomy 26:1-11; Philippians 4:1-9
©Rev. Alison J. Buttrick Patton

It was 1995. I was sitting in a cramped office at HART — Hartford Area Rallies Together, a community organization based out of a storefront on Park Street, in the Frog Hollow section of Hartford. HART organizes residents around local problems like crime and gun violence. They hold public forums where they confront elected officials and call on them to support policy changes designed to address urban ills. I worked with the residents of an affordable housing complex just down the street, and I appreciated HART’s work in our midst. But I’d been doing some reading about community organizing, and I’d come across a different strategy for revitalizing neighborhoods. “It’s called asset-mapping.” I explained. “You count up and map out all the gifts, skills and resources you can find in a neighborhood…” The organizer sitting across the desk eyed me skeptically over his coffee cup. “You mean, instead of saying to folks, ‘Get angry,’ you say, ‘Get happy?’”

No. Well, yes. And no. His dismissiveness embarrassed and disappointed me. It’s true, I was the newcomer. Not really street-tested. I hadn’t made this stuff up. I got it from John McKnight and John Kretzmann, researchers and community activists in Chicago. Their approach made sense to me then and it has stuck with me every since. See, we are used to defining neighborhoods, especially neighborhoods that struggle with poverty, in terms of their deficits, what’s wrong with them. To get grants, non-profits have to paint the worst picture possible: We have this many street-corner drug deals; this many abandoned buildings; this many kids sick or dying. Look how bad it is… Yes, Milwaukee’s got issues; sure, Indianapolis has problems, but we’ve got it worse. We deserve a cut of those (always limited) grant dollars.

McKnight and Kretzmann tried a different approach: What if we actually focused on the good stuff? Where good stuff may require a change in perspective, a looking at the same community from a whole different angle: So how many grandparents do we have? They are a source of wisdom; they know our community’s history. How many children? They are our energy and our inspiration. How about those abandoned lots? That’s land we can repurpose… Grow a vegetable garden. Start up a farmer’s market… How many walls? There’s a blank canvas for some fantastic community art project. One Chicago Westside neighborhood looked around and said: Look at all this trash – we can work with this! And they did. They gathered up the trash and built a recycling plant.¹ The money they made was reinvested in their community. Along the way, they re-wrote their community story and reclaimed their collective sense of worth.

“…if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about [take account] of these things.”

What McKnight and Kretzmann did for neighborhoods, Appreciative Inquiry is doing for organizations, including churches. Appreciative Inquiry points out that the questions we ask determine what we focus on.² If we ask, ‘What’s the problem?’ ‘What’s broken?’ ‘What’s NOT working?’ we spend all our energy focused on those deficits. If, instead, we ask, “What have we got that we value? What’s working? What’s alive here, and how can we get more of that…?” Well, those are energizing questions; they unleash creativity and free us to imagine future possibilities. It’s a shift we’ve been leaning into these last two years, since our church building was damaged by fire, the difference between asking, “What are we going to do without a building?” and “How can we be a Church Without Walls?”

My community organizer colleague scorned the idea of asset-mapping, maybe because it sounds a bit fluffy, right? Like covering up the problems with yellow smiley faces and bumper stickers that say “Don’t worry. Be happy!” Community organizers are often taught that the most effective motivators are anger, fear and worry. And these can be powerful forces. But worry can also paralyze us, fear puts us on the defensive, and anger tends to stir up more anger. So, far from being superficial, the way we approach change conveys something profound about who we are … shapes us, even. In the words of child psychologist Becky Bailey,

“What you focus on you get more of.” If you say to your child: “Stop fussing. Stop grabbing!” Chances are you’ll get more fussing and grabbing; and more frustration. But when you say, “I saw that, how you shared that toy with your brother. That was awesome!” When you say, “I love your hugs,” or “Holding the door while I carried in the groceries was a big help!” Well, you will likely get more hugs and more help. Turns out, that goes for us adults, too. Think about it: what motivates you more: getting scolded, or hearing words of encouragement… right? Appreciation is a powerful motivator.

We know this, intuitively, but still: that shift from focusing on the problems to focusing on the good stuff, it’s really hard, like rewiring our social circuitry. We are (in this culture) fixers and problem-solvers, trained to ferret out the weak spots in a system so we can improve it. And sometimes, truth be told, it’s not just the system, or the product, or the organization we want to fix, but each other…

Which is when we need to take out and re-read these lines from the letter that Paul wrote to the Philippians, a letter in which he reminds the community just what this whole enterprise is about. It’s a back to basics letter, a gentle, joyful reminder that the purpose of the church is to give thanks, to share what we have and spread the Good News of God’s love. That’s what we’re up to, he says. So focus on that!

This week marked the 50th anniversary of the death of C. S. Lewis, author of the Chronicles of Narnia and several books on Christianity. C.S. Lewis started out as an avowed atheist, but then he was, in his own words, ‘surprised by joy.’ “I had always wanted, above all things, not to be interfered with. I had wanted — mad wish — to call my soul my own. I had been far more anxious to avoid suffering than to achieve delight.”³ But achieve delight he did, despite himself, and he spent the rest of his days writing about faith for other Christians, with the clarity of a convert and the poetry of new love. Like Paul, C. S. Lewis called us back to basics: It’s about joy, he said: joy that comes of realizing that God loves us, and so we ought to love one another.⁴

I don’t know for sure, but I suspect that C. S. Lewis, who wrote children’s fantasies and counted epic fantasy writer J. R. R. Tolkien among his closest friends, might appreciate that the day he died, a science fiction phenomenon was born: So this week also marks the 50th anniversary of the launch of Dr. Who (one of my favorite, exuberant humanitarians!).

Stay with me, for a moment, especially if you are not a Dr. Who groupie, as I confess I am. Dr. Who is a space and time traveling alien with two hearts and floppy hair, a bow tie and a mischievous smile. He bounces around the cosmos saving planets. He has a particular affection for planet Earth and its inhabitants. That admiration is captured in a brief exchange he has with a human he’s just met. “Who are you?” he asks. “No one important,” comes the reply. “Really?? I’ve never met an unimportant human before!”

“I’ve never met an unimportant human…” And he means it. Because in his eyes, humans are all remarkable. Just as all the members of the Philippian church were remarkable in Paul’s eyes (and yes, yes I did just compare a modern day sci-fi hero to one of the founders of the Christian church.). “My brothers and sisters, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown…” Paul exudes a deep affection for this community, so that even the apparent disagreement between Euodia (a-O-dah) and Syntyche (SUN-tikee), elicits not so much a scolding as an appeal for unity, along with commentary on their faithfulness. Notice that he doesn’t take sides: “They both struggled with me,” he says. We are all on the same side here, all devoted to living out the gospel Good News. Focus on that, not on your differences… Focus on what God has done in your midst.” In other words: Focus on the good stuff.

Paul’s excitement is almost palpable: Just look at what is happening, what might yet happen. Give a shout! I’ll say it twice: rejoice! Worrying gets you nowhere. Neither will criticizing. Instead, “Give thanks, whatever happens…”. ⁵

“Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about [take account of] these things.”

What, then, is worthy of our praise, Saugatuck Church, on this Thanksgiving Sunday? I think about your comfort with the language of prayer, with the words and with the silence; your capacity to play – and to create together – poetry and drama and art. I think of the clear connections you make between faith and justice – and your expectation that we be a community of faith in action. I see tender wisdom born of love and loss; your care for each other; the probing questions you ask; how we talk about and live into covenant. I think about your respect for religious diversity and interfaith partnerships; I think of our open doors; your open hearts…

These are the things for which I give thanks, all things worthy of wonder and praise, signs for me that Christ is at hand… In my eyes, you are remarkable.

As for the questions, the ones that will shape our story, here are a few that Paul’s letter has stirred up in me: What is our purpose, and what do we need to fulfill it? What are our gifts and how can we work together to draw them out of each other? How can we be, not more perfect, but more faithful? Also, what makes us laugh? Where have WE been surprised by joy? And how can we make space for more of that? Where’s the Good News here, and how can we spread it?

That’s the good stuff, worthy of our focus, worthy of our praise. May we lean into that, the questions that will help us map out our course together. The rest is in God’s hands. Thanks be to God!

Scripture Texts

Deuteronomy 26:1-11

26When you have come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance to possess, and you possess it, and settle in it, 2you shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which you harvest from the land that the Lord your God is giving you, and you shall put it in a basket and go to the place that the Lord your God will choose as a dwelling for his name.

3You shall go to the priest who is in office at that time, and say to him, “Today I declare to the Lord your God that I have come into the land that the Lord swore to our ancestors to give us.” 4When the priest takes the basket from your hand and sets it down before the altar of the Lord your God, 5you shall make this response before the Lord your God: “A wandering Aramean was my ancestor; he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien, few in number, and there he became a great nation, mighty and populous.

6When the Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us, by imposing hard labor on us, 7we cried to the Lord, the God of our ancestors; the Lord heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression. 8The Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with a terrifying display of power, and with signs and wonders; 9and he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. 10So now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground that you, O Lord, have given me.” You shall set it down before the Lord your God and bow down before the Lord your God.

11Then you, together with the Levites and the aliens who reside among you, shall celebrate with all the bounty that the Lord your God has given to you and to your house.

Philippians 4:1-13

(This letter is part thank-you card, part pep-talk, part love letter. Paul writes from prison, where he has a capital charge hanging over his head. Still, he writes with gratitude and joy to this community. . .)

4Therefore, my brothers and sisters, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, my beloved. 2I urge Euodia and I urge Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord. 3Yes, and I ask you also, my loyal companion, help these women, for they have struggled beside me in the work of the gospel, together with Clement and the rest of my co-workers, whose names are in the book of life.

4Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. 5Let your gentleness [generosity] be known to everyone. The Lord is near. 6Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

8Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about [take account of] these things. 9Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.