I have finally finished my sermon. It was a tough one, because I wanted to talk about what I see as the meaning behind last week’s wonderful services, and yet there is Haiti, staring me in the face.
The wedding in Cana is the lectionary reading, and Monday is MLK,Jr.’s birthday celebration. I struggled to make the necessary connections. I couldn’t ignore Haiti; and I didn’t want to short-change the transformation I felt last Sunday. But now I feel I have something to say that makes sense. We’ll see!
I have a cup of coffee sitting next to me; brown bread steaming on top of the stove; and the last loaf of honey-oatmeal bread baking in the oven. With that and my sermon in fairly good shape, I feel content.
Sometimes it stuns me at just how slow I can be to catch on. It took a conversation with the Episcopal gal who has joined my Presby friend and me for Morning Prayer to step back and take a look at this congregation.
I discovered that I haven’t been following my own philosophy, the one that made me a successful teacher of young children and trainer of teachers. This philosophy says, like Isaiah this week, “what you name people is what they become.” In education and psychology, it is called a “self-fulfilling prophecy.”
Now, I know this, deep in my bones. I practiced it for 40 years in my profession. I was successful in it in my last interim-ship. And yet, I forgot it in the face of the controversy in this new church.
I even used this method with a few of the people during the disagreement about having the 18-month old in church. At that time, my daughter reminded me. I’ll describe this method with a little story:
In the days when I was observing and critiquing Head Start teachers, training them for a national credential, I had a lovely young woman on my caseload. She was happy, friendly, loving, but a little slow on the uptake, at least when it came to teaching methods. She told me one day that “Robert” was a very difficult child. She didn’t think anyone could teach him (remember, we are discussing 4 year olds). So, I gave her an assignment; “Every day, write down 10 positive things Robert does during class time; you can’t say things like, ‘he didn’t hurt anyone today’, they must be positive ACTIONS.”
She was agreeable, and when I returned three weeks later, sure enough, she had 10 good things written down for every day during that 3 weeks. I was pleased, as she said, “Robert isn’t such a bad child.” I beamed, my lesson taught, so I thought. Then she dropped the bomb, “But Joseph, now
He’s a terrible kid!” Stunned for a second, I recovered quickly, “I want 20 good things about Joseph everyday!” She paled.
When I returned the next time, she had done her work. But more importantly, she sheepishly admitted that she now understood the lesson. I am proud to say that years later, when I visited her in her classroom, there were NO bad kids. She turned out to be an excellent teacher.
When I went to my former little church, I could see right away that their collective self-image was very poor. I took every opportunity, in casual settings as well as sermons, to tell them all the wonderful things they did. They grew under that spotlight. They began to think they could do things they had thought could never happen in their church. The more I positive things I found, the more they did. It was self-fulfilling prophecy at its best. Did we solve all the problems? No, of course not. But they began to realize that they had the resources in the congregation to make changes.
So why didn’t I remember this at this new church? I think that partly it was because the former interim called me several times to tell me all the horror stories, even when I tried to tell her I didn’t want to hear them. The shepherd from the diocese also told me the horror stories, and when I was interviewed by the Senior Warden, I heard them again. I arrived there full of the controversy.
In retrospect, I am still startled that I let all that push my tried and true method to the back of my mind. Even when I used it in the case of the little child, I didn’t make the connection to the larger parish. It took my conversation with V. to help me see that my approach was counter to my own beliefs.
Well, whatever the reason, it is obvious that up to last weekend, I wasn’t getting anywhere with the root of the problem. In spite of the problems, I have been treated handsomely and kindly by everyone; now I have to concentrate on all the things they are doing well.
So the tone of my sermon this week reflects this change in tactics. I stress the great things that happened last week. I assure them that this is truly a new beginning, and that we have it in us to become a great parish again.
It won’t be hard to stick to this method; there are many good things happening in this church. The controversy has been allowed to take over; from this moment on, I am going to put it where it belongs. It no longer will have power over me, and I hope that my attitude will help put it in its place for everyone.
If nothing else, pushing it to the back of my mind should help me sleep better, and feel less stressed. It took on a life of its own, and I let it take over mine. No more.
As Isaiah said, “we are what we are named”. From now one, I name this little church, Brotherly and Sisterly Love.
Life is good, when one remembers one’s philosophy. Thanks be to God.
January 16, 2010, 3:06 p.m. 42 degrees and SUNNY!
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