First United Methodist Church, Birmingham, Michigan
Scripture: Philippians 2:1-8
Hold the pickles, hold the lettuce,
Special orders don’t upset us.
All we ask is that you let us
Serve it your way.
Funny that I can still sing it, given that I never eat it. I am talking Burger King here, where the song goes down easier than the food….at least for me. But, then, I am a slow food kind of guy. If I want a really great burger, I’ll twiddle my thumbs at the Red Coat, giving Mark Brown all the time in the world to prepare it.
Mark will let me have it my way, even though he lacks a song that tells me so. Burger King does….have a song, I mean. Which was a master stroke of advertising when it first hit the radio. For it told me that I, the customer, was king. It told me that my wants were their marching orders. And it told me that everything they cooked could be customized….leading the competition to claim that not only could it be customized, but super-sized. Whatever will the fast food people do for me next?
I am not belittling any of this. Customers are important and businesses ought to make us feel that way. Every one of us can name eight or ten places where they make us feel like they are doing us a favor by taking our money. Such places are uncompromising and uncomfortable. Which is why we don’t like them and try to steer clear of them. For we are spoiled. We have come to expect it “our way.” If you don’t believe that, think of how you felt the last time you looked at a menu and saw the phrase “no substitutions allowed.”
I have discovered, however, that where food selection is concerned, my way is not always a good way. Some years ago, I told you of my general disdain for salad bars. Why? Because I make a lousy salad, that’s why. I see a table filled with things I like, and I want to throw them all on my plate. If there are 23 kinds of lettuce, why not a few leaves of each? If I can’t decide between oil and vinegar and creamy garlic, why not a dollop of both? Crumbled eggs, grated cheese, fako baco, croutons, peanuts, pine nuts, wheat germ and garbanzo beans….sure. And the result is never very good. Better that somebody with talent should make my salad.
In case you are wondering, I am not much better at buffets. As is the case in other areas of my life, buffet tables offer too many choices. All of them are tempting. But when piled high on a plate (that, in my hand, always turns out to be too small), they are not all that satisfying. Buffet lines exist to please the glutton in me, never the gourmet in me. My way is seldom the stellar way. Which is why I love those all-too-rare occasions when I am taken in hand by a really good waiter in a really good restaurant….a waiter who leads me through the menu, and guides (not forces, but guides) me down a path that will both stretch and satisfy me. If you have never had that kind of waiter, or enjoyed that kind of experience, I can only urge you to seek it….and, upon finding it, be open to it.
This being a car town, we are all talking about General Motors’ recent announcement that Bob Lutz is coming aboard (at age 69) to put his distinctive touch on GM’s automotive styling. Everybody is talking about Lutz, to the degree that if printer’s ink translates into dollars (and I think it does), then the entire three years of Bob’s salary have already been underwritten. I mean, I read all those stories (word for word) and I am far from what you would call a “car guy.”
But it was in reading the stories that I learned that Bob Lutz once wrote a book detailing his seven principles of corporate leadership….one of which (get this) is that “the customer is not always right.” Which sounds like heresy, given the incredible amount of money most companies spend trying to figure out what the customer wants….and how that differs today from what the customer wanted yesterday, or thinks he or she might conceivably want tomorrow.
So I sought one of Bob’s colleagues and said: “Explain this ‘customer is not always right’ thing.” Which was how I learned about focus groups and the roles they play in automotive styling. A focus group is a randomly-selected collection of people who are shown….and then asked to react to….potential styling changes. It’s not that Bob Lutz is against focus groups. He knows you need them. And he knows you ought to listen to them. But it is Bob’s belief that while focus groups should inform styling, they should never dictate styling. Why? Because most people….in most such situations….respond favorably to what strikes them as familiar, while responding critically to what strikes them as strange. In other words, when the pressure is on, people lean toward what they know and return to where they’ve been.
So, in life (as well as the auto industry), who moves people along? Interesting question! A trusted advisor….perhaps. Someone who wears well, but is not afraid to push the envelope…. perhaps. Someone who listens carefully, but leads confidently….perhaps. Someone who meets you where you are, accepts you as you are, but is not afraid to point out that where you are is a far cry from where you could yet go….perhaps. And if any of that tips off the conclusion of this sermon….well, so be it.
But let me build to that point slowly. Let’s start with weddings. “It’s my day and I can have whatever I want,” said a recent bride to me. Not that I was about to fight her. Nobody wins that fight. Life is too short for that fight. So I seldom wage it. Did once. Don’t anymore. I suppose I could challenge her on the question of whose wedding it is. I mean, it’s his too, isn’t it? It’s been fascinating to see how many grooms really do “give a rip” and get into it….the planning, I mean. And there are other people whose day it is, as well. To say that those people don’t have feelings is insensitive. And to say that those feelings are irrelevant is stupid….not to mention, immature.
But I never say so in so many words. I say so gently. Like I said, I’m not there to fight people. I’m there to help people. Which is true of Doris, the other ministers on the staff, our wonderful cadre of wedding coordinators, and my secretary (Janet Smylie) through whom every bride and groom must pass before reaching a preacher. We’re good. Everybody says we’re good. And we’re also caring. People say that, too.
But we will try to steer you (to the degree that you let us). We will try to steer you around things that won’t work, toward things that will work. We will also try to steer you between things that might work independent of each other, but won’t work together. And if you go to the mat with us, we’ll probably concede. Who knows, you may be right. But you may also be sorry.
The same thing is true in designing worship. Testing the house is in. Market surveys are in. What do you want to sing? How do you want to sing it? What do you want to hear? How often do you want to hear it? How long do you want the preacher to speak? Where do you want the preacher to stand? What do you want the preacher to wear? Tell us what you think. Tell us what smoothes you and what ruffles you. We’d be fools not to ask. And we’d be greater fools not to listen. But if that’s all we do, you’ll be sorry. Because we do know a smidgen more than you do.
The year was 1970. It was my second year in a church on my own. I’d begun well. But I was still feeling my way….wanting to please, if you will. I was meeting with the Pastor Parish Relations Committee. Those are my bosses. They asked what new wrinkles I was planning for the coming year. I told them that one thing I planned to do was survey the congregation, the better to find out what kinds of sermons they wanted to hear. Oh, they thought that was wonderful. It showed open-mindedness, pastoral awareness, sensitivity to the market. At least that’s what they said. Except for Don Lobb. Don sat there frowning. Leading me to say: “What’s wrong, Don? You look like something is bothering you.” Which was when he said to me: “Bill, you are my pastor. I count on you to tell me what you think I need to hear.” Which I’ve never forgotten. And which is why, lo these many years later, I have yet to take my first survey (even though I have honored numerous requests).
Which brings me to Stanley Hauerwas. Stan is (recognizably) the most respected teacher of theology and ethics in the land. Notre Dame had him. Now Duke’s got him. Riding out of Texas, Stan was something of a rebellious Methodist. I have known Stan since we were green-as-grass divinity students at Yale. Stan knew he was good, then. And he knows he is good now. What’s more, he is anything but bashful about letting you know it.
His opening lecture in whatever divinity school class he happens to be teaching (especially if it is a first year class), always involves some form of the claim: “I don’t want you to think for yourselves. I want you to think like me.” Which he says mostly for shock value. For down the road, Stan has no interest in creating clones of himself. Perfect imitation will not flatter him. But he understands that, at the outset, he knows a lot more than his students know. And he believes that theology is a craft best learned by putting oneself under the authority of a master of the tradition. Which means that, in the short run, Stan has to separate his students from the notion that anybody’s ideas are as good as anybody else’s….and that their ideas (at this early stage of development) are as good as his. For they aren’t. Not that they won’t be some day. But they aren’t now. Which may sound arrogant. But when students get to know him, they find that underneath the arrogance is a rather humble fellow. Says Stan: “The first task of teaching is to attack the student’s illusion of individual sovereignty.” Translated, that means that the first task of teaching is to attack the illusion that the student (as customer) is always right.
So where is the humility in that? Well, there is something else Stan knows that tempers even his supreme self-confidence. Stan knows that, as a Christian, what is on your mind is always subservient to who is in your mind. Paul wrote to the Philippians: “Let this same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.”
And what kind of “mind” was that, Paul? Well, says Paul, I am talking about the mind of a man who, “though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself….taking the form of a servant….and humbled himself….becoming obedient to the point of death….even death upon a cross.”
The ironic thing is that Paul probably didn’t write those words, but (rather) quoted them. Those words most likely came from an early congregational hymn or credal statement (already in existence), making those words one of the earliest forms of Christian teaching that we know. Which is why we ought to pay close attention to the verbs….verbs like “emptied,” “humbled,” “becoming obedient.” Those are not easy verbs to swallow. Or to showcase.
There is a tension that runs right up the gut of Christianity….a tension not easily resolved. On the one hand, Christianity values the individual….exalts the individual….almost pedestals the individual. Matt Hook is fond of saying: “God loves you as if there were no other. God’s love for you is so great that it feels as if you are the beneficiary of all of it….as if there were no one else in the world for God to love, and you are getting it all.”
But, on the other hand, Christianity says that there are lots of other people in the world and that God loves them every bit as much as he loves you. And while, in his love, God singles you out….he singles you out for service, subservience, and perhaps even for suffering. Do you feel that tension? You’d better. Because if you don’t, you don’t understand the faith.
When I was a kid, I went to camp every summer. More to the point, I went to church camp every summer. And every summer there was a craft shop, where it seemed as if I was continuously being encouraged to make something….ranging from leather bookmarks to plywood Bible stands….into which I would carve or burn the words: “God first. Others second. Self third.” I’ve probably still got camp crafts with such sentiments displayed.
Which does not mean I am without needs. Nor does it mean that my needs are not important. But to the degree that I have also wood-burned those words into my soul, I know that my needs are neither primary nor secondary, but tertiary (God first. Others second. Self third.). Not that my life always reflects that sequence. But I believe it. I really do.
I talked about weddings earlier. I love most of them. Really, I do. Most Saturdays, people rise to the occasion. They show up. They shape up. They shine up. But there is the occasional wedding where someone is about to go into a snit, raise a ruckus, or make a scene. Some eight-year-old kid doesn’t like the suit. Some photographer doesn’t like the rules. Some mother doesn’t like her ex-husband’s new honey seated behind her. Some bridesmaid doesn’t like the shoes. Or some groomsman doesn’t like the fact that we won’t let him drink beer in the bathroom before the festivities. Which is when the emergent “grumpy old man” in me takes over. I want to shake them by the throat and say: “Look, get with the program. This isn’t about you.”
Truth be told, I think that about some of you, sometimes.
Still, more truth be told, I figure that God….and, occasionally, some of you….think that about me.
Lord have mercy.
