“Growing in Difficult Places” Jay Marshall, Dean
Meeting for Worship, Sept. 12, 2001, the day after the terrorist attack in New York & Washington

I was impressed early this spring by a garlic mustard plant that chose to sprout, grow and bloom on top of a rock near our house. You might wonder "why garlic mustard? Why not rhododendron in full bloom? Or a magnificent perennial garden? I guess it is true what they say: beauty is in the eye of the beholder! With nothing more than a single root reaching back to its source of origin and sustenance, it chose to sprout, grow and bloom on top of a rock near our house. There was hardly any soil present at all. Not much company from other plants. No intimate chlorophyll community to affirm it. A single stem shot up on its own and stood in isolation. I was impressed by its ability to grow and bloom in a difficult place. Once aware of that image, I began to see it occur in multiple places. That is a common theme of these slides. Plants — some small, some much larger — that have managed to bloom in difficult places.

Plants that grow in tilled, well manicured gardens are often stunning — but they should be shouldn't they? They are merely living in an environment that is designed for them to thrive. The miracle of growth is still stunning in those situations, but I find myself more impressed by those plants that have managed to grow in difficult places.

It is akin to the difference between loving those who love you and loving those who are your enemies. One is much easier to do than the other; but both are vitally important to well-balanced beauty throughout the landscape. The age in which the church could afford to operate as though it existed in a well-manicured environment is long past. If we are to be a useful, effective witness in today's world, we need to learn to grow in difficult places. I think we do that best if, as a core piece of our spiritual journey and ministry preparation seeking the heart of God is a fundamental part of who and how we are.

What do I mean by this? I'm not sure I entirely know, but let me share what I think I mean! I hear people frequently speak of seeking to know "the mind" or "the will" of God, but I don't hear the same interest in knowing the heart of God. I've wondered whether that distinction is one worth pursuing. Here are the musings of a wannabe theologian masquerading as dean.

Since the mind is the place of thought, it seems to me that knowing the mind of God leads to thoughtful principles. Principles are important. They shape outlooks, attitudes and ideally they produce actions, especially as those principles we connect with the mind of God intersect with the issues and questions of our life. At that point of intersection, we hope to discover the will of God as those principles are directed toward our lives. I say "ideally" with some intention. One book I've read recently is titled, Intellectuals, a historical piece that looks at how the lives of some leading personalities demonstrated the principles and values they advocated. In many cases their lives did not demonstrate those principles and values at all, even though they were proponents of them! As an example, Karl Marx had much to say about wages for the common worker; even so, he never paid his own servant a single cent! And, we might remember that one of the complaints of early Friends and other reform movements about the established church was that the lives of many Christians did not reflect the beliefs and principles they professed. So principles do not always influence actions, though we may believe they should.

For that reason I believe we need to partner our interest in knowing the "mind/will of God" with a drive for "seeking the heart of God." As I consider the matter, while the former leads to principles and ideally to actions, the empathy we discover in the heart leads more consistently to actions conditioned by God's steadfast, compassionate love. I believe this is important because we live in a time when simply articulating a set of principles or standards from our well-manicured gardens of truth will not effectively speak to the audience we seek to engage. When we discover the heart of God, we encounter a motivation to go boldly into the difficult places of life where we seek to represent the good news of love and grace in ways that minister in the immediate moment, infuse grace into that difficult place, and offer a reason for a hopeful future. (I believed that passionately on Monday. I believe it even more today, as I contemplate the significance of the recent terrorist events and the consider my own reactions to it). In going to those difficult places of life and choosing to grow and bloom there, we give those segments of the world one more opportunity to experience the power of God. That is not always the first human response, or the church's response, frankly.

In an undergraduate ethics class, I was introduced to Richard Niebuhr's classic work Christ and Culture. In it, he described possible models for the church's relationship to the larger society. If you haven't encountered it yet, it is worth a good read. I'll spare you an outline of the various models, except to say I continue to think that the model that is best descriptive of a faithful church at its most evolved condition is that of transformation-in living out its witness, the church seeks to transform culture. While I continue to believe that Quakers' role, and for that matter, Christianity's role in God's larger drama is to live as "transformers" of culture, I would, approach that in a way other than the "conquer and subject" model that Christianity has often adopted as the means for transformation. We do not need a 21^st century version of the Crusades where nationalism or patriotism parades as divinely inspired virtue, nor do we need an updated handbook in "Overzealous Evangelism 101", which seems to be the Pavlovian response to questions of church/society relations when separation and accommodation have been rejected. In fact, we should probably leave aside altogether the idea that we are to transform people to become "like us." Transformation in this case means being a representative presence for God in ways that "that of God in others" can be spoken to. To be effective transformers of culture in this period of history, we must figure out how to live, grow and bloom outside the garden in meaningful ways in which we connect with a fragmented world. I think that in this day and age, such growth and blooming are best motivated by the heart of God, or the heart and mind of God in conjunction, rather than only through the mind of God.

Living as witnesses for the purposes of transformation indicates we believe that God still has an interest in all of those whom God created, and that the current state affairs does not represent God's greatest desires on our behalf. So long as people live outside of a genuine or intentional relationship with God, there is a place for transformative Christianity. So long as fear and violence dominate everything from international politics to neighborhood watches to domestic relationships, transformation is needed. So long as war, hunger, and economic injustice prevail daily, and we fail to notice, transformation is needed. The list could go on and on.

Living as witnesses for the purpose of transformational ministry also indicates we believe God expects us to participate in this process. Important questions to answer are "What are we to do? How are we to act?"

Let me give you three steps along the path that prepare us to undertake this task with the heart of God. The first is a having clear sense of identity. I'd invite you to consider an old story from the book of Daniel - Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. This continues to be my favorite story in Scripture. You know the plot, do you not? Babylon has deported Jews from their homeland. King Nebuchadnezzar then proceeded to insist that these Judean captives subject themselves to Babylonian religious practices. Having raised a 90 foot gold image, he demands that everyone worship it. "When you hear the music," a herald announced, "you will fall down and worship the image of gold that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up. Whoever doesn't will meet a toasty end (will be thrown into a blazing furnace)."

As you know, while everyone else fell down, these three refused to do so — repeatedly, under threat of death. Well, people in power frequently will not tolerate such rebellion, and these three wind up in a fiery furnace, after which Nebuchadnezzar and friends observe an extra person in the furnace, remaking "I see four men unbound . . . and the fourth has the appearance of a God."

It is the conversation prior to being tossed in the furnace that has rooted this story into my heart. When Nebuchadnezzar says "bow down or else....." the three respond with this. "Our God whom we serve is able to deliver us, BUT even if God chooses not to do so, be it known oh king that we will not serve your gods or worship your statue." I have found that to be one of the most powerful statements in Scripture for years. It recognizes that the faithful do not serve God because it gains us special favors or protection; we serve God because as God's children, that is what we're called to do. We do not waver in that devotion when lured by other options, when life seems unfair, or when threatened for our faithfulness. That alone is the "mind" piece. The "heart" piece is that when we are certain and secure in who we are, we are not threatened by the differences of others. Neither do we have to try to make them in our own image. It is easier to take advantage of opportunities for transformation if we aren't fighting identity battles, and can stand amongst those who are different without having to conquer them in order to minister to them. Seeking the heart of God is easier if we are certain of our identity.

The second step along this path is an imitation of the incarnation as an approach to life together. We get a glimpse of this approach in the OT with the tabernacle. I am always tempted to say that it symbolized God's presence among the Israelites, but the fact is that to them, God was present through it. People came to the tabernacle to experience the divine and hear a word from God. In the NT, we go from an object that houses an invisible presence to a visible person who is Immanuel, "God with us." In the person of Jesus, we have an example of God blooming in a difficult place for the sake of being present to a world that needed, and needs, a fresh breath of grace and hope. For us, imitating that relationship to God's creation means that we will live and serve in ways that help others experience God as present to them and with them. The incarnational model is, in my thinking, a heart approach because it cares enough to be present in connecting ways as a means of communicating truth.

The third step is catching a glimpse of God's heart long enough to be overwhelmed by its love. In Genesis, God hears the cries of Hagar in the desert and is moved to action. In Exodus, the outcries of the people prompts God to deliver the Israelites. Even after repeated episodes of Israel's sinfulness and forgetfulness, God cares enough to respond to repentant cries for deliverance. Jesus hears the request of the Roman centurion and heals a child; he feels the touch of a Gentile woman and makes her whole. Observing how the religious prefer to debate righteous behavior while ignoring human need, Jesus, filled with compassion, heals a withered hand. The divine heart hears and feels the hurts of all creation. It teaches us what it means to be not only present to, but also engaged in, ministry that invites and restores and makes whole.

On our recent faculty and staff trip to England, we saw a historic and living testimony to this approach: Coventry Cathedral. The Germans decimated the city surrounding this cathedral during World War II. Not being able to distinguish a church from a munitions factory at their altitude, the pilots bombed the cathedral as well. What do you do in the aftermath of an atrocity like that? A first reaction is to retaliate. We can even quote a good psalm or oracle against the nation to support that hatred. But Jesus did call us to a higher standard. The folks of Coventry rebuilt their cathedral. They let the ruins stand, but built a contemporary structure adjacent to it. Moving from the ruins to the church is a walk from the ravages of human destruction to a hope inspired by faith. That is not the reason their story is worth telling. In rebuilding their lives and their religious place of worship, they embraced a stance of reconciliation.They are known for an international ministry of reconciliation that they say "has been characterized by taking risks, even in the face of strong opposition."That sounds similar to "growing in difficult places to me." We're in a similar place. In fact we always are. This is not the first time the US has been stunned by national tragedy at the hands of an aggressor. Even if it were, in this global community of ours, good and decent folk are ravaged by an uprising here, a greedy act there and find themselves oppressed, destitute, or dead far too frequently. This is big. It is tragic. It is not the first. Sadly, it won't be the last. Perhaps the question is not "why did this happen" as though it is isolated or unusual, but "why does it happen so often?" Perhaps we should wonder not "how long will we feel this numb and confounded", but "how is it we escape this feeling as often as we do?" All that is a gentle reminder that "context is important for interpretation."

Most disconcerting for me now is the likelihood that out of this specific act, we can expect anger, grief, hopes of revenge and acts of violence-frequently with the implication that God is on our side, ordaining the retribution. My prayer is less that "God is on our side" than it is that "we are on God's side", leading with love, compassion and reconciliation. For the coming days will be one of the many difficult landscapes where the faithful really need to visibly grow and bloom.