Are You Talking to Me?

Due to issues with our livestream on Sunday, only a portion of the sermon was captured on the audio. We have indicated, within the written sermon, where the audio begins. 

We call it "the fever." I warn people about this before they venture to Africa. "You are going to get there and think, 'we can do this; we can build this; and all we need to do is pave this." You get a fever for saving the world.

Part of "the fever" is cost. When people realize building two classrooms in a Malawian village will cost less than twenty thousand dollars, they think, "that wouldn't cover the cost of windows and lights in a classroom here. But two classrooms? Let’s do it." The cost is enticing.

The fever isn't necessarily a bad thing. Your heart is open, and your imagination is running and you want to make a difference. Good. Good. Good. Yet as is the case with Gold Fever or the fever that comes over gamblers, there is a downside. The downside is magic. If you give money, if you build something, if you support an effort, then things will magically change. "We can fix this" is magical thinking. Magical thinking puts people at risk, is not a good basis of partnership, leads to "one and done" efforts.

Most importantly it is not true. A continent is not fixed with common sense, better management, some accountability. Extreme poverty is not a problem you solve. Magical thinking makes you arrogant, and arrogance is not a good spirit, but a demon doing damage.

You don't need to go to Africa to get the fever. America is a land just as prone to delirium. Religion, especially American Protestantism, has a history of fevered delusion. People sell all their goods, stand on a hill, wait for Jesus. People sell all their goods and live in a utopian community. This happens. The nation's fastest growing religion was based upon a utopian quest, Mormons.

I recently discovered a new form of the fever. It is a cross of American Evangelicalism and African poverty. Young people go to Africa without skill or training or organizational accountability and open clinics, orphanages, non-profits. You can hear the fever in a common confidence: God doesn't call the equipped, God equips the called.

              Long ago I would take issue with this form of the fever.  Africa appears to be such a disaster that “anything will help.”  Anybody.  Just jump in.  Don’t ask for qualifications when the house is on fire, the flood is coming.  True.  But you do want an engineer to build the bridge; you should have someone trained in casework or fund development to run an agency.  I would suggest to the fevered, I don’t want my surgeon to be called; I want my surgeon to be board certified, residency trained, and medical school degreed. The disaster of extreme poverty seems to suggest there is no time for qualifications.

              Long ago I would read the grave marker of David Livingstone to the zealous.  In the floor of Westminster Abbey in London it reads:

BROUGHT BY FAITHFUL HANDS OVER LAND AND SEA HERE RESTS DAVID LIVINGSTONE, MISSIONARY, TRAVELLER, PHILANTHROPIST, BORN MARCH 19. 1813 AT BLANTYRE, LANARKSHIRE, DIED MAY 1, 1873 AT CHITAMBO'S VILLAGE, ULALA. FOR 30 YEARS HIS LIFE WAS SPENT IN AN UNWEARIED EFFORT TO EVANGELIZE THE NATIVE RACES, TO EXPLORE THE UNDISCOVERED SECRETS, TO ABOLISH THE DESOLATING SLAVE TRADE, OF CENTRAL AFRICA, WHERE WITH HIS LAST WORDS HE WROTE, "ALL I CAN ADD IN MY SOLITUDE, IS, MAY HEAVEN'S RICH BLESSING COME DOWN ON EVERY ONE, AMERICAN, ENGLISH, OR TURK, WHO WILL HELP TO HEAL THIS OPEN SORE OF THE WORLD

I would read this to the fevered and suggest, David Livingstone died more than a century ago.  He identified the problem clearly, gave 30 years of his life and with his dying breath called upon God to find anyone who would help to heal.  Not much has changed since 1873. Such a wound is not something you fix. [AUDIO BEGINS HERE] Unfortunately, the fever is impervious to humility.

              The greatest cure, antidote, to the fever I have found is 500 dollars.  For five hundred dollars you can provide a shallow well for a village in central Africa.  People who live far from water, and water was of dubious quality, people in remote villages far from cities or roads, these people can have clean water in a matter of months if you give 500 dollars. 

              The modest amount is so disproportionate to the difference it makes, it tends to break the fever.  I am not sure why, but it works.  Maybe it is just enough money, a bit more than trivial. Or maybe it's the idea of a hundred people drinking clean water by your act.  This somehow produces humility. 

              Twenty years ago, I met Jim McGill and Tom Logan.  Jim is a Presbyterian missionary and engineer.  He developed the system and the process of installation for the shallow wells.  Tom is a great organizer and crusader for the poor.  Together they created a shallow wells program that has been operational for more than 30 years and brought clean water to millions of people. 

              Each year Marion Medical puts in 3000 shallow wells.  If you are hearty and don't mind a bit of mud, you could go and install wells for Marion Medical.  I have helped people go and do just that.  It's a great experience. So is simply funding a well.  Beyond the good feels, though, the shallow wells project has a profound effect upon the soul.  There is a joy ever tempered by humility.  Somehow this project makes you feel the enormity of the suffering as you relieve it just a bit.

              In the coming months as we hear more and more about the nurse's home we will build in a Malawian village, we will have a similar joy in humility.  We will because our modest donation will save lives. Children will be kept from starvation, mothers will not die in childbirth, the malarial will be kept from death.  All children, all mothers, all cases of malaria, no.  But some children, some mothers, some who suffer in one village will be saved.

              John answered, ‘Master, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he does not follow with us.’ But Jesus said to him, ‘Do not stop him; for whoever is not against you is for you.’

              There is another temptation or stumbling block one should know before you venture into a place like Africa.  I am not sure what to call this temptation.  It's an arrogance like the fever, but it's different.  There is an impulse, need, desire to control in us, be in control, have control over people.  Everyone experiences this to some degree. It's more than being uptight or particular.  I can't seem to find a word for it.

              There is in each of us a basic, soulful need for order.  Yet, it is as if that need can get out of hand, become something unto itself. It is a confidence that things can be right, be put right.  Things need to be orderly. But we go beyond order to control.

              Maybe the best way to describe this delusion of control is a blindness to the complexity of suffering.  We need order, but sometimes this need becomes a delusion that you can put all things in order.  You look to life as if it makes sense and has a definite plan and purpose, can be predicted, determined, controlled. In small ways, in bits of time, it can.  Life, as John Steinbeck said, can "run in greased grooves."  But then, not so much. There is a difference between finding order in our lives and living as if we can make order for others.

              There is an old television show based upon this.  Remember Get Smart.  Agent Smart and 99.  They were working for the good agency known as Control.  They were working against bad guys, the bad agency, Kaos. This being a comedy, the point of every episode was how Control was really out of control and somehow Kaos seemed to be orderly.  More to the point Agent Smart and 99 showed how order becomes delusion.  Once we try to create order, control, we lose it.

              Perhaps a more profound example was a video made for hospital employees.  The short video walks through the floors of a hospital.  The camera pans for a moment on each person. Above each person is a word or phrase.  Above some people are wonderful words like new dad or remission; above others are words like said his last goodbye or the doctors tried but he died.  As you walk through the floors you see staff and above them are hasn't slept, divorce finalized today, got the promotion, saved the boy.

              The purpose of the video is like Get Smart.  Each is trying to pull back the curtains of false belief.  The belief that we are in control, we can control.  It's not to say all life is simply chaos or there is no point or nothing can be done.  The message is the opposite.  Life is not awful, there is truth to be had and great things to be done, but the good and the true and the beautiful are best done with the humility we gain, when we no longer see life as what we determine.

              Not all the time, but quite often, I watch people find this truth when they step into extreme poverty.  It is as if the hospital video is happening in real time.  When you shake off the ease of false confidence, the delusion of control, when you see the depth of famine or the peril of living in a village without running water, without electricity, without access to doctors, without, without, without, without, when you step into such a village the enormity of suffering is clear, too clear.  Beyond control. 

              For many years I gave this speech to describe the challenge in our lesson today.  How do you make a difference in light of such a challenge; how does one heal the open sore of extreme poverty?  I'll never forget giving this talk at a college.  I was speaking to the faculty and staff.  The auditorium was full.  I will always remember hearing myself.  What I was saying was true; it was right.  Mostly it was earnest and compelling, a call to help.  Sacrifice.

              What I heard in my voice though was something I would never hear in Malawi.  I was serious.  There was no laughter in me, no ease, no freedom.  Somehow amid suffering I was happy.  Somehow in a place of overwhelming heartbreak, I was at ease.  I would never be as serious there as I was here.

              Helping people, bringing healing, offering freedom, you would think this would be easy. But it's not.  It's not easy to lose delusion.  In our zeal, the fever, you can be convinced things can be fixed.  Jump in.  We can do this. Simply move the dials, adjust the picture, find the fault and things will be right. 

              Helping people, bringing healing, offering freedom, you would think this would be easy. But it's not.  To be present in suffering we must lose the false confidence of control.  We tried to stop him.  Their question to Jesus reveals they were yet believing "we are in control of life." 

              Helping people, bringing healing, offering freedom, you would think this would be easy. But it's not.  To be of great service you must find joy.  The happiness of loving people in brokenness.  Suffering people don't need you to be serious.  They need those who will sit with the fallen, dine with the hungry. 

              Someday the disciples would look back on Galilee, remember walking with Jesus, conjure the joy he had for people as he cared for them.  In this memory, they will find freedom from fear, a rising above darkness.  Those who are not against you are for you.  Looking back the disciples will find: trust is born of friendship, freedom is crafted in kindness, healing begins with joyful solidarity.  Amen.