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 Focused on Outcomes |
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June 2006 A couple of weeks ago, I was invited to a meeting in the Fell's Point district of Baltimore. It was an area I'd been to before-but only by water taxi-I'd never driven there myself. So I turned to MapQuest. The options are laid out before me: do I want directions for the route taking the shortest time or the shortest distance? Do I want to avoid highways? Or do I want to avoid tolls? It's wonderful! I identify my starting place-home or office, my destination, and the single compelling priority to get me between here, point A, and there, point B. Now if they could only add information about available parking.... When we met last week and yesterday with our consultant, Ed White, we were challenged to focus on outcomes. Not programs, but outcomes. In terms of outcomes, I wanted to drive from home to Fell's Point without having to figure out the route myself. By way of comparison, MapQuest was the program that got me there. There is a similar pattern in today's familiar story of David and Goliath. Even in popular conversation, the basics of the story are known well enough that even unchurched people know it as a triumph of the weak over the strong. Small wonder. A beardless youth with experience not as a soldier but as a shepherd boy brings provisions to his brothers, who are fighting in the army of Israel's first king, Saul. They are fighting over the territory in the lower hill country of Judah. The armies of Israel's Saul are gathered across the valley against the armies of the Philistines. But battle has not yet been joined. Instead, the Philistine's giant Goliath challenges Saul to send an Israelite over for a duel. David the shepherd volunteers. The outcome Goliath sets before the trembling Israelites is slavery. And what is the outcome David sets before this giant? David is equally clear "that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, and that all this assembly-that is, Israel itself-may know that the Lord does not save by sword and spear; for the battle is the Lord's and he will give you into our hand." The issue for David is not which side has the greater armaments; the issue is the Philistines' defiance of the living God. Our other scripture reading comes from the gospel according to Mark, again a familiar story. Jesus and his disciples get into a boat to leave the crowds and sail across the Sea of Galilee. Galilee isn't a sea-it's a small freshwater lake fed by the Jordan River, with about 33 miles of shoreline, located well below sea level deep in the Jordan Valley. Given its location, sudden violent storms on the Sea of Galilee are common.[1] It's been a long day for Jesus and his followers, and Jesus falls asleep in the stern of the boat, completely oblivious to the chaos of the seas erupting around him. Like the Israelite army facing the Philistines, the disciples are held captive by their own fear. And in their fear they cry out to Jesus, "Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?" Forming faith-filled disciples is the outcome Jesus is focused on. The chaos which rocks the little boat of faith, symbolic of the chaos which rocks the church does not threaten Jesus. Chaos is so much a part of Jesus' culture-and ours-that its eruption not only fails to throw him off course, it also fails to swamp the boat. But while Jesus is focused on forming faithful disciples, the disciples themselves are focused on...survival. Like a parable, our gospel is telling us that a church focused on its own survival will be overcome by fear and swamped by the chaotic seas that surround it. David Batstone is a columnist for Sojourners investigating the slave trade that now holds 27 million people around the world trapped in its clutches.[2] This month, he visited Cambodia and Thailand, stopping at several projects caring for individuals lucky enough to escape or be rescued from the bars and brothels exploiting them. He cannot forget the sight of 50 girls between ages 7 and 12 who found safe haven in one rescue center in Cambodia. At one of those refuges in Bangkok, Thailand, he met Annie Dieselberg. The outcome of her Christian mission? Nothing less than the abolition of human trafficking. Talk about David and Goliath. Or sailing safely to shore in a storm-wracked boat! Annie launched NightLight in 2005 as an alternative for young girls working in bars operating as brothels. In the ten years that Annie and her husband had worked in Thailand, they'd seen many women forced into such work. In 2005, Annie was taking a visiting US church group to a brothel bar. The men stood outside praying; the women went inside to make a caring connection. That was when Annie met a 22-year-old prostitute with two children who hated being at the bar. Annie and the other women paid the bar owner the roughly $15 to take the woman out of the bar for the night, and that led to a spontaneous offer to partner with Annie in creating a for-profit jewelry-making business. The project equips young women for life beyond the brothel and pays them a sustainable wage. It also provides workshops on health care and HIV/AIDS prevention, managing personal finances, and English classes. Daily worship and weekly spiritual formation classes are offered but not required. NightLight now employs 32 women, with several more on a waiting list. No doubt that will grow as word continues spreading through the brothel bars that escape is possible. This is life-saving work. But Annie is no Pollyanna. When she watches the darkness that destroys the lives of young children in the sex trade, she knows she is confronting-in her words-a profoundly evil spiritual force. She recognizes that churches need to engage in prayer and action against human trafficking in their local region, as well as link to international movements. Which brings us back to Goliath and David and Jesus and the disciples. What are the outcomes we are looking for? A faithful church whose fundamental concern is to give witness to our living, loving, still-speaking God? Or a church paralyzed by fear, shrinking in the face of giant challenges? Both scriptures clearly recognize the paralysis fear causes. But they also hold forth the light of hope. They tell us that even the simplest of resources-a young boy and five smooth stones-is available to us to address our fears. They tell us of faith and faithfulness. They tell us that Jesus is present with us. Our task as disciples is to be clear about who we are, to be clear about the One we follow, and to be clear about where we are going. *** [1]
Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., last modified 14:32, 18 June
2006, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_of_Galilee |