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I recently gave a sermon at my church on the Matthew 5:38-48. It’s the bit in the Sermon on the Mount about loving your enemies. The other liturgical texts that day were Leviticus 19:1-18, Psalms 119:33-40, and I Corinthians 3:10-23. Hope you find it meaningful….
Dorothy Day, journalist and co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement said, “Love is a harsh and dreadful thing to ask of us, but it is the only answer.” I’ll say it again: “Love is a harsh and dreadful thing to ask of us, but it is the only answer.”
Fifteen years ago, I became the director of a high school program just up the street at Union Presbyterian Seminary. It was a vocational program called Project Burning Bush – not in deference to our president at that time, but as in “Moses and the Burning Bush.” Mainline denominations were experiencing a pastor shortage, so the Lilly Endowment put money out there to create programs that helped men & women discern a call to the ministry – in our case, a burning bush for young people trying to figure out what they wanted to be when they grew up. In 2001, we did something the seminary had never done before: we welcomed 35 teenagers from all over the country to participate in a two week, residential intensive aimed at giving them a mini-seminary experience.
It did not go well. The kids didn’t engage the curriculum we wrote. They didn’t connect with the counselors in the way we expected. They were so overwhelmed by the schedule, they were dropping like flies. I made six separate runs to medical facilities because our students were getting infections, complaining of stomach problems, and having mishaps caused by stress and exhaustion. One student asked her parents to come to Richmond to pick her up halfway through the program. And, by the end of the two weeks, my staff of 15 curriculum writers, teachers, and counselors were so worn out and disillusioned that only one of them said she would return the next year.
It was a humbling moment. Failure always is. The real test is what you learn from it, right?
Luckily, the Lilly Endowment, benefactors of our grant, offered each year an opportunity for all of their grant recipients to come together for a conference whereby we can learn from each others’ experiences. That year, the theme of the conference was “What makes good ministry?” I went, I listened to the speakers, but I didn’t say a word about what really happened that year, lest Lilly think they wasted their money. Secretly, I wondered how many other program directors were doing the same thing.
All the workshops at the conference featured prominent & successful leaders of ministry offering advice on how to improve our programs. This, I believed, would be a big help. I’d go to a couple of workshops, ask a lot of questions, and come up with a new plan that worked. The first & second workshops I went to had some great programming ideas and I took copious notes. I don’t even remember what they were. All I remember the last workshop.
There were only 10 of us in the small classroom – clearly not a popular workshop with no big name leading it – and we were arranged in a circle, not in rows like students. Our workshop leader came in, a 50-ish African American man who had been a pastor for about 30 years in North Carolina. He sat in the circle with us, leaned in a bit, and said, “The only way to create good ministry is to love the people you minister to. Discuss.”
The ten of us looked at each other….then back at him, shifting uncomfortably in our chairs. What could we say to that? “Yes?”
Then he said it again, “You have to love the people to whom you are ministering or your ministry won’t work.”
“Well, duh,” I said to myself. Of course we have to love them. We have to love everyone. Jesus said so. It’s the first Sunday School answer we learn: How does Jesus want you treat people? Love them! Did this man really just give a ‘Sunday School’ answer to a bunch of Ph. D.’s?
Tentatively a discussion started as I began looking for a way to excuse myself from what I thought was a waste of my time. But before I could leave, some of the conversation broke through. Gently, this North Carolina pastor pulled out from his class their experiences with ministers who did not love them. I was stunned. I didn’t speak – a rarity for me – because I was too taken by the realization of Christian ministers who don’t love their own people.
Then it hit me. I knew ministers who didn’t love their church. I’ve had teachers who hated their students. I’ve been to doctors who never even looked me in the eye. And I’ve gone to stores where I was belittled for asking for help. Every person here knows what I’m talking about. We know who loves us, and who doesn’t. We remember who took the time and who dismissed us.
It’s not they are evil, for the most part. These were good people – very knowledgeable and skilled. They had excellent presentation and great products. But at the end of the day, I got nothing out of it because unless that teacher or doctor or minister tried to create some kind of relationship with me, I tuned out. No one learns anything, healing doesn’t take place, and ministry cannot happen where there is no love.
Project Burning Bush had great programming, stellar curriculum, lots and lots of staff – but it lacked one thing: we didn’t love our students.
The reason is simple. We were afraid. Teenagers are scary. They wear their hair funny. They test you. They have hormones. The seminary had never done this before. And if we, the PBB leaders, didn’t reign the teenagers in, those crazy kids would be in each others rooms doing things for which their parents would sue us.
So we kept them busy – in classes and workshops and mission projects from 7am until midnight. We forced them to participate in every planned social event, sporting event, and worship event. And if they happened to find any free time at all, we made sure an adult counselor was present, so nothing naughty happened. Our students had no free time, no alone time, and no rest. Can you imagine Shrine Mont like this?
Most of all we were afraid of failing, so afraid that we forgot to love the people we were trying to help. And, of course, we failed anyway.
Love your enemy, the one you are most afraid of, the one you are most angry with, the one who is in the way of your success, the one who bothers you. Love them. Pray for them. Forgive them. Minister to them. But most of all love them.
That’s the Sunday School answer, the harsh and dreadful thing to ask of us. And when we are faced with the thing we are most afraid of – it is the only answer.
The problem is that we don’t always know what love looks like. Love is a wibbly-wobbly kind of thing. It’s not one-size-fits-all. Love has as many faces as people do. Showing love to one person might be enabling to another, might be mercy to someone else, might be humiliation to yet another. It’s tricky and it’s messy because it involves actually entering a relationship with someone. It takes time and energy. Some folks won’t accept our love. Some are so hungry for it they nearly suck the life out of us. We have to do the hard work of making healthy boundaries at the same time as we are trying to break down the unhealthy ones.
In my opinion, this was the greatest miracle Jesus ever performed, more so than healing or calming the sea or even raising Lazarus from the grave. He miraculously knew how to love every person he met, how to engage them and meet their needs, while at the same time keeping his own needs in check. It’s a divine balance that’s asked of us.
One of the books I read in seminary said something I’ll never forget: Love is allowing yourself to be changed by another. Now before you get all “I should never have to change who I am for love” – that’s not what I’m saying. Love changes you, whether you want it to or not. Think about it – how your parents and siblings shaped and changed you. How your children forced you to grow in ways you didn’t expect. How your partner or spouse, for better or for worse, helped make you into the person you are today. Real love means real relationship – not just with the ones you like, but also the ones you fear. It’s risky and it’s dangerous because every relationship you create – especially the one you create with your enemy – will change you.
How wonderful faith we have been given – to be loved by a God who is willing to be changed by us simply by being in relationship with us, just as we hope to be changed as well.
After that workshop, we made a fundamental change to Project Burning Bush, away from the conventional wisdom of a world that wants edgy youth programming: we chose to love our students. We started by trusting them. The classes and mission projects were no longer the curriculum. We cut all the programming in half and filled it with unstructured time so that the curriculum became the space in between, so that we could make room for reflection to happen and for relationships to grow. In this way our students learned how to discern their call – by quiet, by playing, by conversation. We left plenty of time for rest, because teens need it.
We changed how we staffed PBB. My staff didn’t need to know games or activities – the kids would bring that. They didn’t need years of youth experience. I needed only one thing from them – that they open their hearts up enough to be changed by a bunch of teenagers who were looking for their purpose in life.
We still had rules, of course. All communities must have boundaries because sometimes we become afraid and forget how to love. We need a safety net. There was a curfew. No violence or weapons. No drugs or alcohol. Everyone had to participate. No boy/girl action in the rooms. We called that purpling – blue & pink make purple. No purpling. The students made the rest of the rules – and they usually came up with the better ways to make the program safe, fun, and inclusive.
Two hundred and fifty kids came through Project Burning Bush in the 12 years it was offered at Union. I’m still in touch with almost every one of them. Many come to visit, or I see them at conferences or seminaries or weddings. I still remember what their dreams were and what they were fighting on the inside and fighting on the outside when they showed up at the seminary. I remember how they lit up when they were doing something they loved. That one shift away from fear and toward love and trust made all the difference in the world. It made a difference to me. Because of them I am changed forever.
When I talk to the students who do come back to visit, they tell me that the grounds at Union are magic. That’s how they remember it – magic. I don’t tell them that each year we had to fight to keep the unstructured space in the program, because the advisory committee was afraid of empty space. I don’t tell them that most of the staff still didn’t want teenagers on the campus or in the chapels because they were afraid of what those kids might do. Nor do I tell them that after 12 years of a successful program with many of our students going into ministry, that fear got the best of the administration and the funding dried up.
I choose to be glad it happened, rather than sorry it’s over. I let them remember it as magic because it was. All we did was carve space into the schedule and into our hearts for God to create something amazing. We made the space, God brought the magic.
This year for Lent, rather than giving up something, why not try creating something instead? Make the space. Find your fear. Open yourself to someone who makes you uncomfortable. God will bring the magic, I promise. It’s the same magic that turns enemies into friends, revenge into forgiveness, and fear into courage. It’s the same magic that creates light from darkness and brings resurrection from death. It’s the harsh and dreadful thing – but it is the only answer.
So glad I read this today. Thank you, Terry.
I’m just reading this entry now, and I’m so glad you shared this story. I’m even more glad that you and your team for “PBB” were brave enough to adjust the plan and continue the project after a difficult first year. The time I spent with Project in 2004 (and the reunion year in 2005) was some of the most meaningful time I could have spent during my teenage years, and all because of the love I experienced. Truth, I was totally at war with my brain and my spirit about “What do I do? Who do I become? What should I learn?” (and truth, I still don’t have most of that figured out), but my heart was just where it needed to be–I got to spend time with people who became some of my closest friends. The love and support I received through Project is with me forever, and that means so much to me. THANK YOU, Terry, for that opportunity and that gift.