Hug & Click
 

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week,

 and the doors of the house where the disciples had met

were locked for fear of the Jews,

 Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.”

(John 20:19)

 

A sermon by Siegfried S. Johnson on the Second Sunday of Easter, April 15, 2007

 

 

When I was a boy I don’t recall if the doors of our house on 33^rd Avenue in Pine Bluff even had locks.  I’m sure they must have, but when I think of the doors of my childhood home, I think, not of locks, but of screen doors constantly fanning back and forth with children running free, roaming with parental consent within the recognized boundaries of the neighborhood.  Locks just didn’t seem to play a major role.  Oh, I suppose locks were a parental concern, but if so they functioned only at night, after we three boys had said our nighttime prayers.  “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep.  And if I die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.”   That prayer is all the security this little boy needed.   

 

It’s different these days.  To go home now, as I did for mom’s birthday earlier this week, is to be supremely lock-conscious.  Each trip follows a similar Ritual of Arrival.   As I stand outside the door, mom calls to the back of the house, “Siegfried, he’s here,” as she fumbles with locks and deadbolts to allow me entrance.  And I no sooner enter than the clicking begins.  It’s Hug with one arm, Click with the other.  Hug and Click.  Hug and Click.   That’s the sound of arrival at the Johnson home these days. 

 

The doors, moreover, must remain locked, even if we are to be sitting in the den with doors under constant surveillance.  The idea, of course, is to keep the world out, but I wonder sometimes when I want to retrieve something from the car, having to stop and search for the hidden key to unlock the deadbolt, I wonder if we’re not keeping ourselves locked in as much as we’re keeping the world locked out.

 

Our lectionary brings us this week to consider that first Easter night, a night John describes in some detail, the disciples huddled behind a locked door “for fear of the Jews.”   Into that room Jesus enters to say, “Shalom alecheim” (Peace be with you).  That word of peace sets them loose from fear.  He broke into a locked room, so that they might break out, sent forth to the world with the resurrection message.

 

To be sure, in a post 9/11 world we are, necessarily so, a security-conscious people.  Yet the proneness to lock ourselves within our homes goes back beyond 9/11.  Short of a nuclear disaster, for which locks are useless, what fear do we really have that our homes will be violated by terrorism?  When it comes to terrorism, we think primarily of air travel, major buildings, and other public venues.  While terrorism without question affects us all profoundly, it holds little or no immediate threat to our private homes. 

 

So it’s clear that this security-consciousness goes back beyond 9/11, gradually emerging from a cultural shift rippling through the changing mores of the past forty years, the end result being that we lock ourselves up in gated neighborhoods, attach dead bolts to our homes, secret codes to our businesses and automobiles, and live with a wary eye, suspicion trumping trust.  Trust necessarily becomes secondary to guarding one’s own well-being.  As my good friend David Aarons in Jerusalem tells our pilgrims as we disembark the bus to enter the pick-pocket prone areas of the Via Dolorosa, “Trust, but tie up your camel,” a different of saying “Hug, and Click.”

 

We build our churches like fortresses, bolting down the pews in our sanctuaries to provide the impression of solidity, that in our lives we “have it all together.”  But our lives betray a different reality.  We are aware that everything in our lives is at risk -- our relationships, our health and that of our loved ones, our financial well-being, our peace of mind, our very world.  These things are hardly nailed down, but rather are susceptible to disruption at any time.  This knowledge prompts fear, a fear for which we seek sanctuary, craving to hear the Shalom Alecheim (Peace be with you) of our Lord.

 

I wonder in our relationships – whether at an individual level, the level of church and community, or even at national and international levels – if Hug and Click isn’t often a formula for living in fear?  To be sure, we need both, in proper balance.  We need the openness of embracing the Other, yet we must protect ourselves from potential harm.  Much pastoral counseling of troubled relationships can be summarized as seeking to discover a healthy balance between Hug and Click.   When is each appropriate?  When do we embrace a situation or a person, and when do we refrain from embracing, recognizing that a relationship is having a detrimental, harmful influence on us?

 

Likewise, Hug and Click often defines the church’s mission.  We wish to engage the world, to meet the world in a way that renders our message relevant.  Yet, isn’t it proper at times to resist the world, to be a Voice in the Wilderness, a Voice of Correction that calls the culture back from a wrong path?  Yes, even in church, it’s Hug and Click.

 

There was a second stream feeding the inspiration compelling me to write this sermon this week, the current issued of WIRED magazine, for many years one of my favorite journals.  It’s not a theological journal.  Far from it.  WIRED is attune to the accelerated pace of change in our world – whether in the realms of science and technology, or business and commerce.  This particular issue highlights the shifting mentality of major corporations.  Its feature article, by Clive Thompson, is titled, “The See-Through CEO.”  It begins, “Smart companies are sharing secrets with rivals, blogging about products in their pipeline, even admitting to their failures.  The name of this new game is Radical Transparency, and it’s sweeping boardrooms across the nation.”

 

Seems there’s been an abrupt reversal of corporate values.  In place of the locked doors of corporate secrecy, progressive firms are realizing that the Internet has made secrecy a thing of the past in corporate management.  Some suggest that during the most recent presidential election, bloggers literally changed the way the world functions, breaking down previously locked doors.  Documents which once would have been accepted by the public with little or no question were now exposed as fraudulent by the involvement of the many.  Writes Thompson, “Secrecy is dying.  It’s probably already dead.  In a world where Eli Lilly’s internal drug-development memos, Paris Hilton’s phonecam images, and Enron’s e-mails can be instantly forwarded across the planet – trying to hide something illicit, trying to hide anything, really – is an unwise gamble.”   Recent years have shown that such locked door policy-making can bring down everything from television news anchors to major corporations.   

 

Thompson concludes, “Now firms spill information in torrents, posting everything – internal memos and strategy goals, letting everyone from the top dog to the shop-floor workers blog publicly about what their firm is doing right, and wrong.”

 

Southwest Airlines is a good example of what Mr. Thompson is saying.  Last Spring Southwest set up what it called On-line Watercoolers, a blog where employees ranging from market executives to pilots to ticket agents post weekly entries about their jobs, what they like and dislike.  It was such a phenomenal success that CEO Gary Kelly posted asking for advice about whether Southwest should adopt the policy of assigning seats rather than the first-come first-seated policy for which the airlines has become known.  The Board of Directors was considering it, and rather than allowing the discussion to settle behind the closed and locked doors of the policy-makers, this See-Through CEO decided to go with Radical Transparency, receiving hundreds of responses which directed him to the decision to hold the course.

 

Which has me thinking about the church.  Don’t we also want to involve everyone “from top dog to shop-floor workers” (or, to use the analogy of Paul, the entirety of the Christ Body, from head to toes)?  We want the ideas and the involvement of a broader segment of the church, which we need to emerge from the plateau of growth First United Methodist Church reached years ago.  A church growing into the 350 to 500 range in weekly worship attendance, as our church did years ago, necessarily becomes Administration-led.  Church Growth experts call this size church a “Program Church,” and programs require Administration. 

 

It’s not uncommon for churches to plateau at this level, stalling before breaking the barrier into the 600 – 700 range.  I think we’re ready to take it to that level.  What I love about our church is that so many are involved.  We need more – more committed to worship and to ministry that takes us beyond ourselves, breaks us outside these doors.  We need a broader segment of people committed to communicate ideas and dreams and visions.  We want ownership, not by administration-laden apparatus, but a sense of ownership among the entire Christ Body in planning and dreaming our future. 

 

Though it hasn’t been talked about much, some of you have noted a change in our own Administration this January, and I’ve felt uniquely led to use this Sunday after Easter to talk about that change.  The Jeremiah Commission was established a couple of years ago with the excellent intent to vision the future of First United Methodist Church.  The name comes from Jeremiah 29:11, “For I know the plans I have for you.  Then are plans for good . . . to give you a future and a hope.”  What a great vision for the church! 

 

Yet somehow, whether fairly or unfairly, the Commission as it was set up came to be regarded by some as exclusive, top dog, if not outright secretive.  Perhaps some thought (and not always fairly, I think) of the Jeremiah Commission as Hug and Click, expending much energy in outreach (Hugging), yet somehow retreating to generate ideas behind Administratively-closed doors (Clicking) without much Radical Transparency.  Still, as a new pastor coming here in June, it was apparent that Jeremiah was doing some amazing things through the committed sacrifice of time and energy of its members, infusing the church with new energy and bold vision.  I was, and am, proud to be a part of that.

 

In January, however, I asked the Administrative Board to change some things.  I won’t be detailed here about the several changes approved, but I do want to mention a change in the name, to the Council on Team Ministries (COTM).  When you see COTM meetings in future announcements, it’s a blend of the Council on Ministries structure, and what began here as the Jeremiah Commission.  I wanted to be intentional about incorporating the Team structure which the Jeremiah Commission had successfully introduced, but using a moniker that would invite others to an awareness of the TEAM mentality – an openness of administration embracing the giftedness of a broader group who might rightly consider themselves a part of the TEAM.  Bottom line, we want, and we think we have, a management style that embraces your ideas, your dreams, your messages of what’s going right, wrong, and where we can be better in our mission of making disciples for Christ. 

 

Remember the See-Through CEO?  I think it’s important that we have a See-Through COTM – properly to balance when to Click (we are a church, after all, with core beliefs and core values and important traditions -- necessarily there are some things we cannot change), and when to Hug, when to embrace new vision and new outreach mechanisms.   The See-Through COTM must seek Radical Transparency, and through it hope to find untapped reservoirs of energy and creativity.

 

Folks, we serve a risen Savior, a Savior who breaks into those places into which our fears have locked us, setting us free, breaking us loose to go into the world with the Good News of the resurrected Christ, and the promise of living meaningful, fulfilled, abundant lives.  So I say to you what Jesus said to Thomas and the eleven, “Shalom Aleichem” (Peace be with you), and “Do not doubt, but believe.”

 

Sources and notes:

The See-Through CEO” is an article by Clive Thompson in WIRED (April 2007).  The by-line of the cover page says, “Fire the publicist.  Go off message.  Let all your employees blab and blog.  In the new world of radical transparency, the path to business success is clear.”  

 

The Southwest Airlines story is from the article, “Gimme a B!  Gimme an L!  Gimme an . . .”  by Fred Vogelstein, in the same issue of WIRED.  The by-line reads:  “When five Microsoft guys started posting internal videos for the world to see, many at the famously secretive company freaked.  And that was before thousands of in-house bloggers took to the keyboards.  A dispatch from the front lines of transparency.”