A friend posted on Facebook this morning that she is going to see a production of Shakespeare's "Macbeth." That reminded me of a favorite line from that play, where Lady M, lobbying hard for regicide, sneers at her husband for "letting 'I dare not' wait upon 'I would,/Like the poor cat i' the adage." Nobody is quite sure what proverb the Bard invokes, but it evidently has to do with a feline who wanted to scoop a fish from a pond but feared wetting its paws. P. G. Woodehouse's character Bertie Wooster finds the line both fascinating and incomprehensible, and mistakenly believes his butler invented it, but basically grasps that it has to do with foregoing a potentially good action out of concern for collateral damage.
All of this is on my mind as we prepare to leave on our short-term mission trip this Sunday. I'm going because I figure it'll score points with Jesus but I'm not convinced that, on balance, I'll end up running in the black. Mark William Radecke, a professor of religion at Susquehanna Univeristy in Selinsgrove, PA, recently published an excellent article outlining eleven of what he calls "the worst practices" of Temporary Carey mission work. You can read the whole article at www.christiancentury.org/article.lasso?id=8440, but I'll summarize and comment here.
1. Here to ogle: He seems to mean that it's a good idea to get to know people and a bad idea to photograph them for your blog. Well, we're going up north and I confess that watching the Yankees go about their native handicrafts always fascinates me. Seriously, though - I'm not very good at getting to know people in my own culture. I would truly appreciate prayer that I would have - and take - the opportunity to develop relationships.
2. It's all about me: The idea here appears to be that whether I enjoy myself, or even feel the trip has been "productive" is not the point. Radecke cautions against taking an interest in people "only insofar as they can help us achieve something else - which, too often, is feeling good about ourselves and what we're doing." Or, perhaps, hoping we cajole Jesus into feeling that way.
3. Changing the mission trip location each year: Radecke seems to feel that this reduces the opportunity for long-term relationships and increases the touristy mentality of short-term mission work. In other words, "Indiana wants me/Lord I can't go back there." I think for me the greater danger is simply not having a location next year, figuring I've fulfilled the mission trip requirement on my eternal degree plan.
4. Ethnocentrism: I learned that one in Sociology 101 at Glendale Community College. It means thinking other people's way of doing things is wrong because it is different from yours. (Did you know that New Yorkers put milk in your coffee unless you specifically ask them NOT to?) I've always loved the passage in C. S. Lewis' Screwtape Letters where the demonic Yoda tells his protege that he can damage a very devout young woman's faith by working on her unexamined assumption that "the kind of fish-knives used in her father's house were the proper or normal or 'real'kind, while those of the neighbouring families were 'not real fish-knives' at all." This kind of thing is especially hard for Texans, whose culture is, of course, base-line for Western civilization. Pray for me; I'll do my best.
5. Relativism: This is an over-correction for ethnocentrism and is, Radecke points out, a subtle way of not taking another culture seriously. Fortunately, he admits that "two weeks is far too short to understand another society's complexities," and I get only half that time. So I probably won't have to do any heavy rebuking.
6. Engineer's syndrome: This is my term, not Radecke's, but I think I've got it right. It means immediately setting about "fixing" some problem in the local culture. I'm not much good at fixing stuff so this one worries me less.
7. I have, you need: This is the idea of swooping down like the Great White Father and providing food, shelter, etc. in a way that reduce the dignity and undermines the independence of the recipients. I think we're mostly doing VBS type stuff, so unless you count pipe cleaners, we probably won't face this one.
8. Let's see some results: This is the idea of wanting to "finish" something, whereas good mission work takes years. We're not on a building project (the example Radecke uses), but there is that itch to have some conversions I can report back home. I worry about what C. S. Lewis calls "the missionary's holy desire to save souls" that, he points out "has not always been kept quite distinct from arrogant desire, the busybody's itch, to (as he calls it) 'civilize' the (as he calls them) 'natives.'"
9. Where did you go to grad school?: Radecke writes that "it is certainly appropriate to draw on the expertise of local professors, pastors and others with advanced degrees," but points out that Temporary Careys should be more about learning than teaching. Bottom line: pray that I can keep my big mouth shut. (I'm only taking a Spanish Bible, which should limit my compulsion to launch into lectures since, at best, I rank as about a moderately bright seventh-grader in that language.)
10. Carbon footprints in the sand: Self-explanatory. We're flying to Chicago then driving five hours to Ft. Wayne, then doing the whole thing in reverse at the end of the week. Will my work be worth its weight in cow-farts?
11. They'll figure it out: This refers to lack of training. I'm less worried here because one of our students, Jena Pair, is leading the trip. Jena is a veteran of multiple Temporary Carey adventures and has already held several meetings with us to deal with just these sorts of issues. Also, my colleague Joe Rangel, who holds a PhD in cross-cultural studies, is helping. In fact, the other member of our team, Sherman Lindley, also an SCS student, has gone on many mission trips with the Baptist Student Ministries. The only real rookie is the undersigned, and I have high hopes that my three colleagues can keep me on point.
When I add it all up, I'm rather inclined, cat-wise, to keep my paws dry, figuring that the fish aren't worth the wetting and the game's not worth the candle. Jesus could tote up my balance sheet at the end of the week and decide I've gone deeper than ever in debt to his grace.
And perhaps - just perhaps - that's the whole purpose of this trip for me: to learn that, do what I will, I'll end up being saved by grace. My floundering romps through ministry may, when the last second ticks off the shot-clock, prove to have been largely arranged by the Trinity for my own amusement. Christ's blood will, it may turn out, have payed not only for my sins but for my good works. Oh, Romans 8.28 has not been revoked and doubtless the Lord will advance the kingdom somehow through my actions - the way a skillful mechanic can use a bent paperclip to fix an engine. But that will be his doing and to his glory. My one shot of any real accomplishment this week, it just may transpire, will be to learn that I can't accomplish anything.
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