I still remember
the time my grandfather had wanted me to learn how to change the oil in the family
car (one of his values was learning to do-it-yourself and save a few bucks). He’d put the first of his three vehicles in
the garage, had out all the tools, and said I should start by taking out the
bolt on the bottom of the oil pan.
And let’s be
clear, I HAD NOT been the one who thought this whole “learning to change the
oil thing” was a good idea. Working with
tools and cars—or both—was never my idea of a good time; nor did I ever think
it was one of my gifts. No matter, as
this was one of those things “I should learn” and then if I wanted, I could do
it myself, right?
Can you tell I
would have much rather been fishing?
Oh, I got the bolt
out of the oil pan, just at the moment my grandfather realized he’d forgotten
the container to catch the used oil!
So not 10 minutes
into this helpful life-lesson it wasn’t going well! And now, Grandpa was asking me—the novice—how
we might clean up the oil soaking into the floor of his garage! What I wanted to say was, “I told you this
wasn’t the best of ideas.”
To his credit,
Grandpa liked solving problems; so, for the rest of the day WE “puzzled” over
the possible solutions to the problem my grandfather’s lesson had created. To my detriment, I thought I had better
things to do with my summer vacation.
But what I
remember from that two weeks of summer vacation at my grandparents’ house was
my grandfather’s sage advice: “If you don’t make mistakes, you can’t learn
anything!”
Not long ago, this
picture and subtitle hit my Facebook feed:
 |
| Errar es nuestro regalo mas divino."--"To make mistakes is our most divine gift." |
A dog, making a
leap, but appearing not quite on target—and we are so certain, aren’t we, that
the tire must be the correct, most efficacious, clearly successful path?
Even as we cannot
see what is just outside the frame—another tire, another target, another
instruction? How do we know this is, in
fact, a mistake—an error? Or maybe these
are the questions to ask as if to make it seem this is not a mistake—because
we’re fearful that mistakes are bad!
We are fearful that mistakes are
bad. We trust the old Biblical proverb
that appears in various forms, paraphrased as—“do good and you shall live, do
badly and you shall perish.”
Walter
Brueggemann, identifies this as our propensity to trust a “deeds-consequences”
construct that [ultimately] produces a graceless world[i]. He argues that “You reap what you sow” is the
construct that frightens people into a “moral life” where wrong living evokes
long-term punishment that is inescapable.
So we trust that we get what we deserve, or that people should receive
what we deem they deserve for their actions—ignoring the story of faith where
God promises none of us are treated as we deserve!
While we believe
God pardons, forgives, and redeems, still—we are stingy about our willingness
to allow God to help us!
Christian
faithfulness must trust somewhere along the way that it isn’t just about
maintaining perfection according to the Law, doesn’t it? Christian faithfulness also means entrusting
God—who loves, pardons, forgives, and redeems us—and our mistakes, too—doesn’t
it?
So my
grandfather’s lesson keeps coming back to me, over and over. I’m being encouraged (more and more
frequently) to “experiment” as a part of my role as teaching elder/pastor. Experimentation is a hard task-mistress for
us Presbyterians; our particular form of government was created with checks and
balances and carefully prescribed structures meant to commend each little jot
and tittle of church life.
Presbyterians, who prefer “decently and in order,” have too often created
a barren wasteland for experimentation. We
believe we’ve not only done it before, but we’ve done it well—with great
success, even! No need to try it another
way—to trust God to redeem, reclaim, recreate, with us.
Yet not long ago,
I wrote down for the second or third time as a participant in a presentation
about leading “change” in the life of the Church—“It’s like seeking answers to
the questions you don’t even know how to ask yet.” And I was mesmerized once more by the promise
of trying and failing well—by learning.
More and more, colleagues and congregations are sharing news of a new
motto in their practices as leaders and congregations: “fail miserably—and
learn from it!” Perhaps it’s a lot like
“sin boldly” was for Martin Luther.
Perhaps this
should be more familiar to us than we think, since we espouse to be a church
called to be “reformed and always reforming.”
How can we demonstrate our trust in God’s willingness to write our story
inclusive of mistakes? How can we accept
failure and mistakes as a verdant way forward?
A sustaining gift of God who walks with us, helping us always to find
our true home.
When was your last
big failure? --err, when was the last
time you had a chance to learn something helpful, to learn something fruitful
for God’s kingdom?
© Rev. David Stipp-Bethune; Teaching Elder and
Pastor, The Presbyterian Church of Llanerch, Havertown, Pennsylvania
[i]
Walter Brueggemann, “The Impossible Possibility of Forgivenss” Journal
for Preachers Volume XXXVIII, Number 4, Pentecost 2015
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