Strangled in the Cradle?

Strangled in the cradle?

Winston Churchill famously said that the strangling of Bolshevism at its birth would have been a blessing to the human race. I can’t but agree. But I allude to his saying because it brings to mind another saying, one used by pediatricians in reference to neonates. The saying is “It’s hard to kill a baby, but easy to harm one.” If we compare the two sayings it’s unfortunately evident that the actual death of an infant generally requires either callous disregard or a deliberate act, but in dealing with a being who cannot advocate for himself or herself it becomes more likely that—in the absence of the direct feedback of speech—an intervention can cause harm. And let’s not forget what any experienced physician or nurse will testify to: If a mother says about her own child “He ain’t right”, pay attention.

I use these observations about little patients because they make me think about ministry. Ministry is only such if it has been discerned to be godly, both in the sense of being undertaken in furtherance of God’s will and in the sense that those engaged in the ministry are those called to it. There’s a difference, for example, between identifying an unmet ministry need and identifying that I am called to it. I cannot even begin to explore a possible call unless others have discerned in me the spiritual gifts necessary to engage in the identified ministry. To take a banal example, most church members have experienced the person who feels called to sing in the choir but can’t carry a tune in a bucket.

Once we have determined that we are called to a ministry, and that the necessary spiritual gifts can be found in those called, we now face the challenge of what might strangle the ministry in the cradle. Deliberate opposition does occur. For example, in the midst of the epidemic of opioid abuse which surrounded a downtown parish, I once mused aloud that we should explore how to better reach the substance abusers in our community. My musing was greeted by the reaction of two lay leaders who opined that if we could provide the abusers with enough drugs—perhaps even finding a supply of fentanyl—they would quickly be dead and the “problem” would be gone. They were not attempting to make light of a problem. They were voicing a real disregard, on that could “write off” those who had strayed in such ways as to make themselves “an issue”. One can think, as well, of all those who—in promoting “choice”—skip right over the reality that the killing of a baby in utero is a deliberate act.

Let’s assume that a ministry is not strangled in the cradle. Let’s assume that we now have a live baby. What must we do with a live baby? Nurture him or her; provide care while paying closest attention to an imperfect feedback mechanism. Infants are easy to harm because they are delicate. They can cry, certainly, but they can’t communicate the substance of a complaint, and they can’t tell us how we might improve what we are doing in care.

Pediatricians have the advantage of a lot of objective measures. They can quantify percentiles of weight and height by age. They can receive almost immediate feedback on measures like blood oxygenation, blood pressure, temperature and respiratory and heart rates. They can use these measures along with their own powers of clinical observation. For example, if a sick infant stops crying this in itself is an important sign that will raise the level of concern generated by any significant change in an objective measure.

Like the care of infants, the care of ministries requires the closest observation (and often observation that is checked by an outside observer, not one intimately involved in the day-to-day care). The care of ministries involves some objective data of the kind first enunciated by Gamaliel in Acts, who advised the Council about Peter and James and John:

... keep away from these men and let them alone; for if this plan or this undertaking is of men, it will fail; but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them. You might even be found opposing God! (Acts 5.38—29)

The Gamaliel Test presupposes, of course, that there is real evidence of what a ministry accomplishes. And it’s in looking at measures that we begin to discern the need to ensure that in providing care we proclaim the Good News of God in Christ Jesus. Paul, in writing to the church in Corinth, makes clear that the gifts of the Spirit are not to be claimed by any individual to allow himself or herself to be more “spiritual”. He writes: “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good” (1 Cor. 12.7). The gifts of the Spirit are offered to build up the body of the Church and to proclaim that Jesus is Lord. And so any evaluation of ministry must rely on metrics (e.g., number of people reached), but always in the context of the proclamation of the Good News. To focus on how many people are fed, for example, without ensuring that the feeding is always accompanied by a sharing of the Gospel, is to “do harm to the baby”.

And let’s return to that baby. Babies are blessings. They are beautiful. Any heart not steeped in evil, not anaesthetized by habitual sin, will encounter a baby and react with at least an inward smile (at least until the baby puts forth something on your shoulder!) They are blessings in how they literally embody new life, how they embody the image and likeness of God. But the feedback the provide to our care is at best indirect. They may cry if you make a scary face or too loud a noise, but they won’t say something like “Why are you being a jerk?” But you can rely on the parent of a baby to provide direct and forceful feedback if you are making scary faces and loud noises. The parent will name the harm and do something about it! And so it is with ministry, provided that we recognize that the parent of all ministry is the Holy Spirit, and that when our hearts and ears are tuned to the feedback we receive as the Church we can discern if we are advancing real mission or only fiddling about with good works. Once the ministry grows feedback can be discerned to evolve from mouths fed (for example) to lives changed; changed in how those who have been served in ministry proclaim Jesus as Lord.