COMMENTARY: When Mission Is a Matter of Perspective

c. 2000 Religion News Service (Tom Ehrich is a writer and computer consultant, managing large-scale database implementations. An Episcopal priest, he lives in Durham, N.C.) (UNDATED) When my wife asks me to swing by the public library to return some books, I have to ask for directions. That seems strange to me. No, not because […]

c. 2000 Religion News Service

(Tom Ehrich is a writer and computer consultant, managing large-scale database implementations. An Episcopal priest, he lives in Durham, N.C.)

(UNDATED) When my wife asks me to swing by the public library to return some books, I have to ask for directions.


That seems strange to me. No, not because of some stereotype about men asking for directions, but because anywhere we have lived, the library is one of the first locations I have learned.

But when I went to the local branch last year to apply for a card, I was treated like one who defiles. “Where is your proof of residence?” the librarian asked curtly. I just moved here, I told her. She scowled and muttered that they would mail me a card _ at the address she didn’t believe I had _ but that I would need to verify residence before I could use it.

That reception galled me. For one thing, I didn’t need this reminder that I was a stranger in town. I didn’t appreciate being received as a potential thief of books.

But mostly, I recoiled at this protective attitude toward a resource that should be dispensed lavishly. The point of public libraries is to get books into public hands, not to house books in a safe place.

I am not surprised, therefore, to find the library closed on a Sunday _ one of two days that most working people and children could use it.

Mission, it seems, is a matter of perspective.

Hungry people want food, whereas those who serve food to them often want signs of gratitude. The homeless want shelter, whereas those who provide shelter often want an evangelistic opportunity. Battered women want safety, whereas those who care for them often want an opening to teach their own values: self-defense, self-respect and self-assertiveness. Readers want books, whereas libraries often see their mission as protecting an invaluable resource.

Both sides of this “mission gap” have merit. But they clearly are different. In an ideal world, each would bend to the other. But the needy tend to have the greater flexibility. So the hungry learn to be lavish in their thanks. The homeless learn to endure prayer circles before bed. The abused learn to endure instruction, no matter how condescending its tone. And book-borrowers learn to obey the rules.


In the religious world of Jesus’ day _ a world not unlike our own _ the religious establishment saw their mission as preserving tradition. If the ancient tradition said to scour the pots a certain way, then their job was to monitor pot-scouring and to promote good practice. If they saw violations of tradition, they pounced. They didn’t seek to understand what need lay behind the variance.

When the Pharisees and scribes asked Jesus to explain why his disciples didn’t wash their hands before eating, they weren’t seeking insight. They were like the librarian demanding proof of worthiness.

Jesus saw people’s needs and simply gave to them. No expectation of response, no tit-for-tat, no counting the cost, no counting the house. He had no concern for protocol, policies or procedures. It is so ironic that we have built a maze of traditions and protocols in the name of one who had no use for them.

My hunch is that we who see ourselves, on balance, as givers of charity and dispensers of mercy might benefit from spending time in the one-down position of those who need charity and beg for mercy. We might then pay less attention to traditions and more to persons. Traditions, we might discover, are a luxury of the comfortable, not a loving response to desperation.

Having known the agony of being a stranger, we might be more attentive to strangers. Having known hunger, we might simply dispense food. Having known abuse, we might bind wounds and skip the lectures. Having known loneliness, we might listen.

Having sat in a wheelchair or endured off-color jokes, we might be less scornful of “political correctness.” Having tasted the acid of bigotry or seen our dreams crushed beneath a heavier boot, we might hear faint calls to justice.


Having lost, we might recognize the fellowship of saints as a gathering of outcasts and losers _ not the next cadre of winners, not the next owners of comfortable seats. We would teach love and compassion, not ritual pot-scouring.

KRE END EHRICH

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