The Art of Gratuitous Praise -- FPC sermon excerpt

Are you feeling blue? Unloved? Unappreciated?

Maybe no one can see your inner qualities. Maybe you need to take a trip to downtown Washington, not just to see the cherry blossoms but to hear some personal affirmations. If you walk down a particular stretch of 14th Street, you might be surprised to hear the sound of a chime, followed by a reassuring voice, saying:

“You help create a brighter future.”

I’m not kidding. I read in The Washington Post (July 21, 2007) about the installation of bright red-and-white striped boxes on the streets of DC. They have speakers at eye level and a grid of ventilation holes in their sides. The boxes speak to you as you pass by, and a small sign explains what they are: “The Compliment Machine.”

Ding! “People are drawn to your positive energy.”

Ding! “You don’t hate the player or the game.”

Hey, if the machine says it, it must be true. The high-tech box certainly looks as though it knows what it is talking about.

The Compliment Machine is a creation of Tom Greaves, a visual artist who lives on Capitol Hill. It is part of a public art project that runs along 14th Street between P and V streets. You might call it “the art of gratuitous praise” — praise that is free and complimentary, maybe even unwarranted and uncalled for.

But who knows? Maybe this unjustified praise can have a positive effect. Perhaps a person who hears the voice of The Compliment Machine will actually be inspired to “help create a brighter future.” Could be that a passerby will actually use her “positive energy” for something constructive, after being complimented by the box.

You never know what kind of effect a few good words will have.

The apostle Paul is practicing the art of gratuitous praise when he stands in front of the Areopagus in the city of Athens and says, “Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way” (Acts 17:22). He is speaking in a very public place, the Areopagus — which had functioned as a homicide court for the city. He is addressing a crowd containing Epicurean and Stoic philosophers — not a congregation of devout Jews or Christians. So Paul is out in public, in front of a potentially hostile crowd, and he begins with a compliment, “Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way.”

This may be a line of gratuitous praise, completely free and complimentary. But I don’t believe that his compliment is unwarranted or uncalled for. Paul is serious when he says these words, because he goes on to say, “For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you” (vv. 22-23).

Paul makes a connection with the people of Athens, by focusing on an altar they had erected to an unknown god. Paul does not criticize their attempts at worship, or condemn them for believing in a variety of gods — instead, he says, “What you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.”

Massive Void -- FPC sermon excerpt

Astronomers have found an enormous empty place in the universe. A massive void.

This hole is gigantic, nearly a billion light-years across. Inside it there are no planets, no stars, no galaxies, no gases. It’s just a huge cold spot.

A whole lotta nothing.

I’ve always enjoyed looking up at the stars, an interest I inherited from my father, a NASA scientist. And it has always stretched and even boggled my mind to think of the incredible distances between stars in the sky. You might be aware that a light-year is a unit of distance — it’s the distance that light can travel in one year. One light-year equals about 6 trillion miles. Quite a distance.

So how far away are the stars in the sky? Our nearest neighbor is a star called Proxima Centauri. It’s about four light-years away. 25 trillion miles.

And how about that massive void, that huge cold spot in the sky? It’s between six and 10 billion light-years away from us, and it is nearly a billion light-years across. My tiny head cannot even begin to comprehend a hole that gigantic. It’s been described as a big bubble in the cosmic pancake batter.

A massive void. No planets, no stars, no galaxies, no gasses. Absolutely nothing.

On Easter morning, Mary Magdalene encountered a massive void when she arrived at the tomb, one that was as mind-boggling as anything at the edge of the universe. John tells us that it was still dark when she arrived and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb, “so she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said, ‘They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!’” (John 20:2).

Can you imagine how empty Mary is feeling at this point? She has already suffered the crucifixion of her friend and teacher Jesus, and is mourning his death deeply. Now she goes to his tomb to pay her respects, and what does she find? Nothing. A huge cold spot.

She makes the logical assumption that his body has been stolen, and reports this crime to Simon Peter and another disciple. The two men run to the tomb, and the second disciple outruns Peter, reaches the tomb, bends down to look in — he sees nothing but “the linen wrappings lying there” (v. 5). Then Peter arrives and barges into the tomb, spotting the linen wrappings and also “the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself” (v. 7).

The evidence before them is not consistent with a grave robbery, since robbers would have taken the wrappings along with the body. But the disciples cannot imagine that Jesus has been raised — John tells us that “they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead” (v. 9). So they head home, feeling empty.

We know what this feels like, don’t we? Each of us, at some time in life, comes face to face with a massive void.

- It happens when you give your heart to someone, and they don’t accept the gift.
- It happens when you learn a sport, practice hard, and still don’t make the team.
- It happens when you study and pursue a profession, only to find you hate your work.
- It happens when you create something beautiful, and discover that no one’s interested.
- It happens when you try to resist a temptation, but mess up again and again.
- It happens when you jump to a new job, then lose it in a downsizing.
- It happens when you put money into a home, only to see your equity disappear.
- It happens when you retire from a long career, and wake up with nothing to do.
- It happens when you lose a spouse to cancer, and find yourself all alone in the world.

These are huge cold spots. Massive voids.

Feeling empty, Mary does what any of us would do — she stands weeping outside the tomb (v. 11). Her world feels like a billion light-years of empty space. But it is to Mary’s credit that she takes the time to grieve. Because Mary has stayed beside the tomb, instead of rushing home like the two men, she puts herself in a position to discover something truly amazing.

Legos and Bones -- FPC sermon excerpt

Serious play.

That’s what a number of executives are doing these days, and it has nothing to do with their golf games. Instead, they are playing at work, in an attempt to pull their corporations out of slumps and scandals. They are being assisted in this exercise by Lego, the Danish maker of colored plastic building blocks.

What Lego consultants provide, for a fee of $7,000, is a two-day workshop in which plastic bricks are used to build “metaphorical abstractions” of various business challenges.

Yes, metaphorical abstractions. These are Lego creations that capture a problem or a situation, and illustrate it in a clear and creative way.

For example, if your boss is crushing the spirits of everyone in your company, maybe your Lego creation would be an enormous boss figure smashing a collection of tiny people. That’s a picture of what is happening in your workplace. It’s a simple picture, yes — but since the workshop costs $7,000, it has to be called a “metaphorical abstraction.”

According to The Economist magazine (July 7, 2007), these workshops are now available in 25 countries, and business is booming. The results are revealing, but they can definitely be embarrassing — especially for senior managers. One chief executive was portrayed as so fat that he blocked a hallway, suggesting that his actions were clogging up the company. A firm with rotten customer relations was modeled as a fort under siege. And an overbearing boss depicted his staff as soldiers who were heading into battle.

These Lego creations can provide a picture of an organization that people have trouble seeing in any other way. This kind of serious play unlocks understandings that might remain hidden in normal business meetings.

Legos show the bare bones of a difficult situation, one that can be understood and then improved.

The prophet Ezekiel was called by God to do some serious play when the people of Israel were trapped in exile in Babylon. They were far from home, feeling hopeless and lost, dried up and depressed. In the middle of this spirit-draining situation, the hand of the Lord comes upon Ezekiel and gives him a vision of a valley full of bones.

Dry bones. Bleached bones. Dead, disgusting, disorganized, disconnected and desiccated bones. Bones that are completely lifeless, but might still be able to illustrate something important.

Legos and bones.

“Mortal, can these bones live?” God asks the prophet (Ezekiel 37:3).

You can imagine that there is complete silence at this point, with Ezekiel wondering, “Is this a trick question, or what?” Dry, dead, disconnected, desiccated bones — can they live? It would be like looking at a tub of Legos, and asking if these building blocks can come to life.

But Ezekiel knows the unlimited and unpredictable power of the one Lord God, so he’s not going to blurt out the first thing that comes to mind. He says, quite diplomatically, “O Lord God, you know” (v. 3).

“Prophesy to these bones,” commands the Lord; “say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the Lord” (vv. 4-6).