Discerners or Doers?

Every now and then a certain word will crop up in ecclesiastical jargon that will outdo its usefulness and should be retired. I recall in the 90’s when church leaders were seeking the “cutting edge” of anything that might have enough hutzpah to coax a few new members into the fold. I was sitting next to an elderly friend at a Synod meeting where “cutting edge” was the clarion call for whatever when my friend nudged me and whispered “the cutting edge for the church should be gerontology.” After a few years of overuse, the cutting edge syndrome became excruciatingly dull and useless.

The less cutting edge word that has emerged in the past few years is “discerning”, as in “discerning God’s will”. I can’t figure out the origin of that word, but disciples of all stripes are overusing it as if Christendom itself will fall if not engaged in discerning something all the time. I have finally figured out that the word is a metaphorical filibuster for not deciding right now what God has in mind for us, which I find a bit off-putting since it’s as clear as the day is long what God wants of us.

Early in my career as a resident theologian, my job was to explain God to the folk in the flock who were yearning to discern the same. Rev. Will Campbell showed up at my office one day, wanting to know how things were going. “Not too well, Campbell. I am giving it all I’ve got to reconcile the races here in the early 70’s in middle of Mississippi.” He then went on to explain to me that it was not my job to reconcile the races; God had done that, and my job was to make the announcement. No need to discern anymore or argue with that.

Rev. Campbell was asked by the University of Florida to participate in a debate on the death penalty. The person in favor of the penalty took his allotted time explaining why he thought state-sponsored killing was OK. Will got up and simply said he was against the death penalty because he thought it was tacky and sat down. The leader asked if he’d like to explain his answer, he replied that people could look up “tacky” in their dictionary: not having or exhibiting good taste: marked by lack of style…

In our everlasting debate about gun control in this country, Christians are up in arms trying to discern God’s will on this issue. Rather than argue which gun Jesus would have used to defend himself and his disciples to prevent his crucifixion, what if we recalled God’s commandment about not killing each other in the first place? When Jesus taught us all to love our neighbors, a certain lawyer asked a very persnickety question: “Well, Jesus, just who is my neighbor?” Hearing an undertone of sarcasm in the question, Jesus used a simple story to make his point that someone outside the faith [a Samaritan] saw the need and did the deed.

“Which of these three was the neighbor?” Jesus asked the deceptively discerning lawyer.

“The one who showed mercy,” was his only and obvious reply.

“Bingo! You have discerned rightly, but now you must go and do likewise.” Otherwise, it would be tacky to have been a discerning disciple who didn’t do “diddly-squat” — there’s a cutting edge term for the church to mull [to consider at length; ponder]. Or how about “fish or cut bait” for Heaven’s sake?