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Introductory
Note: This sermon was introduced by my Steeple Notes column
which was mailed to the congregation during the preceding
week. It gave helpful background for the sermon and prompted
congregational conversation. Since printed copies of the sermon
are circulated to persons with no on-going connection to First
Church and its sanctuary, I thought it might be helpful to
include these remarks here.
Dear First
Church Friends:
Last November
I was privileged to participate in a top-level seminar on
Business Ethics, held at the MSU Continuing Education Center
and keynoted by Bob Eaton of Chrysler Corporation. This program
targeted a regional cadre of clergy and business leaders and
was hosted by our church, in conjunction with the Ethics Center
of Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary and the Kellogg
School of Business at Northwestern University. My role was
to deliver a response to Mr. Eaton's address and then join
him on a panel that included Ken Vaux and Tony Brown, a pair
of professorial types from Garrett-Evangelical and Duke University.
All told, it was a "heady morning" amidst some wonderful
company.
I have
given much thought to the matter of "business ethics,"
both before and after the November event. I confess, however,
to a lack of clarity as to how my calling and this subject
overlay. Certainly, the word "ethics" is part of
my domain. I have studied it, preached it, and sought to practice
it. But the word "business" feels slightly foreign.
Is the church a business? And, if so, does that make me a
businessman?
Bishop
Edsel Ammons (my denominational leader, twice removed) was
fond of calling himself "a servant of the servants of
God." Which sounded good when he said it. And felt good
when I heard it. But he was also the chief executive of an
ecclesiastical corporation, with tangible assets running into
the millions.
I understand
the vocational schizophrenia that produces. For I, too, am
"a servant of the servants of God." But, as one
of you recently reminded me: "Ritter, you are also the
CEO of a rather significant corporation, and we expect that
you will not only understand that role, but fill it."
This reality was further confirmed by the recent campaign
report that indicates a 1998 pledge base (Operating Fund and
Home Fires) in excess of $1.5 million. Which is neither small
change ... nor a small enterprise.
I submit
that there has been a quietly smoldering antipathy between
some clergy and the business community for a number of years.
Furthermore, I am in possession of some documentation that
both supports and explains it. Personally speaking, I do not
share that antipathy. But I understand it. I know that many
business folk think that clergy are clueless as to how it
goes in their world. And I know that clergy feel similarly
misunderstood in ours. Threaded through the misunderstanding
is the suspicion that some clergy are, at the core, "closet
socialists," seeking to link the Kingdom of God with
a radical redistribution of wealth, while dismantling what
was once called "the Protestant Ethic and the Spirit
of Capitalism."
Sound
heavy? It needn't be. And given the appearance of a Business
Ethics class in this year's University of Life line-up,
perhaps this is a "ripe" moment for a sermon on
the subject. So I'll preach it Sunday under the title "Healing
the Business-Clergy Rift." My promise is to build more
bridges than I burn. I'll begin with Big Al's Hubcap City
and his search for a chaplain. But I won't rest until I have
also ranged from Genesis to Timothy, in hopes of stimulating
more than I provoke and inspiring more than I confound.
The
Sermon
Big Al
is into hubcaps. Thousands of them. They stand like stacks
of glittering chrome pancakes in the lot behind Big Al's office.
Fords to the left. Chevys to the right. Volvos, Saabs, Hondas,
and all those other foreign jobs in the middle. With "mags,"
"wires" and "baby moons" out back. The
makeshift sign hanging slightly askew over the door reads:
"Hubcap Heaven." "It's a good business to be
in," says Al, sucking on a Marlboro. "But I guess
I'm gonna have to hire me a chaplain. Because everybody who
comes through the door wants to tell me a story about how
they lost their missing hubcap."
Assuming
that Big Al is serious, I might just apply for the job. Not
because I am "into hubcaps," but because a chaplaincy
role would give me the opportunity to enter a foreign world
(business and industry), without having to surrender a familiar
identity (church and clergy). Except that Big Al might not
want me, once he got me. Because the chaplaincy of Hubcap
Heaven really wouldn't interest me unless I could impact some
of Al's business decisions as well as his religious ones.
For in addition to being a counselor to Al's customers (and
a lunch-time Bible study leader for Al's employees), I'd want
to talk about the matter of acquisitions ... how Big Al acquires
hubcaps in the first place ... given my suspicion that a whole
lot of used hubcaps are "hot" hubcaps.
What prompts
all of this? It could be the Auto Show. It could be the Business
Ethics Conference I was privileged to address last November.
Or it could be the Business Ethics Seminar several of us are
going to lead in this year's University of Life. But
it could also be a Wall Street Journal article entitled, "God
and Mammon: Viewing the Business-Clergy Rift" over which
I have ruminated for some time now.
This particular
story concerned a Hamline University ethics professor named
Walter Benjamin. The story interested me, given that I've
met Walter Benjamin (and quietly admire him). Walt believes
that business leaders and clergypersons in the United States
have seldom been more at odds philosophically. To plumb that
gulf, he mailed a detailed questionnaire to 100 chief executive
officers of Minnesota corporations and 100 leading Protestant
clergy of Minnesota congregations. He got replies from 75
percent of both groups ... a most remarkable return. Following
up the questionnaire, he invited the respondents to a forum
entitled "The Boardroom and the Pulpit," held at
Hamline's St. Paul campus.
Walter
Benjamin was surprised, once people began talking honestly,
to discover how little either group knew of the other group's
world. He also tapped a pool of antipathy and anger that surfaced
in each group's conversation about the other. To be sure,
both groups acknowledged that their views were stereotypes
which they were uncomfortable applying across the board. Most
business persons, while distrusting clergy in general, liked
their pastor. And most pastors, while speaking with disdain
about business people in general, felt a need to exempt the
fine, upstanding business types in their local churches. But
such things are typical. After all, most people who think
that the health care industry is a "rip off," nonetheless
love their family doctor. And all of us know that the terrible
things people say about lawyers are certainly not true of
the wonderful attorneys who worship at First Church.
But Walter
is right. There are a lot of stereotypes that overlay the
business-clergy dialogue. Many of them are far from healthy.
And more than a few of them involve issues of "turf protection."
Clergy
often start with the assumption that business people do not
know what ministers do ... and do not understand what ministry
is. Therefore, business people ought not be allowed to impose
dollars-and-cents thinking upon the "work" of the
church. Such clergy argue that "church work" has
little in common with other work ... ought not to be handled
like other work ... can never be measured like other work ... and
should never be entrusted (ultimately) to people who do other
work. The bottom line of this stereotype reads: "Don't
let accountants anywhere near the altar."
Clergy
also claim a posture of moral superiority, when they look
at business people and utter accusations like: "You're
only concern is with the bottom line." But there's a
reason for that. It concerns the fact that clergy don't like
being held accountable for "bottom lines." If the
end-of-year report shows a "bottom line" of members
lost, attendance down, and finances in the red, clergy would
prefer to be judged on "spiritual criteria" that
are harder to define and impossible to measure. And the inflection
given to the words "bottom line" suggest that clergy ... as
servants of God ... see themselves as guardians of some vaguely
defined "top line," several rungs up the Kingdom
ladder, where few business folk have ever climbed (or even
wanted to).
By contrast,
business folk often look at clergy and view us as naïve ... or,
in some cases, just plain dumb. They doubt we understand how
the world really works. Time and again, I hear people ask
of clergy in general: "What, if anything, do they teach
you in seminary about running a church? Are there any courses
in budgets or buildings ... .leadership or management?"
And the tone of the question implies that the expected answer
is "No." Which, sad to say, is the correct answer.
So it is assumed that, where the church's business is concerned
(or where any business is concerned), we clergy know nothing ... we
want to know nothing ... and we need to be protected against
learning too much of anything, lest we be shocked, corrupted
or exposed for the ignorant and idealistic dolts we really
are.
Mind you,
all of these are stereotypes. If I did not feel that you and
I were already beyond them, I wouldn't be comfortable raising
them. But such stereotypes are out there. And there is more
truth in them than any of us know.
As a clergy
type, I take pride in some small understanding of how the
world works. But as a Birmingham clergy type, I also take
a bit of "heat" from colleagues who fear that my
proximity to you has gotten me a little too "cozy"
with how the world works. Some colleagues suggest, without
actually saying it, that by coming to work in Birmingham I
have "joined the enemy." Which is neither true nor
helpful.
Strangely
enough, when I attended the first of these business ethics
seminars at Northwestern University (20 company presidents
and 20 senior ministers), we wrestled with some weighty cases
involving downsizing and corporate relocation. But it was
the company presidents who were optimistic that such matters
could be addressed ethically, while the majority of pastors
were terribly pessimistic that "moral talk" could
ever hold its own in the arena with "money talk."
That pessimism
bothered me then. And it bothers me now. Which is why I need
to stay, for a moment, with a group I know best ... namely,
the clergy ... to see what needs to happen from our side, if
better bridges are to be built.
Therefore,
I begin with a confession. I didn't think it up by myself.
It emerged from the seminar at Hamline. But I'm willing to
give it a wider audience. It concerns compensation. One of
the reasons that clergy mistrust the leaders of an economic
system that delivers so much material abundance, is because
most clergy do not share in that abundance. That's a fancy
way of saying that clergy distance themselves (philosophically)
from people with money, to the degree that they don't have
very much of it. Personally, I don't feel the weight of that
argument. But, then, I make a great deal of money. Still,
I understand the issue. And I think it is more central to
the business-clergy rift than anybody is willing to acknowledge.
It stands to reason that if you live in a society that rewards
performance with money ... and if you aren't making very much
money ... it becomes easier to criticize the values of that
society than to question your own performance, or admit that
the normal reward systems of the world do not apply to you.
Second,
let me also confess a woeful ignorance on the part of my profession,
as concerns issues relative to the world of business. Most
clergy know less about business than business leaders know
about the church. Walter Benjamin's on-going survey results
suggest that only 20 percent of us have ever taken a course
in economics.
Third,
moving from confession to bewilderment, I find it strange
that clergy are becoming increasingly critical of the business
world at a time when many corporations are becoming more,
rather than less, socially conscious. To be sure, much corporate
improvement is self-serving, especially in the light of increasing
government regulation. But it can be argued that never, in
its history, has the business community taken a greater concern
for the welfare of its employees ... . the welfare of its communities ... the
welfare of its environment ... and the principles by which
it manufactures and markets its goods.
To be
sure, horror stories abound. And bad guys (along with bad
girls) exist. But where discovered, they are admonished rather
than admired and excised (from the marketplace) rather than
excused. More than ever, there is an attitude in the business
world that ethical is successful ... that integrity increases
the likelihood of superiority ... and that the phrase "good
business" is no longer a spiritual oxymoron.
Still,
corporations cannot afford to "give away the store."
Especially public corporations. Bob Eaton said as much in
our business ethics seminar last November. As a CEO of a public
corporation, Bob noted that stockholders in Chrysler Corporation
expect to make money on their investment. And a lot of clergy
find that hard to understand. Which is why a closer look at
money (and the making of it) would seem to be in order.
"You
cannot serve God and mammon," said Jesus. He also said
that it would be easier to slip a camel through the night
depository slot of Comerica Bank than it would be to slip
a rich man into the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus is clearly pointing
to the corrupting potential of wealth. But Jesus is also talking
about the way wealth ought to fit into our priorities ... as
servant rather than master ... rather than whether a Christian
ought to have any (wealth) in the first place. At a stewardship
conference some years ago, a prominent executive sat through
several hours of discussion in stony silence. Then he blurted
out: "Why do you preachers always give me the feeling
that the only decision I could make that could remotely be
called `Christian' would be to sell my business and divide
the proceeds among the poor?"
But if
we believe that, aren't we saying that a business is always
a spiritual liability? I certainly don't agree with that.
Isn't "business" one potential way of expressing
the creativity that God has placed within us? "Be fruitful,"
said God. It was among God's last words on the subject of
creation. "Take this creative energy that has gone into
your making ... this creative energy that is contained within
your very nature ... and extend it ... expand it ... reflect
it ... multiply it. Honor creation by re-creating."
But how
do we do that? Some ways are more obvious than others. If
we make babies, we assume that God smiles and says: "Yes,
that's it." If we make music, art and poetry, we assume
that God smiles and says: "Yes, that's it." And
if we make scientific discoveries, achieve medical breakthroughs,
establish great universities and erect great libraries, we
assume that God smiles and says: "Yes, that's it."
But do we ever consider the possibility that divine creativity
can be reflected in the creation of a steel mill, a bank,
or a chain of car washes, causing to God to similarly smile
and say: "Yes, that's it."
But such
forms of creativity are important in the economy of the Kingdom.
Consider the beneficial role that even one good business can
play in the life of a needy community. More to the point,
consider the city of Albion. I spent four years there as a
student, along with 16 additional years as a trustee. All
told, I have been surveying the Albion landscape since 1958.
I have lamented the city's decline. And I have watched its
struggling attempts at restoration and renewal. The demise
of heavy manufacturing has stripped the city of Albion of
a foundry, a factory, a glassworks and a mill, swelling the
welfare rolls, and creating an underclass of the unskilled,
many of whom come from that category often identified as "persons
of color."
Albion
College is vitally concerned about the economic ethos of its
community. And while small steps are being taken, I think
it could be fairly said that one progressive corporation,
hiring at all levels of the skill spectrum, would be a greater
gift of God to the city of Albion than five new churches.
Were an Albion citizen to suddenly hit the lottery to the
tune of $50 million dollars and share with his minister the
thought that God was laying it on his heart divide that money
among Albion's poor, I hope his pastor would raise the possibility
that God might be laying it on his heart to start a corporation
instead.
To be
sure, one rich man in the Bible was told to "give it
all away," leaving us to assume that, for him, radical
surgery was the only way to cure a radical disease. But not
every wallet is sick unto death. And not every treatment plan
needs to begin with radical surgery (as in "giving it
all away"). Some "wallet woes" can be cured
by a rather simple change in focus. Which is why this letter
to Timothy advises the rich to "depend on God ... do good
deeds ... be liberal ... be generous" rather than mandating
voluntary poverty.
Finally,
I think that those of us in the clergy ought to send a message
to our business colleagues that we are prepared to take seriously
what life in the corporate trenches is like, the better that
we might offer informed counsel to Christians who are trying
to make a go of it in that arena.
Bill Muehl,
the seminary professor who taught me what little I know of
preaching, shares a telling anecdote. Arriving early for a
preaching assignment in an Episcopal church on the outskirts
of New York City, he accepted the rector's invitation to join
him in an adult education class prior to the 11:00 service.
The class consisted of a dozen or so men ... most of them prominent
in their fields ... gathered for the purpose of discussing
ethics in business. Which discussion, Muehl reported, was
remarkably dull. The ethical dilemmas raised were of the dimestore
variety, with the hour largely devoted to one man's concern
about what he should do about a couple of employees who were
"up to no good in the stockroom."
Muehl
sat through this charade, preached his sermon and drove back
to Yale. The following week, he received a note from one of
the men who had been present at the ethics class. One line
stood out. "I'd hate to have you think that these men
are as stupid as they must have sounded in the rector's class.
But the truth is, if we ever told that nice little man the
real ethical dilemmas we face every day at the office, it
would break his heart."
To whatever
degree that is true, we clergy need to send a message that
such honesty will not cause cardiac arrest. Then, if people
in business still will not trust us with the truth, we need
to discover it for ourselves.
*
* * * *
My friends,
it's been an interesting 33 years (from Dearborn to Birmingham)
living on the "hemline" of corporate America. During
that time, I've seen business-types and preacher-types who
adored the Lord, as well as some who ignored the Lord. And
I've seen business-types and preacher-types who served the
people, as well as some who shafted the people.
I've seen
sellers of insurance who genuinely (and, I think, correctly)
believed they were doing ministry. And I've seen peddlers
of other products who quit and went elsewhere because, in
that sub-section of the soul that kept them awake at 3:00
in the morning, they realized they could no longer live with
the product they were living off.
Just last
Friday night, I broke bread with a skyrocketing female executive,
whose first-year company fell just three units short of meeting
its lofty objectives. Concerning that miniscule shortfall,
she said: "As a new company, we decided not to fudge
the figures, because the first compromise you make with integrity
is always the hardest."
But I
close with none of those people. Instead, I would tell of
another ... a man whose unique talent consists of his ability
to turn around struggling businesses, making them profitable
again. He has done it repeatedly. And he has done it well.
Concerning his talent, he says (with a shrug of his shoulders):
"I guess it's my calling." He's right, you know.
It is. It's what he is "called" to do. In more ways
than he knows, I think. Yes, in more ways than he knows.
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