“The Common Good as Uncommon Good Theology”

• Scriptural Reference: Philippians 2:1-4
• April 13, 2008

An old Sufi story runs like this. A wise teacher traveled to a distant city. On his way he had to cross a very wide river. He knew he was going to need a boat. As he approached the shore of the river, he saw a boat and its owner standing by it. He walked up and said to the owner, “I need to get across the river. Will you rent me your boat?”

The owner said, “Yes, but it is too large for one person to row. I’ll have to go with you.” The teacher agreed to this and was actually glad at the prospect of having the company until the owner said, “Just remember one thing. You sit in the bow and row, but you mind your own business at your seat. I’ll mind my own business at my seat.” The teacher wondered what this meant, but climbed in the boat, took up his seat in the bow and the two cast off into the river and began rowing across.

About a third of the way across, the owner pulled in his oar, stretched out his legs and leaned back on his hands folded behind his head. The teacher said, “You’ve quit rowing. I thought you said it would take both of us.”

The owner replied, “The current is with us and we’ll do fine with just you rowing. Besides, what I do on my seat is my business. You keep quiet.”

The teacher contemplated pulling his own oar in, just to show the owner, but then realized if he did, he’d only be penalizing himself. He wouldn’t reach his destination. So, he kept rowing, though it was harder.

Then the owner sat up and said, “I’m thirsty and I neglected to bring water with me.” He leaned over the side of the boat but because of the way it was built, he couldn’t reach the water, so he reached into the tool bin and pulled out a drill. He subsequently began drilling a hole in the bottom of the boat.

Alarmed, the teacher cried out, “Hey, don’t do that!”

The owner glared at the teacher. “This is under MY seat.”

I’ll leave it to your imagination to conclude how things worked out in that boat, but the story points out something fundamental about being human. The decisions we make, no matter how small, are never made in isolation. The sages whom God inspired to write our holy books knew this. That’s why we have elaborate covenants written out in Leviticus and Deuteronomy. That’s why Jesus said that the greatest among us is the one who serves and that they’ll know we are his followers by the way we treat one another. We didn’t come into this world in isolation and we don’t go out of it that way, either. And in between, we all live in a community of some kind.

And that’s why Paul wrote so clearly to the Christians in Philippi that they “should not look only to their own interests, but to the interests of others,” as well. Paul wasn’t telling them to be nosey busy-bodies. On the contrary, Paul knew that a follower of Christ would carefully consider the consequences of his lifestyle. The follower of Christ cannot do his central vocation, that is, tend and care for the creation in which God has placed him, if he doesn’t do his best to configure his lifestyle according to the maximum benefit of the life around him.

This has always been the case. Humanity received this call in the garden at the outset of our species. Now, however, it’s even more imperative that we recognize how our decisions have an impact on the human and non-human living systems we in which we live. More than ever, the world shares an interconnectedness. Ever heard of the internet? But, if the internet were to unplug and dissipate tomorrow, that wouldn’t change our profound connectivity.

I don’t know why it is, but I’ve always been cursed with neighbors who have beautiful lawns. Flawless carpets of green flow out on either side of our property. The grounds of the Rayford Estate, however, sport a patch work of varying shades of green dotted with little yellow, white, and purple wild flowers; little white, fuzzy balls. My neighbors have lawns. We have a little pasture – which may be okay. The pastor has a pasture. Kind of poetic, wouldn’t you say?

On down the street, though, I have another neighbor who works with the Commonwealth. He walks his dog every morning and when I went out to get my paper a couple of days ago, he said, “It looks like you have the same kind of lawn I do.”

“You mean a miniature meadow,” I said.

He laughed.

I said, “It isn’t as nice as my neighbors, I know, but I don’t have to mow it as often.”

“True,” he said, “And you also aren’t killing off crabs and oysters. At least, that’s how I rationalize not doing anything to my yard. Saves me time and money.”

“Killing off crabs and oysters?”

“Haven’t you heard about the plight of the watermen in the Chesapeake?”

“Yes, but that has to do with agriculture, doesn’t it?”

“True, but also a significant amount of the problem has to do with algae blooms that rob the water of oxygen so the fish and oysters can’t breathe, kill off the grasses where seafood breeds, and those algae blooms are nurtured by the fertilizer run-off not just from farms in the vicinity of the bay, but from the urban areas that are in the watershed which include our neighborhoods.”

In other words, folks, we’re connected, and even how we decide to handle the ornamental ground cover in our yards can have a direct effect on the livelihoods of thousands of people miles away. The Chesapeake Bay is in bad shape largely because industry and private habits haven’t changed enough. Those are our decisions to make.

But go to the headwaters of the Euphrates River. They’re in Turkey. The river then flows out of Turkey, across Syria, and through Iraq before it joins with the Tigris and empties into the Shat-al-Arab at the northwest point of the Persian Gulf. Syria and Iraq both depend upon the Euphrates (and the Tigris) for their fresh water needs, have so for millennia. The Euphrates River, along with the Tigris gave rise to the Mesopotamian civilizations that yielded the first agriculture, and yielded a herdsman by the name of Abram, who became Abraham. Listen, though, to what the president of Turkey has recently said:

"Neither Syria nor Iraq can lay claim to Turkey's rivers any more than Ankara could claim their oil. This is a matter of sovereignty. We have a right to do anything we like. The water resources are Turkey's, the oil resources are theirs. We don't say we share their oil resources and they cannot say they share our water resources."

The president said this because Iraq and Syria have objections to something Turkey is doing. Turkey is damming the Euphrates. The Ataturk Dam has reduced water flow across Syria and Iraq and has squeezed the amount of water flowing into those countries. If this dispute isn’t settled, then the next war in the Middle East won’t be over oil. It’ll be about water.

Hopefully, armies won’t start crossing over from Alabama into Georgia to secure a better share of the Chattahoochee, but the water issues also demonstrate that even without the internet, we are interconnected and decisions we make affect other people. Did you know that the Colorado River no longer reaches the ocean? The delta region the Colorado River formed over millions of years and gave birth to a thriving ecosystem and a locale where thousands of Mexicans made a living is drying up. Below the Grand Canyon, the cities of Phoenix, Los Angeles and Las Vegas, along with huge industrial farms have siphoned off so much water, the river no longer flows in Mexico. Much of that water goes to nurture ornamental lawns and golf courses in the middle of what used to be desert.

Communities, though, can consider the effects of their decisions on their neighbors, though. In the late nineties in Frederick County, Virginia (the county that surrounds Winchester), the board of supervisors was courted by a corporation looking at the area as a prime spot to locate one of their factories. The City of Winchester objected because smoke from the factory would be profuse and it would blow for the most part, right over the city. It became a rather public brouhaha complete with irate letters to the editor. Many of the letters reflected the sentiment that what Frederick County decided to do was up to Frederick County and not the business of Winchester. (It’s under out seat!) Residents of Winchester protested that the smoke would not abide by the city limit sign.

Eventually there was a town hall meeting before the vote of the Board and many Frederick County residents came. The overwhelming opinion was that in order to be the proper kind of neighbor, Frederick County should not profit at Winchester’s expense. The Board voted not to give the permit to the corporation and the company went elsewhere. One Methodist pastor had quoted Philippians 2:1-4. It might be noted that over the years since that decision, Frederick County has become one of the fastest growing areas in Virginia, indeed in the United States. Making ethical decisions might cost something in the short run, but in the long run, they always yield greater dividends.

(Not fertilizing my lawn saves me lots of mowing time!)

In many ways, this is a fundamental shift in the way we think. Our culture conditions us to make decisions primarily on the basis of our own profit, comfort, or pleasure. Our culture encourages me to seek, before all else, my own happiness. This ignores the fundamental psychological and spiritual reality that one cannot achieve happiness if happiness is your sole aim. Happiness is always the byproduct of living fully and authentically your vocation, but the problem with the pursuit of happiness is for a future sermon.

It’s rare, on the other hand, to see the sentiment reflected in that commercial I saw recently in which a man said something to the effect of, “Watch out what you’re doing so you can continue to have crabs to eat.” Or there’s that insurance commercial that talks about how all across America, individuals will choose to do the right thing. Those are great sentiments. Followers of Jesus should hear those commercials and say “Amen!”

Followers of Jesus are called to do the right thing, though, even when it won’t be immediately noticed or rewarded. We’ll talk next week about how this attitude applies specifically to our driving habits, but what do you think would happen if every person in this room along with every other Christian worshiping in a church in the Richmond area, probably around 80,000 or so people, determined to get in touch with their representatives and demanded a more sensible transportation system that included public transport? What if all those people decided to start recycling? What if all those people decided to get involved in poverty alleviation? What if all those people decided to drive smaller and slower? What if all those people decided to seek out a regular time to practice a discipline of silently listening to God?