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Sunday
spoken eucharist - 8 am
bible study - 9 am
sung eucharist - 10 am

Wednesday

services begin at 7 pm

healing service (1st, 3rd)

evening prayer (2nd,4th)

eucharist (5th)

You have to admire the leadership qualities of someone who can think outside the box. 

Must as I really detest clichés, you have to admire the person who came up with the catchphrase itself, “thinking outside the box.”  There’s some disagreement about just who came up with the phrase that describes thinking differently, or unconventionally, or from a new perspective.  John Adair (one of the world’s leading authorities on leadership and leadership development) claims to have introduced the idea in 1969 in his book The Art of Creative Thinking: How to Be Innovative and Develop Great Ideas.

But then there’s also Mike Vance, who co-founded the Creative Thinking Association of America working for many years for Walt Disney Productions where he used the famous nine dots puzzle.

The nine dots puzzle is a cube of 9 dots placed on a piece of paper with the instruction to connect all the dots by drawing four straight continuous lines that passes through each of the 9 dots without ever lifting the pencil[1] … easily done, but only if you draw the lines outside of the confines of the square area defined by the nine dots themselves, a problem for us human creatures because we tend to imagine a boundary around the edge of the dots.  (I've placed the puzzle in the bulletin insert this morning for you to solve.)

           

The puzzle itself is much older than Adair or Vance, appearing in a 1914 publication by Sam Loyd called Cyclopedia of Puzzles.  Loyd called it “Christopher Columbus’ Egg Puzzle”, an allusion to the “Egg of Columbus” … a popular tale of how Columbus, having been told that discovering the Americas was no great thing, challenged his critics to make an egg stand on its tip.  When they gave up, he did it himself by tapping the egg on the table so as to flatten its tip.

Of course we all know the restaurant trick that provides yet another solution to making an egg stand on end, which is to take the salt shaker and make a tiny pile of salt on the table, balance the egg on the pile then gently blow away the salt. A few grains will remain trapped by the egg and will keep it balanced.

Thinking outside the box is the principle threaded through all of these stories.  Take a situation or problem or conflict and try to solve it … using standard methods often does not work, and can even make the situation worse (we have only to think of war upon war upon war in the human experience to find truth in that statement!).  But if we allow ourselves to think in other ways, what is sometimes called lateral thinking, and free ourselves from the “musts, shoulds, and oughts” of our mind … then very often a new solution appears, new insights are found, and new ways experiences take place.

We all know what Post-It® Notes are.  In fact there is a whole generation of young adults now who do not know a world once existed without them!  Spencer Silver, a researcher in the 3M™ Laboratories, was working in 1970 to find a new adhesive … and developed one, but it turned out to be weaker than anything 3M™ made. No one knew what to do with the stuff, until one Sunday in 1974 another 3M™ scientist named Arthur Fry was singing in his church choir.  He used markers to keep his place in the hymnal, but when the hymnal was opened the makeshift bookmarks often moved around or fell out altogether.  Fry began to think of Silver’s adhesive and imagined that if it could be coated on paper, it would hold a bookmark in place without damaging the paper on which it was placed.

Ta-da!  Post-It® Notes!

+ + +

This morning from the Good News According to Mark comes yet a previous story of thinking outside of the box. 

One of the followers of Jesus, whose name was John, ran up to his Teacher, out of breath, and exclaimed, “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us!” (emphasis added).

There is a 1^st Century example of linear thinking if ever there was one!  Here is someone doing a good work, but he is not one of the inner-circle of those Jesus had called to be his disciples and so … it just can’t be!  It’s not right!  It’s not fair!

We can hear the murmuring agreements of the other disciples in the background, “Yeah, right, we can’t have that sort of thing!  Pretty soon, everyone will be doing the work of the Kingdom!”

Oops.

Jesus pauses a moment and then (in my imagination) he draws with a stick in the sand at his feet.  9 dots appear … and he says “John, come here.  I want you to draw 4 continuous lines that connect all these dots without ever picking up the stick.”

(Wouldn’t it be great if that was indeed what Jesus did and said!)

Instead of that, he says, “What are you talking about?!  I wish everyone were engaged in the business of healing.  Whoever is not against us … is for us.”

That … is … powerful … truth!  So powerful that it always amazes me when we forget it, ignore it, live in spite of it.

I recall listening to some of my colleagues who complained when newly ordained pastors came to our church by way of the TEEM program (Theological Education for Emerging Ministries).  They said, “But that’s not fair, we had to go through 4 years of Seminary, why should they get through this easily.”  Of course for TEEM candidates the process involves study at one of our Seminaries, while continuing to work at one’s home job, takes about 5-6 years, and without it we would not have someone you all know: Pastor Pat Halverson, serving at Peace St. Paul’s Lutheran-Episcopal congregation in Las Vegas, NM.

Thinking outside the box.

And what about the Ordination of Women in our Church?  It was in 1970 that Elizabeth Platz (graduate of my alma mater, Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg) became the first female pastor in the Lutheran Church in this country.   Who today would question the validity and the gift of ministry that women bring in partnership with their male colleagues?

Thinking outside the box.

Or what about this … in our own congregation, in that same year, 1970, it was decided by a vote of the congregation that girls could serve behind the Altar as acolytes?

Thinking outside the box.

Or what about the fact that when I was growing up there was an imaginary line drawn just behind the chancel railing that said “on the other side of that line, where the Altar is located” only Pastors are allowed to step?  Who today would deny the fact that the ministry of laypersons participating in the liturgy (literally the work of the people) is just the way it should be?

You see, what Jesus does with his followers in that story back in Mark’s Gospel, and just so does with these followers (i.e. those of us gathered here today), is to open up what is closed, and free the people of God whoever they may be live the Gospel outside the box … where it can do good and bring healing, and peace, and love, and hope, and welcoming to all people. 

Have you noticed over the last several weeks as we have been reading through the Gospel of Mark that there is yet another theme running through these stories?  Where people (us included) tend to build walls and fences and otherwise construct boundaries … Jesus continually erases those lines, tears town the walls and fences, and moves the boundaries further and further away … with the sole purpose that there is not a spot within the kingdom where any are excluded from the community and its life.

That is the Gospel, the good news!

Let us pray.
O God, you made us in your own image and redeemed us through Jesus your Son. Look with compassion on the whole human family; take away the arrogance and hatred that infect our hearts; break down the walls that separate us; unite us in bonds of love; and, through our struggle and confusion, work to accomplish your purposes on earth; so that, in your good time, every people and nation may serve you in harmony around your heavenly throne; through Jesus Christ, Lord. Amen.