Arresting Ministerial "Stop and Frisk"?

[This post was originally published on my pastoral advocacy blog called the Cupbearers Initiative, however, it has wider application than just pastors. It has to do with how we look at the world and how we engage those that we perceive as "other."]
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Since this is primarily a blog to support and encourage pastors and other ministry leaders, I like to be real about some of the issues we face. This post addresses one such issue.

A Dangerous Practice 

Photo: Creative Commons

One of the dangers faced by those of us in ministry leadership is having a “stop and frisk” mentality. I am referring to the well-known practice employed by Mayor Bloomberg and the New York City Police (and many other agencies) in an approach to reducing their horrific violent crime and murder rates. They did so by stopping, questioning, and frisking people on the street to confiscate illegal weapons. While the policy arguably did reduce murder rates, it led to significantly unjust racial profiling and harmed the already tenuous relationship of communities of color with the police.

Photo: Greg K. Dueker

In this post, I am using “stop and frisk” as a metaphor to describe what happens when a shepherd’s heart is either lifted up in prideful self-righteousness or wounded by the pain, suffering, and trauma others have inflicted upon those they love. I have been one of those shepherds. As leaders, we don’t want to see the people we care for hurt so we can easily go into “protect mode” failing to remember that we have been called to love our enemies too. Our attitude can quickly become bounded by “us/them” feelings, thoughts, and words that lead to unwelcoming actions. We can become more about circling the wagons into a safe defensive perimeter that we fail to reach out in love and understanding (even in disagreement) to our neighbors. Jesus reminds us repeatedly that safety is not the highest value in the kingdom. When you read the previous statement, what verses come to your mind? I have my working list, but I prefer to let you develop your own.

Photo by Paul M on Unsplash

I remember a season, early in my marriage and my ministry, that while I was not actually stopping and frisking people on the street, I was ready to do so. I had become hyper-vigilant in a misguided effort to reduce the human damage caused by lawbreaking. I viewed strangers as suspects until they could prove otherwise. Though I was not deployed in any military conflict, I became quite good at real-time threat assessment in order to protect those I loved and to meet the challenge of the spiritual conflict that swirled around us.

The problem with this approach is that it loves people very selectively if at all. It does not love “others” as Jesus taught us to love. A probing question we should answer is, have we received the love of God so that we are content to keep it to ourselves, sharing only when seekers come and ask? Or, has the love of God so transformed our hearts and lives that we cannot help but share that steadfast love freely with others?

Wrestling Matches or Missional Welcome

Photo by Henry Hustava on Unsplash

While there is a very real spiritual battle surrounding us, we must remember that our weapons are not of this world and we are not to use the world’s methods when contrary to the scriptures (e.g., 2 Cor. 10:3-4). It seems to me that we are prone to compartmentalize this concept, limiting its declaration as applying only to literal weapons such as assault rifles, tanks, dirty bombs, and drone strikes.

Photo: Randy Fath on Unsplash

As Christian leaders who take the Bible seriously, we know that the kingdom of God is not established by the coercive force of human weapons but through sacrificial love (John 18:36; Rev. 12:11). We would certainly not want to commit again the sins of the Spanish Conquistadors and the accompanying Inquisition. However, do we engage those outside the church, or those from other churches, using the thinking processes of the world as a weapon? Paul writes in this passage that “we do not wrestle against flesh and blood” (Eph. 6:12) so while we don’t physically throw all the seekers, skeptics, and schemers against the wall and frisk them for weapons, we may do something even worse. We can desecrate the holy encounters God gives us with people when we treat them more like confrontations than conversations, more like wrestling matches against wrong thinking than really hearing and entering into a human story, and then topping it off by justifying our confrontational approach as “striving against sin.” Sometimes we need to be reminded that “the anger of man does not accomplish the righteousness of God” (James 1:20; Prov. 29:22).

People want to be seen, heard, understood, and valued. Any ministerial stop-and-frisk ideology will hinder the type of outwardly focused love that best represents the way the Trinity shares their goodness with all creation. Stop-and-frisk processes remove the merciful welcome of hospitality. A mortal sin in the ancient world. These suspicious and confrontational approaches can make evangelism and gospel ministry more like a mugging than relational ministry. I would even suggest that we see conversion, and the larger discipleship process, as less transactional and more about the Spirit-led journey towards full faith in Jesus Christ.

Seeing Past the Edge of the Earth

Photo by Florian Rieder on Unsplash

It is normal for us to draw lines and make judgments. We engage and do life together with those people who are enough like us to dwell inside our circumscribed borders of us/them, the flat earth of our own making. We need Jesus’ to open our eyes to see beyond the edge of the earth with which we are comfortable. We need eyes to see and ears to hear as he does because his love is not constrained by our limitations.

What do we see when we look at others? How do we spiritually profile them? There was a time when Saul of Tarsus and others considered Jesus just a carpenter’s son. They could not see his true identity. We do the same thing when we fail to recognize that each person we meet is an image-bearer (whether they know it or not) and is precious in the sight of God. Saul/Paul later testified that their own attitude had been adjusted by Christ so that now, “we regard no one according to the flesh.” (2 Cor. 5:16)

Photo: Unsplash

We need to discern Christ in the least like of those we meet, humbly being ready to learn from their stories, struggles, and even their strange experiences as human parables. Will we have an ear to hear and a heart to respond? Does our perception end at the edge of our little earth? Or can we see beyond that, with eyes of faith, love, and hope what Christ intends for each person to become?

Even as many police agencies move away from stop-and-frisk tactics and embrace community policing through building positive and mutually helpful relationships, may we as evangelicals get a clue. Jeremiah 29:7 admonished the Jewish exiles to settle down and get busy, “But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.” We are not in exile, but our mission cannot be any less engaged in seeking the common good. As ambassadors of the kingdom of heaven, the love of Christ compels us to do so!

The Beauty of Red Cups

Every Christmas, there seems to be at least one retailer who forbids employees to wish customers a “Merry Christmas” or one municipality that removes a manger scene and as a result, bears the brunt of Christians venting a year’s worth of frustration at being marginalized by our post-Christendom culture. This year is no exception.

A normally chilly November has featured a rather heated debate, even a firestorm of resistance to Starbucks’ rollout of their plain red cups for the holidays this year. Many have taken to social media to proclaim their dissatisfaction. I have remarked to several people that this argument is misguided and actually counter-productive to the cause of Christ. I would like to go on record and say that I like the relatively simple yet elegant red cups marking the Christmas season at Starbucks…for several reasons.

I was encouraged to find that the Starbucks news blog post, dated November 1, 2015, shows an astute cultural awareness that is unfortunately lost on many American Christians who think that all cultures should revolve around them, using their language and symbols. The Starbucks cups appear after Halloween and signal the addition of special holiday drinks to their menu. While Starbucks might be trying to spin this conflict in its favor, I sensed a sincerity that needs to be heard. And that is the problem, isn’t it? Frequent readers of my blogs will recognize that this is a regular theme in my writing. Any time we respond without actually listening to the viewpoint of another (no matter which side of the argument we are on) we reveal ourselves to be unwise.

Why Did They Do It?

Jeffrey Fields, Starbucks' vice president of Design & Content is quoted in the post and I want you to be able to read his words for yourself,

Taking a cue from customers who have been doodling designs on cups for years (Starbucks held a contest to support this creativity), this year’s design is another way Starbucks is inviting customers to create their own stories with a red cup that mimics a blank canvas.  

“In the past, we have told stories with our holiday cups designs,” said Fields. “This year we wanted to usher in the holidays with a purity of design that welcomes all of our stories.”

In the nearly two decades since the first red Starbucks cup, the company has grown from 1,400 stores in a handful of countries to more than 23,000 stores in 68 markets around the world.

“Starbucks has become a place of sanctuary during the holidays,” he said. “We’re embracing the simplicity and the quietness of it. It’s a more open way to usher in the holiday.”

Creating a culture of belonging, inclusion, and diversity is one of the core values of Starbucks, and each year during the holidays the company aims to bring customers an experience that inspires the spirit of the season. Starbucks will continue to embrace and welcome customers from all backgrounds and religions in our stores around the world.[1]

While I have liked the special cups of Christmases past (I happily own some) I love the idea of the cup being a symbolic "canvas" where we can create our own stories in community with others. Past years’ cups have been almost too cluttered with seasonal themes (hope, peace, love, giving) and symbols—trees, snowflakes, ornaments, reindeer, gifts, etc. All are placed there with a marketing connection to increasing sales. None of these things are really outwardly Christian, so it is hard to see this as a credible attack on Christmas by Starbucks. The biggest danger to the western church is not the “bleak midwinter” of Christ-less secularism, but it might just be consumerism. In which case, a simple cup might point us back in the right direction… toward open engagement with others in time spent, stories shared, and all done around an open table.

A Place of Sanctuary

Are our homes a sanctuary?

Are our homes and churches known as places of sanctuary, or are they filled, in turn, with bustling acrimony or bored apathy? Not only am I impressed with the reasoning behind the red cups, but I am also personally convicted when Mr. Fields says, “Starbucks has become a place of sanctuary during the holidays,” he said. “We’re embracing the simplicity and the quietness of it. It’s a more open way to usher in the holiday.” As I have written previously (Rethinking “Don’t Talk to Strangers!”), I rarely sit in a Starbucks without speaking to a stranger, making a new friend, working on a sermon, mentoring other Christians, or just enjoying being with family and friends. I see others doing likewise. Why are we the church not more of a “sanctuary”? Why is it that we are rarely described by words like “simplicity” and “quietness”? And for those who consider “holiday” a trigger word, it literally means “holy day” so if we truly considered a day holy how would we treat others on it? I have apologized to the baristas in my local Starbucks because they have to work on Christmas, but they say they love sharing the day with the crew and the people who come in are happier than normal.

Back to the Red Cups.

What does red mean? Is it not rife with biblical symbolism? Certainly, it reminds me of the “blood of Christ” that was shed on a Roman cross to wash away our sins. But perhaps more seasonally appropriate, red is the color of humanity for Adam was made from the red dust of the ground. It is at Christmas that God the Son left the culture of heaven behind to become fully human so that he might redeem us, become the perfect advocate for us, and set us free from our slavery to the fear of death (Hebrews 2:14-18). If we are going to engage the world like Jesus did, we will have to start with humbling ourselves, not grasping or demanding (Philippians 2:1-11).

I don’t agree with everything Starbucks does nor with all the values that they profess…like when they spell my name wrong. Yes, coffee drinks are often too expensive, though I usually drink the less expensive iced coffee. Having said that, Starbucks has been a blessing to the church as a “third space” in the community to talk, listen, laugh, study, and share with believers and those who don’t—even without reindeer on their cups.

Finally, I don’t need to fib about my name to force baristas to write "Merry Christmas" on my cup and then have to call out “Merry Christmas, your tall non-fat iced coffee with mocha is ready!” I am more interested in talking to them while they take my order and make my coffee…treating them as fully human and even as friends. So hopefully, when I wish them a "Merry Christmas!", and I will, they will believe I mean it and agree that it has been merry indeed.

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[1] Pasted from https://news.starbucks.com/news/the-story-behind-the-design-of-starbucks-red-holiday-cups-for-2015