Where Are My Ruby Slippers?

I have repeated on many occasions that the best metaphor for the changes in the church is to remember the "Wizard of Oz". The one with Judy Garland. This is not my illustration, I want to point out, but it was suggested at an event I attended in 2008 about the Emerging church. The presenter said that the minister used to be seen as "the great and powerful OZ". He was a man of mature years, with a shock of white hair, who knew all and told nothing, and who could perform miracles if there was enough of a need. Gender, age, and abilities are the key elements here. Then the church went on a campaign to humanize the minister, perhaps in hopes of encouraging young people, and especially women, to enter the vocation, but leading to the net result that the curtain was pulled aside and the man behind "OZ the magnificent" was revealed to be an elderly, barely competent, and emotionally unavailable master of smoke and mirrors. The emergent church, we were told, does not want OZ to lead them. They want Dorothy. They want someone who will walk the road with them; who will encourage them to stay on the path; who will still their fears, dry their tears, and give them a hug now and then; who will constantly remind them of the reward they can expect for persevering.

I never wanted to look behind the curtain, personally. I wanted to believe in the "great and powerful OZ". Unfortunately, as a young man, I was sort of tricked into asking God for the gift of wisdom. God heard my request and gave me exactly what I asked for. If I had known it was really a curse rather than a gift, I would have asked for something a little less challenging. So the curtain is pulled aside by that yappy little dog, and what I see there is me. Not OZ at all. I fit the bill, after all. I am male, elderly, hair whitening with every passing day (if I can keep enough of it around it will be "a shock") and no miracle worker. I always wanted to be Dorothy, and I always felt like a combination of her travelling companions. No self-confidence, no bravery, and no heart. I never wanted to be OZ, though, and yet that's what I am. And I am pretty sure that nobody ever asked the man behind the curtain what HE saw when it was drawn aside.

OZ saw three travellers on the road, who wanted what each one imagined that they needed. They had proved themselves worthy by accomplishing the task he set before them, and they had, in effect, "worked a miracle" by overcoming the Wicked Witch of the West. He understood that what they imagined they needed wasn't, in fact, what they really needed. Finally, he knew he couldn't give them what they were asking for. He saw that they already had a heart, a brain and courage, and the means to get home, and he knew that the only thing he had to give them was more smoke and mirrors. Heavy on the mirrors.

I know that feeling. I have looked at the work that congregations have done and been in awe of the miracles that they have accomplished. I know that it wasn't because of anything I did, or taught, or gave. I can see that they have the gifts within themselves to be successful in whatever they choose to do. I see that the only thing I can do for them, to help them to get what they have asked for, is to hold up a mirror and say, "Look at yourself! See your courage! See your heart! See your brains! Take these gifts and change the world!" Congregations have lots of brains, heart and courage but little self-confidence. OZ gave the travellers a degree, a ticker, a medal and a magic formula. I have tried all my working life to give my congregations self-confidence by giving them faith. I have tried to tell them that if they believe in God, and they believe that God loves them, then they will discover that they can move mountains. Mostly, I have been unsuccessful. Tripped up by the truism that you can't teach faith or give faith to someone else. I keep hoping for the right course, the right book, the right mentor who will teach me how Dorothy did it, but I know that it is probably too late for me to start down the Yellow Brick Road. I keep clicking my heels and chanting, "There's no place like home" but nothing ever happens, it seems. Little wonder. No ruby slippers.

All I know for sure is that I am not in Kansas any longer. Toto is gone. The Emerald City has lost some of its glow. But I'm still here. I still have a job to do. I still have a calling. I still have an expectation of myself, and most importantly, I still have faith. If not in my own abilities, I certainly have faith in congregations to work miracles and in God to provide a handy pail of water whenever things get threatening. Maybe I've always been home and that's why the chant never seems to work. You don't need ruby slippers to grow where you're planted.