The Red Pill
From the Series—The Ministry Matrix
September 11, 2003This evotional concludes our Ministry Matrix series.
In 1983, a Harvard professor named Howard Gardner wrote a ground-breaking book titled Frames of Mind. The book popularized the theory of multiple intelligences. Gardner said that intelligence couldn’t be measured by an ACT, GRE, or IQ test. He argued for the existence of multiple intelligences. In other words, different people are smart in different ways. Frames of Mind identified seven types of intelligence. Here’s a paraphrased list of these seven types of intelligence. People are word smart, picture smart, music smart, body smart, number smart, people smart, and self smart.
Music Smart
When Amadeus Wolfgang Mozart was a boy, he visited the Sistine Chapel in Rome. He was enchanted by a piece of music by Gregorio Allegri and wanted a copy of the music, but the Sistine chapel had decreed that that particular piece of music, the Miserere, could only be performed inside the Sistine chapel and could not be copied under any circumstances. Mozart attended one more performance then wrote out the entire musical score from memory. I have no idea if Mozart was body smart, number smart, or people smart, but I think it’s safe to say that Amadeus Wolfgang Mozart was music smart.
Number Smart
In 1844, Johann Martin Zacharias Dase calculated Pi correctly to 200 places in less than 2 months. Dase could count the number of sheep in a flock after a single glance. He could multiply two eight-digit numbers in 54 seconds, two forty -digit numbers in 40 minutes, and two 100-digit numbers in 8 hours. He was a human calculator. Dase could perform calculations for weeks on end. He would stop calculating at bedtime, store everything to memory, and pick up right where he left off after breakfast. I have no idea if Dase was music smart, word smart, or self smart, but I think it’s safe to say that Johann Martin Zacharias Dase was number smart.
Body Smart
A few months ago, Ted Williams passed away at the age of 83. Some sports fans consider him the greatest hitter of all-time. His lifetime batting average was .344. He hit 521 lifetime homers. And he was the last major leaguer to hit over .400 for a season. I don’t know if Ted Williams was number smart, music smart, or picture smart, but I think it’s safe to say that Ted Williams was body smart.
Three very different people living at very different times doing very different things, but they have one thing in common: each of them was intelligent in a their own unique way. That’s MI theory in a nutshell. What I love about MI theory is the freedom it gives to be who you are. Just because you don’t perform well on written tests in a school environment doesn’t mean you’re dumb. It just means you’re smart in some other way!
Different
In Romans 12:7, Paul says, “We have different gifts according to the grace given us.” The word “different” is repeated three times in I Corinthians 12 as well. “There are different kinds of gifts, but the one Spirit. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but the same God works all of them in all men.”
One of our core values is maturity doesn’t result in conformity. That doesn’t mean that we want to be different for difference sake, but I think that sometimes what some churches call spiritual maturity is nothing more than cultural conformity. People dress the same way and talk the same way and act the same way and that’s the measuring stick of maturity. But that’s not spirituality. That’s superficiality.
Isn’t it somewhat ironic that most churches are ethically opposed to cloning a human being, yet that is exactly what many churches produce-- clones? Everybody is like everybody else. Too many churches settle for conformity instead of striving for maturity.
If everybody looks alike something is seriously wrong. I Corinthians 12:17 says, “If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be?” Maturity results in diversity --different people using different gifts in different ways!
And maturity results in originality. In his essay, Self-Reliance, Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “There is a time in every man’s education that he arrives at the conviction that imitation is suicide. He must take himself for better or for worse.”
Do What You Are
Romans 12 doesn’t say, “If a person’s gift is teaching, let him encourage. If it is serving, let him lead. If it is leadership, let him teach.” It says, “If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; if it is encouraging, let him encourage.”
That doesn’t mean we don’t have a baseline of reponsibility. Even if you don’t have the gift of leadership, everybody finds themselves in situations where they need to lead. Just because you don’t have the gift of mercy doesn’t mean you shouldn’t show a modicum of mercy. But ideally, we need to live our lives where our circle of giftedness --what we do best--and our circle of passion --what we love most--overlap. That is where we find fulfillment and fruitfulness in our walk with Christ.
Teleology
Everyone is bad at something, and we need to learn to laugh at our weaknesses. They keep us humble. But everyone is good at something too. Here’s another way of saying it: you’re better than me at something and I am better than you at something and there are no exceptions to that rule!
If you’ve got something to write with, try a little experiment. Sign your name with your “strong hand.” Now try it with your “weak hand.” Unless you’re ambidextrous, that was pretty awkward and uncomfortable. And you can barely read what you wrote! Why? Because it’s not the way you’re wired. And that’s ok.
The Message says, “Let’s go ahead and be what we were made to be, without enviously or pridefully comparing ourselves to others or trying to be what we aren’t.”
I like the way Abraham Maslow put it, “A musician must make music, a builder must build, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself. What a man can be, he must be.” The biblical concept is teleology-- doing what you were destined and designed to do.
Handicaps
Several years ago I read a story about a pretty remarkable person named Roger Crawford. Roger was born with a rare condition called ectrodactylism. It affects only 1 in 90,000 children born in the United States and Roger’s condition was worse than most. Roger was born with no hands and one foot. Instead of fully formed hands, he had thumb-like projections that extended directly out of his forearms. His right foot only had three toes and his left leg was withered so badly that it had to be amputated. The doctors said Roger would never walk. Roger proved them wrong.
Roger’s parents encouraged him to play sports and at the age of 12, Roger managed to win a spot on the school football team. He didn’t get much playing time, but he dreamed of scoring a touchdown before every game. Ironically, the little boy with no hands played wide receiver. One day Roger got his chance. The coach put him into the game, he went out for a deep pass, and he caught the ball. He started running as fast as he could toward the goal line. His teammates and the fans were cheering him on. Roger made it all the way to the ten yard-line when a player from the opposing team caught him and grabbed his left ankle. Roger tried to pull his leg free, but instead the opponent pulled it off. Roger said, “I was still standing up. I didn’t know what else to do so I started hopping towards the goal line.” He said, “The only thing greater than scoring a touchdown was the look on the face of the kid who was holding my artificial leg.”
Roger went on to play collegiate tennis and finished with a 22-11 record. Not bad for a little boy with no hands and one leg who would never walk. He went on to become the first handicapped person to be certified as a teaching professional by the United States Professional Tennis Association. Roger travels across the country and here’s his message:
“The only difference between you and me is that you can see my handicap, but I can’t see yours. We all have them. When people ask me how I’ve been able to overcome my physical handicaps, I tell them that I haven’t overcome anything. I’ve simply learned what I can’t do --such as play the piano or eat with chopsticks--but more importantly, I’ve learned what I can do. Then I do what I can do with all my heart and soul.”
Colossians 3:23 says, “Whatsoever you do, do it heartily, as unto the Lord and not unto man.” There is actually a double emphasis on “whatsoever” and “heartily.” A literal reading would repeat those two words. What you do--whatsoever--isn’t as important as how you do what you do --heartily. The word “heartily” comes from the Greek word psuche which can also be translated “life.” In other words, do it like your life depended on it.
I love the adjectives in Romans 12:8. It says give “generously,” to lead “diligently,” and to show mercy “cheerfully.” It’s the “ly factor.” Do it to the nth degree!
The Red Pill
Let me end this evotional the way I’ve ended every evotional in this series: you have a choice to make. You can choose to use your gifts and enter the ministry matrix. Or you can sit on the sidelines. You can focus on what you can’t do and let it sideline you. Or you can focus on what you can go and get in the game. The point of this entire series is pretty simple: enter the ministry matrix. That’s where you’ll find fulfillment and fruitfulness in your walk with Christ.
There is a scene in the Matrix where Neo meets Morpheus for the first time. Morpheus ends the discussion by giving Neo a choice between two pills: a blue pill and a red pill. He says, “You take the blue pill and the story ends. You wake in your bed and you believe whatever you want to believe.” That’s what happens with most messages in most churches on most Sundays. You may be inspired or convicted or challenged, but if you go to bed and get up the next morning and don’t do anything about it you took the blue pill.
Morpheus gives Neo another option. He says, “You take the red pill and you stay in wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.”
Quit making excuses. Take the red pill. Enter the ministry matrix!