The Mockingbird: Issue 20

5 1/2 Habits of Remarkably Ineffective People

By Bill Borror

as Jesus successful? I guess it depends on your definition and criteria. The gospels themselves swing between accounts of Jesus drawing a crowd then preaching it down to a dozen (e.g. John 6:1-13; John 6:66ff). Recently I was preparing to preach on the rich and strange story of Jesus’ temptation in Luke 4. Clearly the Devil is offering Jesus a highly effective path to glory—to trade his Passion for praise and recognition. Had Jesus done exactly what the Devil said, there would have been no question among his followers about his messianic destiny. Jesus declined the offer anyway.1 Can there be a Christian concept of success that somehow navigates through the Scylla of secular prosperity and the Charybdis of Christian triumphalism? In my own life and ministry, learning to balance a legitimate commitment to excellence over and against a reductive numbers game (from budgeting to the size of congregation) has not been easy. How can the gospel guide us when we are being judged by quarterly profit margins? This “post-everything” moment offers us an opportunity to question what seems unquestionable, to study our values—and maybe even reconsider Jesus’ upside-down approach. So in that spirit, with no disrespect to Stephen Covey’s book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (which I was supposed to read but never quite got around to), I would like to offer my own five and a half habits of remarkably ineffective people:

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1. Go where you are needed, not wanted. From an early age, we spend a lot of energy climbing to the tops of temples (cf. Luke 4:9) in order to prove ourselves to others. These may be temples of dance competitions or elite sports teams; college admissions or fraternities; job interviews or living in the right zip code. All of these endeavors and a thousand others—both consciously and unconsciously—are based in a desire to feel wanted. 1. For more, read Dostoevsky’s “The Grand Inquisitor,” which among other things can be read as a midrash on this scene.

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THE MOCKINGBIRD

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The Mockingbird: Issue 20

Published on Jun 21, 2022Christianity

Mockingbird Ministries

SUCCESS & FAILURE It’s hard to find anything—anything at all—about the topic of failure that doesn’t amount to some variation of “fail better,” or “fail your way to success.” But for most people “failing up” isn’t always an option, and success isn’t always good. As Min Jin Lee writes in her novel Pachinko, “You want to see a very bad man? Make an ordinary man successful beyond his imagination. Let’s see how good he is when he can do whatever he wants.” In this issue of The Mockingbird, we explore the dark side of success and the bright side of failure. Not that we love failing—who does? “It was horrible at first,” says an unsuccessful inventor in a little-known Herman Melville story, “but I’m glad I’ve failed. Praise be to God for the failure!” Only when his life’s work proves ineffective is this character liberated from the mean clutches of aspiration. His face brightens with a “rapt earnestness” and he at last becomes “a good man,” praising God for his failure even on his deathbed. On a personal scale, it