Fruitfulness vs. Productivity

(this is the text of a meditation I gave in seminary chapel this week. For many of you, the story of my summer is old news. I'm still wrestling with my own impertinent questions, though.)

I spent 13 weeks in Yellowstone National Park this summer. I was 2 hours away from any town, I didn’t have a car anyway. There were no televisions, I had to dumpster-dive through the recycling to pull out day-old USA Todays. Apparently there was a war between Israel and Hezbollah this summer? I had to hike two-miles straight up a mountain to get cell-phone reception and employees were allowed on the internet for ½ hour timeslots once a week (unless you knew how to work the system. Lest you doubt the value of your seminary education, I often snuck in an extra ½ hour by signing up under aliases like “Katie Luther,” “Susannah Wesley,” or “Julian Norwich.” Apparently, I was paying attention in church history class. . .but maybe not enough in Ethics!) I was out in the middle of nowhere this summer and incredibly out of touch with the outside world.

As I’ve told people about my near-Amish lifestyle, they’ve remarked how wonderful that must have been for me. I still look at them with a bit of incredulity. Do you people not know me at all? It was incredibly difficult, when I encountered issues with my ministry team – and believe me, they kept my hand full – it was incredibly difficult to not be able to pick up my phone and put in a call to my support system. To call my mentor or my friends here at seminary and say, “You would NOT believe what just happened to me.” And I realized that these – the relationships we build here at seminary - are the relationships that sustain us in ministry.

I found that I had a lot of extra time on my hands. Because I wasn’t following the summer reality-TV line-up or surfing the Internet, I was forced to sit by a lake or take a walk in the woods. What I discovered by doing these things is priceless. It took me two weeks, sitting by the Lake almost every day, to put away my theology books and start reading fiction. To be able to sit and simply be present in that place. To become comfortably familiar, again, with God’s presence. My life slowed down considerably and I wrestled with this question:

How much is enough? When you are doing ministry, how much is enough? How do you even begin to quantify the ministry being done? Output excel spreadsheets can’t communicate the work of relationships. You certainly don’t want to use your congregation as a barometer. I’m sure there’s always something more they’d like to see you doing.

I was talking with one of my ministry supervisors, asking her this very question: “How much is enough? I just don’t feel productive out here.” And she laughed at me. She laughed and said, “Meg, I think you need to learn the difference between productivity and fruitfulness.” It was that comment, that distinction, which has shaped and characterized reflections on my ministry this summer.

So, I have a question for y’all. It is a question that I haven’t fully answered for myself. I thought I’d throw it out here for us to mull over together. It’s rather an impertinent question but, then, those of you who know me would be disappointed with anything less. So here’s my impertinent question:

Was Jesus Christ productive? I mean, if someone asked you to list off the top five attributes of the second person of the Trinity, would “productivity” make it on your list? When you imagine God made flesh, cavorting with humanity, do you visualize to-do lists? “Five people healed today. Three smart. . .mouthed retorts to the teachers and leaders of the Sanhedrian. One really great parable told. Considering our non-profit status, Judas, are we in the black for third quarter earnings? And I made dinner for, oh, 5,000. Hm, better figure out what to do with the leftovers. Yup. All in all, a good day. Well done me.”

I told you it was an impertinent question! But seriously, the Bible tells us many things about Jesus’ character – that he is Emmanuel, “God with us.” Also that he is the “image of the unseen God, the firstborn over all creation.” The Gospels give us snapshots of Jesus’ life and from them we may glean the fact that Jesus spoke wisely, was angry judiciously, showed heaps of mercy and grace. Jesus rested. Jesus retreated from the crowds but, when he was with people, he was really with them. He saw needs that others could not see. He spoke gracious words that others were too busy to speak. He loved people well. But was he productive? Is productivity something you would choose as a chief attribute of the Messiah, Jesus Christ?

My answer is “no.” Not that Jesus accomplished nothing. The salvation of humanity is hardly “nothing.” The cross was certainly an accomplishment. Every life that he spoke into was an evidence of bearing fruit but, for me, “productivity” connotes a mind-set of constantly moving forward. Being busy, not at times and in moderation, but as a lifestyle. Always moving on to the next big thing, keeping one eye on the clock and the other on his to-do list with no eyes left to see the world. To see people. For as much as Jesus accomplished in his earthly ministry, the Gospels don’t depict a man ruled by his day-timer.

So then, another impertinent question from Meg: Why, when we are aiming for Christ-likeness, do we so often settle for productivity? Set up base-camp on busy-ness? And equate constant movement with godliness? Okay, perhaps this is unfair. Perhaps I’m the only one who gets like this. And since I am up here reflecting on my summer experience in Yellowstone National Park, I will rephrase the question:

Why, when I am aiming for Christ-likeness, do I so often settle for productivity?

How much is enough? It’s a productivity question. It’s a question concerned with quick results, expediency, accomplishing things in order to tick an item off the ol’ to-do list (and then, taking it to another level) being able to show that to-do list to someone else as a justification for your continued existence with the company. But as Richard Foster quotes in The Celebration of the Disciplines, “I find God never guides us into an intolerable scramble of panting feverishness.” Productivity is dressed in busy-ness and accessorized with excessive caffeination.

Hi. My name is Meg Jenista and I’m a productivity-junkie.

Productivity is, at its core, the unceasing endeavor to be needed and useful. In one of my favorite books, The Genessee Diary, Henri Nouwen struggles with these same issues. After years in ministry, he retreats to a monastery for six months and his impertinent question is this:

“Is there a quiet stream underneath the fluctuating affirmations and rejections of my little world? Is there a still point where my life is anchored and from which I can reach out with hope and courage and confidence?”

Fruitfulness is what happens when we reach out with hope, courage and confidence from the anchored place of Christ’s love and acceptance. Fruitfulness is defined by Christ himself in John 15, verses 4 and 5.

"Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. If a person remains in me and I in them, they will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing."

Productivity seeks that which fruitfulness claims as its starting point - namely the assurance of God's presence and love. Fruitfulness allows you to be fully present in the moment. Fruitfulness is activity deeply rooted in the soil of God’s grace. Fruitfulness is, as Henri Nouwen says, “The realization that I am worth more than the sum total of all my efforts.” Fruitfulness is enabled by a fundamental trust that it is the Holy Spirit, who is working at all times and in all places, is at work in us – busy or not. What was the Martin Luther quote we learned in preaching class? “When I preach, I absolutely give it my best but then I go home, have a beer and let the Holy Spirit do the rest?” In undergrad. I had a professor tell us something I have never forgotten. My prof. told us, “Sometimes the most spiritual thing you can do is take a nap.” (Bet you can see why I would remember that one!) Its not productive but it just might be fruitful.

But its all well and good to talk about how I learned to relax in the National Parks. Its easier there. I didn’t have a choice, really. Coming back to Calvin Seminary means picking up my theology books again. It means being busy and caffeinated again. But the impertinent questions I asked this summer:

How much is enough?

Was Jesus Christ productive?

Why, when I am aiming for Christ-likeness, do I often settle for productivity? And

Is there a quiet stream underneath the fluctuating affirmations and rejections of my little world? Is there a still point where my life is anchored and from which I can reach out with hope and courage and confidence?

These questions haunt me as I enter a new academic year. They are in the back of my mind as I create a schedule for myself. And it is my prayer, and I fear it will have to be my discipline, to continue on the path of fruitfulness when the path of productivity seems, more often, to be the path of least resistance.