Stiff-Necked

 

And the Lord said to me, “I have seen this people, and they are a stiff-necked people indeed!” (Deuteronomy 9:13)

 

        I have a theory as to why American auto makers fell so far behind their foreign competition in the 1970s and 80s. Detroit (I lived there at the time) was an isolated island of American car companies. Its residents were mostly company employees with incentives to buy the cars they had made. As company executives drove to work every morning, they saw no problem. They had heard of thousands of imports arriving in California ports but saw only Fords and Chevys around them, so things must be okay. Everything on the roads they traveled had been made by them.

         The Bible uses the wonderful expression “stiff-necked” to describe a refusal to see beyond one’s nose, to interpret reality only in terms that make one comfortable. It is to be set in our ways, stubbornly to deny that we might have more to learn or that change might be necessary and beneficial. We tense up our shoulders, tighten our jaw and dig in our heels. We retreat deeper into our island of denial while the competition—or new opportunity—runs by us.

        We clergy can be stiff-necked. We follow, each of us, the counsel of voices with which we are familiar or comfortable. The hottest trend in ministry or the current book from the latest expert becomes our focus. “This is the way,” we say. “Growth in the church will surely follow this pattern,” we convince ourselves. So desperate are we to be a “difference-maker” (a term currently fashionable in ministerial ranks) that we tune out other voices, resist possibilities peripheral to our vision. I encountered such a colleague recently…stiff-necked, certain that his plans for his congregation are the only way to save its future. In fact, his stubborn resistance to any alternative may be the cause of its demise.

 

    Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626), the great English philosopher, said, “If a man will begin with certainties, he will end with doubt. But if he will begin with doubt, it is certain that he will end with certainties.” I’ve been discovering that. As I sit loose in the saddle…as I regard the questions of life to be more important than the answers…as I stay open to the possibility that I may be wrong—in matters both great and small—I find a growing faith and a deepening sense of assurance.

        The healthy soul will listen to new ideas without feeling insecure. The winning spirit is open to what’s next without becoming defensive. Effective persons don’t suffer stiff necks.


Copies of Mike's book, You Are Rich: Discovering Faith in Everyday Moments, a collection of faith related reflections, are available through Amazon or Barnes & Noble.