There’s a book I read as a child, Onion John. I keep a list starting from a few years back of books I read as a child that I really liked. Now, I get to share them with the boys. Rasmus the Vagabond, by Astrid Lindgren, is a hard one to find. If anyone has a copy… Anyway, Onion John.
It’s a story about a middle school boy who befriends the town eccentric, the title character, Onion John. Onion John is a peasant from an unnamed Eastern European country who has ended up a long-term resident in the boy’s New England village of the 1950s. Onion John grows a great garden, and earns his living that way. He’s known for his apples and, of course, onions.
But he’s a bit of a nut. He lives in a stone hut he has built on the edge of town, in a field the townsfolk let him have. He is one of those “collectors” who has all kinds of stuff squirreled away.
Well, he and the boy, Andy, start a friendship. But the boy’s father is not too pleased. As the story progresses, tho, the father actually comes to know Onion John, even to become something like friends with him. The problem of the story comes when the father decides that the Rotary Club should build Onion John a proper house. The town comes together in a sort of frenzied building. They make Onion John a really nice house. But Onion John is increasingly frustrated—he’s losing the weird touches of his homemade house. He is told that the four bathtubs he uses to store all kinds of stuff need to go. He loses his precious wood-burning stove. All this for a real house—warm, dry, electric appliances. Who wouldn’t want that?
Everyone is rightfully proud of what they have done. They put time, money, effort, consideration into the house. The only one they did not really consider was Onion John. They assumed he wanted and needed what they themselves would want and need.
The way it all unravels: Onion John wants to heat the house up. But instead of turning up the thermostat, he piles some paper on the eye of the stove—makes sense to him, used to firing up a wood-burning stove—and the house burns down.
There are some thoughts about getting the insurance to rebuild, but it dawns on people that maybe they should have let Onion John be. He ends up leaving town—having lost two homes.
I guess I read the story again, read it to the boys as well, for some subconscious reasons. Our work in ministry, particularly at the Rock is about changing lives through the Lordship of Jesus Christ. But what will happen if we believe that conversion, or the work of the Holy Spirit in a believer means that they have to become like us?
Or if we think that a real life is the middle class life?
Or if we think that what we’re looking for is what everyone else is looking for?
How much freedom is there in the Gospel?
An incident: I saw the truck of a fellow who hangs around our ministry. It’s a disaster inside. All kinds of stuff all over the place. Kind of like what Onion John’s truck would look like, I suppose. I wondered, “is there a witness here? A negative witness?” That is, if people saw such a truck with the bible on the dash, would they say, “there can’t be a Christian here, this is too disorderly. Obviously, this guy’s a mess!” Or could it be, “if being a Christian doesn’t change this, then phooey!” Of course, pretty much everything the fellow owns is in this vehicle! Is Jesus supposed to fix that? For whom? Us? The guy? The Kingdom?
There was a tough moment, two tough moments, about two weeks ago. Maybe only three people know about it, because it stayed in the spiritual realm and did not break out and tear people down. It was a moment where I feared that we as a church had pushed some people to take on some things, had offered the opportunity for people to look and act like normal middle class white people. I saw very clearly that we had thus exposed them to severe danger—the vulnerable, when they step up, are in the sights of the evil one and they need special intercession, which I was not giving them! I was in some turmoil, thinking that the shepherd had not prepared the table that exists in the midst of enemies. They were just in the midst of enemies.
And the attacks came hard. By the grace of God, we came through. And we needed to do nothing but pray. It’s never too late to pray, that’s the lesson.
Well, one of the lessons. The other one is exactly the challenge I have posed to the church. Not I, but Jesus. It is the challenge to quit doing ministry to people. To start doing it with them. And finally to let it emerge from them. That kind of church will be… hard. Hard on the face of it because leadership looks different when done by different cultures. And who gives up leadership? What if every person involved in ministry at The Rock right now would have to give up their position and status and sense of approval in order to let ministry flow from the community? Would we? Could we?
That is, can we avoid making them like Onion John, thinking they will be ready to lead when they see things like we do, live like we do, want what we want? At the end of the day, we don’t know how to manage or control people who don’t want what we want. There is no leverage. And then, too, we face a difficulty: who wants to let go of their position? If, as in the case of church ministry, we would be letting go not only of our “say,” but also that warm fuzzy feeling we got when we did something for or to someone, will we let it go?
