Along the route from my house to the church is an undeveloped intersection on three of its four corners. Two medium-trafficked two-lane roads converge (Camino de Oeste and Linda Vista for those local Tucsonans) at a stop sign. A few months ago, inexplicably, two massive forty-yard dumpsters showed up on one of the undeveloped corners. They sat empty for a few days, and then some observant neighbors, likely determining that the dumpster didn’t have another purpose, dumped a ragged armchair in the dumpster.
The proverbial floodgates opened. Old TV sets, broken dressers, bikes, and couches filled the two dumpsters to overflowing. Over the next two months, the dumpsters were emptied multiple times and then quickly filled. I still have no idea what the intent of the dumpster was. But all it took was putting the dumpster out to attract untold tons of junk to emerge from Northwest Tucson.
I think we all ought to drag metaphorical dumpsters out to the intersection of our hearts with others.
How do we put our dumpsters at the intersection of our hearts?
To put out dumpsters at the intersection of your heart and others begins by creating space for them.
One of the ways I’ve realized that I protect myself from conversations is by wearing my earbuds at the gym (and pretty much everywhere else). I’ve begun to be more proactive in removing my earbuds when I come into the gym to chat with the attendants at the front desk or when I enter the locker room and conversations naturally occur. I often wince internally just a bit, recognizing that I’m opening myself up to a discussion that might sap emotional energy. But, to paraphrase Paul, if I clang weights while learning all mysteries, but ignore my neighbor, I am nothing. And if I work my body ragged to increase my physical fitness and input knowledge and wisdom at 2x speed to sharpen my mind, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Maybe you avoid eye contact with strangers or intentionally avoid people as you navigate your office or your nightly walk. Maybe you need to start by creating space for those dumpsters.
Once the dumpsters are out, you’ve got to make sure the lids are open.
Everyone has junk. Most of us live our lives trying to protect others from seeing our garbage and from making sure others don’t share their trash with us. Many are Jedis at ensuring a conversation only goes so deep. Weather, sports, politics, and shallow updates are but a few of the ways we protect ourselves from revealing our true selves to others. How do you press past the social niceties of conversation?
Does your own discomfort shut down others from sharing their pain? Do you default to trite encouragement instead of creating space for your neighbor to expose their pain for what it really is? In his book, The Wounded Healer, Henri Nouwen says, “A minister is not a doctor whose primary task is to take away pain. Rather, he deepens the pain to a level where it can be shared.”
To put out dumpsters means we have the responsibility of receiving their junk. Once the dumpsters are out, it is only a matter of time before they begin to be filled. It’s wearying to care for the hard things on others’ hearts. But if we believe that God is the one upon whom we can cast all of our (and our neighbors’ anxieties (1 Pet 5:7)), we can step in with courage. God cares for our neighbors far more than we can imagine. And he invites us to be used to join their hands to his in their suffering.
How can we put dumpsters out at our churches?
At one church I served at I often heard from people that they felt that they couldn’t share their burdens because they felt like “everyone else has their lives together.” This certainly isn’t the environment the church wanted. It caused me to reflect on how we can create churches that invite vulnerability.
I think it starts with the pastor. I have to be the pace-setter for appropriate transparency. If I am unwilling to share my whole heart, including my fears, my discouragements, and my sins, then why would I expect the congregation to share theirs?
Please don’t hear me encouraging inappropriate sharing. It’s irresponsible for me to use the sermon for my own therapy, burdening the congregation with an unfair responsibility and getting cheap atonement for myself. But if I don’t give myself to God’s people, sharing my life, my joys, my sense of humor, and my sadness, then I have pulled in the dumpsters from my heart and I can’t expect to get much in return.
How much brokenness are you comfortable with? Jesus presses in and invites the deepest and the darkest sins, pain, and joy in the hearts of those he encounters. Consider Jesus’ interaction with the woman who had been bleeding. In the middle of the press of the crowd and the urgency of an impending death, Jesus stops at the touch of the hurting woman to create space to minister to her.
How often does the press and bustle of life, the fear of carrying someone else’s burdens, or having someone mishandle my own troubles cause me to construct impenetrable barriers between us?
Fight the fear and put out the empty dumpsters.
Things will get messy. You will attract the hurting, the confused, the sinners. But isn’t that who Jesus drew?
Look to the great garbageman, throw off the lids, and drag the dumpsters to the curb. You won’t regret it.