All things being equal, there’s not a lot of difference between any of us. We’ve got much more in common than we have that’s different. Or at least it seems that way to me. I am amazed at the utter uniqueness of us all, but take away our faces and everything else seems to be eerily similar.

Here in Kansas City, we’re on the verge of showcasing the public exhibit of human bodies that have already been shown in other major cities of the world. Actual human bodies donated to science from persons in the Republic of China have been preserved through a polymer process that gives the viewer a chance to see an actual body up close and personal. These are bodies that have had the skin removed and each organ has been treated and preserved so the entire body has been exposed in order to be used for educational purposes such as this exhibit.

So what can we learn from this? It’s apparent that stripped away from our outermost organ of skin we look largely alike. We can be tall or short. We can be a red head or a blond or have finely curled black hair. We can have freckles or wrinkles. We can have the varied hues of darkened skin of Hispanic or Indian or African-descent or we can have the paler skin of Anglo-European descent. The world’s varieties of skin color and texture are amazing!

We can have delicate features or we can be blocky and blunt. Others can consider us as pretty or plain. And yet in the end, all those things are merely the outer accoutrements that distinguish us from one another.

Sit in a place where large numbers of random persons are passing by and it’s stunning to realize that with over six billion persons on the face of the earth, there are a mind-blowing number of varieties of appearance just in the face alone. In our faces, we may be the snowflakes of God’s created children, but underneath it all we’re all cut from the same pattern.

Strip us all down and what you discover is with all that random variety, we are still very much alike. The notions of inclusion or exclusion we insist upon enforcing in our world intrigue me. All of us, the Bible tells us, are created in the image of God (Imago Dei as it’s known in the Latin). Strip us all down to our skivvies and take away our distinguishing masculine or feminine features and we’re identifiable only by this: We have, all of us, been created in the model of God’s own being.

Do I know what this means? Nope, not in a million years do I think I could portray this likeness in words. I only know what I read and understand from the first story of the Bible that tells us we have been created in God’s own image. While I do not know fully what this means, I understand that the truth of Imago Dei means something essential about how God loves us all and it therefore coaches us into a new way of relating to one another.

This past Wednesday night at our discussion of same-gender orientation, I recalled for the group what one of our fellow members and a pastoral colleague of mine, would say. No matter how we view homosexuality, whether you view it as a sin or not as a sin, we are compelled by the law of love to love others as Christ loves.

The biblical truth of Imago Dei gives us our cues on this. Does a mother look into the newly birthed face of her child and experience the strange and wonderful tug of looking into the sweet new face of the one who bears her image? Likewise, does the father see himself in something beautiful in the child he holds in his arms? I think God looks into the face of each of us on the day of our birth and exclaim, “My goodness! That’s one beautiful baby!” simply because we bear something beautiful about God’s own image.

So how is it we reject anyone simply because of the color of their skin or the wave of their hair or the structure of their frame or for any other reason we choose to distinguish one from another? In the same sense, how do we declare opposite-gender orientation as “right” and same-gender orientation as “wrong” when choice has been mysteriously, capriciously determined as in the other factors of our being?

On occasion, I hear the anguish of loving parents who discover their child has announced they are gay or lesbian. I hear them cry as they learn their child claims that his or her same-gender orientation has been with them for as long as they remember. What do we then do with that child from our youth group who finally comes to the point of independence and self-affirmation to make this known to us? Does the family of God have enough love to make room for them with no discrimination or fear? It’s obvious their announcement is not news to God and yet over the din of our struggle can we continue to hear God declare, “It is good,” at the announcement of that which is real to them?

What I know is I must love others as God loves them. I am birthed into the world as one of God’s children and for that reason alone, I am compelled to share that love with all my kin in the world who also bear God’s image.

Babies need feeding. If neglected, they yell and scream. If they don’t like something, they sing out with their whole being until someone comes running. They are a good reminder about how dependent they are on someone else to bring food to assuage their hunger. Babies don’t eat big meals that last for more than a few hours; then they hit the yell button and demand to be fed.

They’re a lot like a blog. Blogs must be fed regularly or they go dormant and fall gently asleep. “Feed the blog!” is the mantra of the Blogger. I have been a lousy Blogger recently … scum of the earth … negligent. If this blog were my pet, I’d be arrested for cruelty. If this blog was my house, I’d be condemned.

This is lame but nevertheless how it’s been with me recently … I’ve been out of town. I’ve moved a daughter from one school to another. I’ve done my time these past few weeks in hospitals, nursing homes and funeral parlors. There are endless committee meetings to attend or chair. I’ve had a lot of work to do and so on, and so on, and so on. I didn’t even get a chance to plug Gordon’s trip to the Dominican Republic (see his blogs on that adventure @ Real Live Preacher). He will be excused for not picking me up a few Dominican cigars for my slacker habits.

But I’ve been reading a few good books! One is a book I gave my brother last year at Christmas and this past Thanksgiving he stuck it back in my hands and said I’d enjoy it. He’s right, of course. It’s the book Blood and Thunder, the Epic Story of Kit Carson and the Conquest of the American West by Hampton Sides. It’s not usual for me to read a long, historical book but I’ve enjoyed every page of it. A good bit of the countryside is familiar to me from travels out west.

Do you do this? When you’re driving through a part of the country, do you try to imagine what it would have been like to see it a hundred years ago before there were power lines and shopping malls and housing tracts everywhere? Almost everywhere I go, I try to envision the land but from another time. In Kansas City, we live at the jumping off point of those who broke free from their city lives back east and loaded up for the grand adventure of traveling west across a vast mind-bending land. A fair number of those folks ended up in unmarked graves on the American desert now called the Great Plains. Some ended up tortured and carved up as victims to a genocide they obliquely helped stoke. Some have cities or mountains or sites named after them. Most were nondescript adventurers who suffered for their travels. The lucky ones were the earliest homesteaders on a land that was not theirs. The story of the Native Americans is a tale of absolute domination and abuse. Most of us know this and steer clear of reading about it as it confirms much that has been wrong about our American arrogance and lust for power. Hampton Sides has taken history with its facts and numbers and quaint citations and turned it back into a living thing.

I’ve also been reading a series of books related to Murray Bowen’s development of what is now called Family Systems Theory. This is a psychological theory that breaks from psychodynamic models that focus almost exclusively on the inner-world. This theory is a major turning point of new thinking in that it has little to do with Sigmund Freud or C.G. Jung. It’s not the confrontational cognitive approach of Dr. Phil (“What the hell were you thinking?”), nor is it the goofy approach by that counseling dominatrix Dr. Laura. No shame or abuse here … family systems theory understands no one lives in isolation and that we all come from families of some kind even if they are families in absentia. Particularly, I’ve been reading a two-volume approach by Ron Richardson where he takes the Bowen system and applies it to the pastor as person and to the church as a congregational family unit. “Healthy churches need healthy pastors,” he writes. It’s true! I will be giving a series of lectures later in the spring on this topic to a group of American Baptist pastors in mid-Kansas so the reading is a good place for me to be spending my idle time these days.

Maybe you’ll want to read an essay on a psychodynamic theme from November: “Memory’s Unmade Bed.”

Lastly, I had a very cool thing happen at Christmas! Last fall one of our Associate Pastors on a lark applied for a grant and before you could say, “Show me the money!” $20k fell out of the sky to be used for local community ministries. Her initiative was the reason this happened so I felt she needed affirmation. She had remarked often she sometimes felt left out because ministry is so often cast in the model of “the good old boys.” Women get punished for trying to break through the GOB’s not-so-subtle misogynistic boundaries.

So I went to the local cigar shop and told the two store employees who greeted me that I wanted to buy “a chick cigar” for my colleague in ministry who had excelled in her job recently. I explained this was for a woman who wasn’t a cigar smoker so I needed something mild and easy on the t-buds. The girl-employee looked at me and said flatly, “I sell them, I don’t smoke them.” So the guy-employee brightened up and said cheerily, “I have just the right thing for her!” We walked into the moisture of the store’s humidor where I’d been before and he pointed out a stick that was very mild and good for a first-timer. Eight bucks later, I left with one for her and another cheaper one for me.

She was so jazzed! It was Halloween night and she and her husband and two daughters and the two guys they were dating all stood out in front of her condo and smoked her prize for excellence in ministry.

Here’s how this story ends … the Sunday before Christmas, one of those same guys came up to me at the back of the sanctuary before worship and gave me 2 Cubans his brother had gotten for him while onshore in Dubai. What a cool freedom it was to preach that morning with 2 Cubans stashed in my pocket! What a great Christmas gift!

In my line of work, we do a lot of work with groups. We have a weekly platform to speak and articulate the truth. We have a unique opportunity to talk before folks who come because they want to and to say the words that hopefully give them a new vision for their lives. I’ve spent some time thinking through those characteristics that capture what I mean by admitting I have a role to play in giving leadership. These thoughts are more than random, but they are my attempt to think outloud with you about those specific ways I can “lead” when I say I am a leader. I would love to hear from you about what you think about these things …

Leaders lead. Leaders lead by example. Leaders don’t ask others to do what they are not already doing. Leaders set the pace of expectation and performance. Leaders set the standard by which the group’s success is achieved.

Leaders lead by honesty. Leaders determine for themselves they will tell the truth. Leaders understand that secrets are often embedded in the life of the group. Leaders recognize that dishonesty is a habit that eventually overshadows the clarity of truth and becomes a threat of disease to the health of the group.

Leaders lead by trust. Leaders cannot lead in a group where trust is not shared as an extension of healthy relationships with one another. Leaders must accept the trust offered them knowing it is an extension of our trust with God. Leaders must extend trust to those with whom they work as an extension of their desire for the group to experience healthy vitality.

Leaders lead by outward example. Leaders recognize it’s what they do and not what they say that really matters in the end. Leaders act on the basis of their deepest convictions. Leaders act sacrificially for the overall health of the group.

Leaders lead by integrity. Leaders recognize that without integrity their efforts are neutralized or wasted. Leaders offer themselves as faithful models that can be followed by others who are seeking the path for themselves. Leaders understand that secrets diminish the group’s health.

Leaders lead by inward self-understanding. Leaders differentiate the outward image presented through their actions from the inward essence of their true self. Leaders see themselves honestly, recognizing that health of self emanates from within. Leaders accept their dark selves and seek to resolve those conflicts in healthy ways.

Leaders lead by ethical moral authority. Leaders do not demand perfection of themselves or others but recognize imperfection as a sign of our mutual humanity. Leaders recognize the source of their power resides in their ability to live ethically according to the way of Christ. Leaders seek to resolve their errors with others and with God.

Leaders lead by living against the grain of lesser ways of being. Leaders are willing to choose the harder path if that’s the necessary path that leads to success. Leaders refuse to take shortcuts that threaten the group’s health or success. Leaders ask others to follow them.

Leaders lead by humility. Leaders recognize the truth, ‘but by the grace of God go I.’ Leaders know others have paved the way before them and made their success possible. Leaders seek to elevate others to achieve success. Leaders lead by owning their power. Leaders know they have power to lead. Leaders accept that power and vow to wield it with wisdom and kindness. Leaders seek to serve through their power and recognize their power is a sacred trust.

Leaders lead by seeing what others cannot see. Leaders are visionary and give thoughtful anticipation to the future. Leaders lead by looking, thinking, dreaming, planning, building consensus, sharing, and working. Leaders dream about how the future could be and don’t stay mired in the puny limitations of what is.

Leaders lead by courage. Leaders accept that their role of leadership will be challenged. Leaders step forward into the heart of the group’s need. Leaders accept responsibility and don’t dump it upon others.

Leaders lead by submitting to the paradox of following. Leaders know there is a larger wisdom at work in their efforts by allowing God room to work. Leaders know they cannot do everything alone and allow faith to guide and direct others who share the vision. Leaders are willing to be clay in the potter’s hand.

Leaders lead by understanding that the smallest things are essential to the largest things. Leaders recognize the wisdom of the Hebrew saying that, “it’s the little foxes that spoil the vineyard.” Leaders know that it’s the little details that determine success or failure. Leaders are willing to give attention to the small details “as unto the Lord,” understanding that everything they do is a reflection of their relationship to God.

Leaders lead.

The church never seems to know what to do whenever one of its kids gets in trouble. We have such high expectations of them that when one of them makes a mistake, we aren’t sure whether to spank them for their errors or love them through it. I had not known exactly what to do when one of our young girls turned up pregnant. She was 18 and a senior in high school and everyone knew she had a boyfriend. Of course, none of us expected their love would turn into this. When she turned up pregnant, it was spoken of in hushed terms of harsh judgment and condemnation.

I’ve found that being the pastor is often like being the umpire behind home plate. It’s our job to call balls and strikes when the pitch is thrown. The problem is there’s always someone in the center field bleachers who believes we need glasses because it’s obvious they can see better than us. Being a pastor is an exercise in making the right calls and then fielding the heat generated when we do.

This girl wasn’t the brightest light on the Christmas tree and it was obvious that needing her boyfriend too much always meant she might turn up “with child.” She was lovesick and sexually stupid and when she started showing, you could watch from across the church and see the folks whispering and nodding behind her. I almost couldn’t stand to watch it because it seemed, well … so graceless and gauche.

It seemed the church needed a jump start on grace so I called a couple of ladies and asked if they would organize a church-sponsored baby shower. You might think I asked them to walk on hot coals on their bare feet. But with a little twisting of their arms they relented. It also helps in pastoring to have some chips to cash in when the time is right. Sometimes goodness has to be called out in a person before they’ll recognize how right it is. These ladies were good as gold and tough enough to stand in the storm of shame with me.

The next Sunday, at the end of the service, I announced boldly (there’s no other way to announce this kind of thing), the church was holding a baby shower for this young girl. “We’re the kind of church that recognizes we’re going to have a baby in our midst soon, and we want to love that little boy and his mother in this good way.”

It also did not surprise me when Birdie showed up the next day. She arrived without an appointment and walked right into my office. “Preacher, you’ve got your nerve announcing a baby shower for that pregnant girl who’s not married. Don’t you know you’re testing the willingness of this church to suffer sin in its midst by throwing that young girl a baby shower?”

“That young girl may be pregnant but she’s still our girl. She needs us now more than ever. What do you think the church is planning to do? We might as well nickname that child ‘the church’s little bastard child.’ If we don’t love her now, we’ll lose our chance to love her in the future.”

A big smile crossed Birdie’s face. “Okay Pastor, that’s more like it! I was just checking to see if you had the gumption to withstand the wrath of those who wonder if we’re blessing that mother because she’s immoral or blessing her because God’s not afraid to love her just like she is.”

“Preacher, can you think of any young girls in the Good Book who turned up pregnant without a daddy?”

“Birdie, Joseph had a serious problem on his hands and Mary wasn’t much help other than to be God’s willing partner in the world. The poor Innkeeper with the ‘No Vacancy’ sign must have had a twinge of mercy by letting them stay in a cave with the animals. Could Jesus have entered the world more quietly? No pomp. No circumstance other than the whispers of folks who had nothing but judgment to offer. Seems like Luke’s story has nothing but social outsiders who gather at Jesus’ birth. Give the Innkeeper credit, at least he found a place for Jesus in his greatest moment of need. Wonder if our little church ladies who have judgment instead of God’s good news will make room for the Christ-child this season by loving this sweet girl who’s got her own problems?”

“Hang out the sign, Rev. Let ‘em know there’s a vacancy at The Outsider’s Inn for any of God’s children who are entering the world. There’s enough grace in this place for that.”