The Courage to Say No
The Rev. Dr. Matthew Johnson-Doyle
November 7. 2010

Readings “No More Angry Gods” by James Kavanaugh
“The Journey” by Mary Oliver

Message The Courage to Say No

Note: The sermon is an oral event. This manuscript may not reflect the exact spoken words. If you want to hear what was actually said, you can listen to sermon visit our website at www.uurockford.org. © Matthew Johnson-Doyle, 2010.

The Tao Te Ching,
where I often turn for spiritual wisdom,
the Tao Te Ching says,
“in pursuit of learning everyday something is added.
in pursuit of Tao everyday something is dropped.”

I’ve spent most of my life adding things.
Adding knowledge, adding responsibilities, adding skills.
So it’s a hard lesson:
in pursuit of Tao everyday something is dropped.

But I found myself thinking about this recently;
I was in a meeting here at church,
and we started the meeting, as we usually do,
by checking-in.
Check – in is when the folks just share a little of what is going on their lives.
Sometimes it is just news:
we are went on this trip, or we are doing X.
Sometimes it is heavy stuff that folks are dealing with.

Well, this particular meeting there was a theme:
person after person was sharing about how they were being pushed or pulled
to say yes when they wanted to say no.

It was the stuff of life, regular stuff,
it just all seemed to be happening at once,
and it was true for me, too.
And when I put my ear to the ground,
I heard it from so many of you,
and other folks I talk to:
the challenge to say no when folks are trying so hard to get us to say yes.

Regular stuff.
Life stuff.
The child who wants to get away with everything,
or just get something,
but you just can’t do it – its not really safe, or its too expensive,
or it just isn’t part of your values,
and they plead, plead, but you have to say no.

The relative who plans a visit a little longer than you can really handle.
Four days would be long enough, but a week is just too much.
But they are coming from across the country,
and how do you say no to your mom brother best friend from long ago.

You are working as hard as you can,
and as many hours as you get paid for,
and the boss wants more from you –
well, can’t you just pick up so-and-so’s duties until we hire a replacement?
Oh, and there is a hiring freeze on,
so it might be a while.
Oh, and can’t you change all your curriculum and teach from this new book;
I know the first day of school was last week,
but you are such a good team player.
and you feel boxed into a corner; unable to say no.

We are at the end of our rope,
and someone we love says,
come on honey, just a little more.
Don’t they see we are already at the end of our rope?

We get asked to serve, and we know, sure, we would be good at it.
We could really make a difference.
But it just feels like too much,
more than we can do, more than we should do.
And maybe we know that it is time for someone else to step forward,
we’ve done it long enough, and well enough,
and yet, they plead, call on our sense of loyalty,
and we open our calendar, or our wallet, once again.

This is just regular stuff.
This is life.

It’s hard to say no when folks really need us to say yes.

I’ve been thinking about this,
and thinking about the wisdom from the Tao Te Ching:
in pursuit of learning, everyday something is added.
in pursuit of Tao, everyday something is dropped.

This is #48, and it continues:

Less and less is done, until one arrives at non-action.
When nothing is done, nothing is left undone.

The world is won by letting things take their own course.
If you still have ambitions, it’s out of your reach.

The Tao Te Ching is like this, because the Tao is like this:
ironic, mysterious, paradoxical.

But the general sense of this ancient wisdom is helpful to me:
the Tao, the sacred way, flows through all things –
and flows through us,
and when we enter a quiet moment,
then we can indeed, like Blake, see a world in a grain of sand
and heaven in a wildflower.
But when we try to put names on this,
when we try to categorize it, or use it,
things start to fall apart.
We make all these systems, these creeds and rules,
but all that is a substitute for simply following the Tao.

Taoism thus shares with its cousin, Buddhism,
the sense that attachments, ambitions, striving,
these things can be a source of disappointment and suffering.

Now, I still think it is good to have vision, to dream, to plan and long.
I see the world and I see that it only gets better when folks work at it,
when they have desires for beauty and wholeness and justice.
I guess I’m not a full-bore Taoist.
But I also see that when we get so wrapped up in our agenda,
when we can’t say no to distractions and, most importantly,
to the seductions of power, prestige, and recognition,
well, then trouble follows.
So I think the caution of Taoism is worth hearing.

In pursuit of Tao, every day something is dropped.
When you want to experience wonder,
when you want to know what is true and real,
you’ve got to slow it down, take the quiet moment.
This is about balance.

You can’t say yes to everything.
You just can’t – there is only one of you,
and not everything is your table, as the saying goes.
You have to think these things through,
because it can spiral out of control pretty quickly.
First its just a cookie, then it is a glass of milk,
and before you know it, someone else is sleeping in your house.
You’ve got to draw the line somewhere.

This is about balance, and the last thing I want to do
is advocate saying no to everything.

That’s a miserly and boring life.
Nobody wants that –
for there are so many things worth saying yes to –
things that lift our soul, things that make a difference in the world,
things that honor our commitments and keep our promises.

Here, indeed, is my contention, and my thesis this morning:
We say no in order to say yes.
We say no in order to say yes.

When we have no boundaries, no limits, when we say yes to everything,
then we are not in control of our lives,
and we have no strength, no reserve, to say yes to those things that really matter.

This is really evident in the ministry, and in any type of leadership –
business, public sector, your own family, and so on –
you have to say no in order to say yes.
If I went to every single meeting, I would have no time to prepare for Sunday;
and if I accepted every invitation to every community event,
I would have no time to care for folks in the church,
and so on and so on.
Any leader – any parent, any teacher, any person who is trying to get something done –
faces these same questions –
you have to say no to say yes.

This is hard, but it is what successful companies and other organizations do.
I learned more about this from the best-seller by Jim Collins,
good to great,
about great companies –
he talks about the hedgehog concept, that successful companies focus,
and successful leaders put their energy into what they can really do well.
This is based on the ancient Greek parable:
“the fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.”
Success is based on the hedgehog concept,
and Collins then writes this:

“Do you have a ‘to do’ list?
Do you also have a ‘stop doing’ list?
Most of us lead busy but undisciplined lives. We have ever expanding ‘to-do’ lists, trying to build momentum by doing, doing, doing – and doing more. And it rarely works. Those who built the good-to-great companies, however, made as much use of ‘stop doing’ lists and ‘to-do’ lists. They displayed a remarkable discipline to unplug all sorts of extraneous junk.”

Collins tells the story of a paper-company that got out of the making paper business.
They realized they would never be great at it,
but they could be really good at the middle of the business –
selling paper to consumers.
So they sold all the mills, and moved full into the new vision.
They were widely successful, because they did one thing.

And Collins talks about how to apply this concept to budgeting –
and this goes for a business, a non-profit, or a family just as well,
he says that “budgeting is a discipline to decide which arenas should be fully funded and which should not be funded at all.”
You have to say no to say yes.

So, how do we know?
How do we know what to say yes to,
and what to say no to?
How do we say yes to the Tao and say no to distractions?
How do we say yes to life and no to destruction?
How do we say yes to the big idea, and no to everything else?

I think this is a mutually-reinforcing dynamic between principles and habits;
or, to put it less abstractly, this is a dance with two partners –
what we love and how we live.

As we clarify our principles, we make changes to our habits.
As our habits change, it becomes easier to follow our principles.

It’s like Mary Oliver describes:
One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began –

this is a question of principles, of saying, look,
my life is for something – it is for something important and worthy,
and I’m not going to let everyone else push me around anymore,
and though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice
thought the whole house began to tremble
Mend my life! each voice called.

But you didn’t stop.

This is hard, to be clear about principles,
to say I believe this,
I value this, and this is who I am,
this is tough and difficult.
People might attack you –
they might say, why are you being so obstinate.
Why are you being so self-centered, they might say.
What they are really saying is,
why don’t you do what I want?

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,

this is about principles.
It is about what we love.
if we decide that we love earth made fair and all its people one,
then we have to turn back,
and forswear our foolish ways,
and turn away from angry gods and hostile words,
to say no to threats and venom so we can say yes
to gods who can love and laugh from morning until night,
because life was meant to be joyful.