Archive for

The Ethic of Inefficiency

In 2003, I wrote the reflection below on inefficiency. It seems all the more relevant today as our elected leaders inaugurate a department for efficiency, which is applied subjectively, justifies any cut to programs and staff, and increases power in the hands of a few. This is the article:

“You have the watch, but we have the time.” – an Indian philosopher to a westerner

A few weeks ago I met with a Romanian pastor who had spent a year studying in the United States. He couldn’t believe how efficient Americans are, even down to calculating the time of arrival over long distances. His impression was only positive, commenting on how much more we can get done in a shorter amount of time. The more we discussed it, the more I realized how great a value we place on efficiency.

Efficiency is being economical in the use of resources like goods, money and time. For example, consider how we apply our business lingo to “time”, which we save, spend, manage and invest.

But to be efficient is costly. It means we invest in an infrastructure to serve efficiency, which demands maintenance. The most efficient economies consume the most resources. That is why many of us spend much of our lives working to be efficient to accomplish more with less but actually have less and less time for people. In a very real way, friendships, marriages and families are being sacrificed at the altar of efficiency.

Unfortunately, efficiency has been baptized by the church; and what is sanctified is easily justified. A potent illustration is the Christian’s library which includes booklets on the habits of efficient people right alongside other discipleship material, or other literature informed more by the modern business culture than by biblical exegesis.

Naturally, our ministries also reflect efficiency as well-oiled programs that accomplish their goals. But where are the people? Are they well-managed problems? Are they resources to be saved, spent or invested? Or are they persons – each a mystery that demands individual time, care and attention?

I am not saying that efficiency is of no value; I am simply saying that we need to prioritize our values. In his Confessions, St. Augustine said:

“You listen to the groans of the prisoners and free us from the chains which we have forged for ourselves. This You do for us unless we toss our heads against you in the illusion of liberty and in our greed for gain, at the risk of losing all, love our own good better than You Yourself, who are the common good of all.”

Under the illusion of liberty and in greed for more, we lose God. We do not pray because it is not efficient. We do not contemplate; we do not walk; we do not sit and talk. I am afraid that we have overvalued efficiency so that we, like the priest and the Levite, do not have the time to see the poor in the gutter, who is begging us to be a neighbor.

I think a vital problem is that hiding behind our efforts for efficiency lays our desire to dominate. A Romanian priest and theologian, Dumitru Staniloae, poignantly said:

“We can never secure our own freedom by dominating…Wanting to be lord over himself, man then finds that he is subject to himself; similarly, in his relationship with nature, wanting to lord it over the natural world he becomes its slave. Certainly man must be over nature, but that is a very different thing from the passionate desire to dominate it; man is lord of nature indeed only when he is free in relation to it.”

In order for efficiency to retain its value, we must be freed from our passions to dominate. This is something I personally wrestle with. As our ministry has grown, I have been increasingly loaded down with administrative jobs. In order to be efficient, I try to manage my time better so that I have time to accomplish my responsibilities. But I also see in myself the desire to control so that I can accomplish my will and my plans. This is domination in the name of efficiency.

This is vivid in the story of the sinful woman who washes Jesus’ feet with expensive perfume. The wise managers of money thought, “What a waste. Do you know how much we could do if we managed that perfume?” Hidden behind their thoughts of “efficiency” was their will to dominate. But Jesus validated her “waste” as being effective ministry to Him.

What we do is often wasted because we don’t waste it at the feet of Jesus. How often do we disobey in the name of good stewardship? Where are we being positively inefficient? What are we wasting at the feet of Jesus? A good way to verify our motivations for efficiency is to ask, how much time did I spend with people this week? How much time did I spend among the poor? What is the quality of my friendships with the poor? This is a gift offered by the poor: The dominated can reveal and check our tendency to dominate.