The medium is the message. The adage from Marshall McLuhan is also what I was taught in seminary. After reading John Carlin’s “Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game that Made a Nation” (recently made into the movie titled Invictus), I’ve begun to question this basic maxim. It’s not so much that I disagree with the motto, but rather I’ve begun to wonder about whether a medium’s message is always fixed. That’s really the crux of the issue.
Many want to argue that when you borrow the medium from another community, culture, or context, you bring the message of that medium with it. But Nelson Mandela’s use of the medium of rugby shows that great leaders can and do change the message of a medium. If you’re not familiar with the storyline, check out these two articles that will get you up to speed: Leadership as Loving Enemies and Small Acts, Great Transformations. Both Greg and Jason focus on Mandela’s acts of forgiveness, but what I’d like to focus on is Mandela’s ability to change the message of a medium.
I picked up in seminary the notion that the medium and the message are inseparable. I still agree that the medium carries a significant part of the message (it certainly isn’t neutral), but Mandela shows that the message any given medium carries can change. Here’s the trick. It took a lot of hard work. This hard work began with 27 years in prison where Mandela took the opportunity for reflection and contemplation on the current situation of apartheid; created a plan for “playing the enemy” and practiced it on the guards, wardens, and politicians that he interacted with while in prison. In these small respectful engagements with the enemy, Mandela’s imagination was formed in such a way that when he was freed he was able to see how rugby could act in the same manner on a national scale even though it had to this point carried a cultural message of apartheid. Mandela saw how rugby could communicate a different message. The medium of rugby was not inseparable from the message of apartheid.
I recently attended a workshop put on by Midnight Oil on bringing digital media into worship through the effective use of a consistent cultural metaphor. I didn’t agree with everything they promoted or every way forward that they suggested, but I did appreciate their primary homiletical focus on metaphor and using the digital medium to express that metaphor. Jesus’ parables were as effective as they were precisely because they borrowed from the cultural meaning that they brought with them, and Jesus masterfully shifted that meaning toward his own end.
Mandela’s modern-day example suggests that Jesus’ use of the culture’s medium didn’t end at the Ascension. Churches can borrow from the medium of culture and give that medium a new message, but this re-messaging will take a leader who dedicates considerable time and effort beginning with an extended period of solitude and contemplation (when was the last time you went on a sermon retreat?).
This shouldn’t really surprise us. Jesus didn’t just re-message cultural metaphors in parables. He used his own life and took the medium of the cross, which carried a message of imperial power and capital punishment, and transformed it into a symbol of divine mercy, grace and love.
Tom Arthur is pastor of Sycamore Creek United Methodist Church in Lansing, Michigan.
