“Produce fruit in keeping with repentance…every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down.” John the Baptist
“My job is not to be easy on people. My job is to take these great people we have and to push them and make them even better.” Steve Jobs
Walter Isaacson, the author of The Innovators, once asked Steve Jobs, the Apple visionary, which product he was most proud of, assuming Jobs would name the iPod, iPhone, iPad, or Mac. Surprisingly (or not), Steve Jobs said that making an exceptional product is hard, but making a collaborative team that can continually make innovative products is even harder (and more important). So the product, Jobs said, that he was most proud of was Apple itself—and the collaborative, creative team they built together at Apple.
The “A” team strategy of Apple reminds us of the “A” team possibilities of Advent. Advent rolls around each year to offer us an opportunity to go back to the drawing board, to start over, to reimagine new possibilities that God calls us to collaboratively create. Like Apple, the best ideas and practices emerge when we function as a team, when we come together in community and offer our respective gifts, infusing and improving one another’s ideas by our mutual mission-making.
In some ways, John the Baptist, the face of Advent, is to the religious tradition what Steve Jobs, the face of Apple, is to technological innovation. They both offer good ideas to set us off toward the creative, collaborative advantage of Advent. John the Baptist was a singular voice—one who wore camel hair and ate locusts—crying in the wilderness, telling anyone who would listen: “Repent, for there’s a big change ahead!” Steve Jobs admonished the sometimes skeptical: “Stay hungry, and stay foolish!” John the Baptist reminded people that the accumulated obstacles and debris of failed efforts had to be leveled from time to time, and the deep ruts of monotonous routine should be filled in, in order to propel us forward. Jobs put it succinctly: “I want to put a ding in the universe!” John the Baptist had no problem telling people what he thought they needed to hear and how he thought they needed to change, calling them a brood of protective vipers. Steve Jobs often stood outside the box and threw rocks at pre-conceived reality, asking “Why join the Navy if you can be a pirate?”
In Advent, we have the opportunity to join an “A” team, to link up with a community of continual creativity, ongoing collaboration, limitless imagination, and recurring innovation. Advent comes again to remind us that things can change, we can change, and together, we can change things. Advent is always to our advantage.
“I baptize you with water. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.” John the Baptist.
“Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes… the ones who see things differently – they’re not fond of rules…You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things…they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.” Steve Jobs
