"The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry" by John M. Comer. A Review

 

The whole book is easily summarized in the title, "The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry." John Mark Comer, founding pastor of Bridgetown Church in Portland, Oregon, author and teacher, has written this 304-page popular, breezy hardback to seek to help people push back against the divine tyrant, "Hurry." It was a noble effort that I think he successfully achieves, mostly. Since there are thousands upon thousands of ratings and reviews, I'll make mine quick-ish: cons then pros.

The cons are three. The first, rather nitpicky on my part, has to do with a Greek word he references. "Keep in mind, the Greek word that we translate "salvation" is soteria; it's the same word we translate "healing." When you're reading the New Testament and you read that somebody was "healed" by Jesus and then you read somebody else was "saved" by Jesus, you're reading the same Greek word" (77). Actually, I don't know anywhere in the New Testament where soteria is translated as "healing". It's possible, though it would be rare. The word that is used most often is therapeuo or iaomai. Nitpicky, I know. But his misspeaking puts a little dent in his credibility, at least for me. Then, the whole second section, "The Solution" feels like we're back to the old ways of the WWJD bracelets - the "What Would Jesus Do" timeframe. "If you want to experience the life of Jesus, you have to adopt the lifestyle of Jesus" (82). If you can remember back to the 1990s when this was a big deal, you may recall how easy it was to turn Jesus into a right wing fundamentalist or a left wing Marxist all in the name of "What Would Jesus Do?" Which leads to my third con. This is more about do-good than gospel-fueled living, "our apprenticeship to Jesus is pretty straightforward: How would Jesus live if he were me?" (93). Therefore, the whole second section smacked of that old book written by Charles Sheldon, "In His Steps." There are good questions to consider and think through, but in the end there's not much good news.

My pros are multiple, but I'll trim them down to this: Comer hits on a deeply significant problem in modern America: Hurry. The first section is his tale of being too alive to die and to dead to live. His assessment that an overbusy, digitally distracted life of speed may actually be one of the greatest threats to Christian living and the life of the church, seems spot-on to me, "The need of the hour is for a slowdown spiritually" (28). Thus he spends the last section, the largest section, on four practices or disciplines to help us ruthlessly eliminate hurry. They are silence and solitude, sabbath, simplicity, and slowing. In each of those chapters the author gives loads of helpful steps and checklists for moving them along and deeper into our lives. My favorite was the whole chapter on sabbath and sabbath living.

As Comer wraps up the volume, he admits (again) his own need for this book: "I had to make peace with who I am, and who I'm not. I had to let go of the envy, the fantasy, the cancerous restlessness. To accept, gratefully: this is my life" (254). It is a book worth reading and working through and pondering and applying in your ruthless elimination of hurry.