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Minutes of the meeting: Homily for a clergy gathering

Exodus 33

7 Now Moses used to take the tent and pitch it outside the camp, far off from the camp; he called it the tent of meeting. And everyone who sought the Lord would go out to the tent of meeting, which was outside the camp. 8 Whenever Moses went out to the tent, all the people would rise and stand, each of them, at the entrance of their tents and watch Moses until he had gone into the tent. 9 When Moses entered the tent, the pillar of cloud would descend and stand at the entrance of the tent, and the Lord would speak with Moses. 10 When all the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance of the tent, all the people would rise and bow down, all of them, at the entrance of their tent. 11 Thus the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend. Then he would return to the camp; but his young assistant, Joshua son of Nun, would not leave the tent.

I'd like to invite you into the kitchen. When I was studying  at Howard Divinity School, Professor Kortright  Davis  used to remind our seminars that we were having conversations in the kitchen, not for an audience, but just talking in the kitchen with our collars unbuttoned and the tabs flapping, talking honestly about what  ministry is about and trying to make sense of it all. I'd like to invite you into the kitchen.

Here in the kitchen, I want to share with you a dream I had last  Saturday night.  It was an anxiety dream, of course. It is not unusual for me to have anxiety dreams on Saturday nights, but this one was especially disturbing.

I was in a large rustic auditorium, or it may have been an immense cave. At the front of the auditorium was a pile of boulders, very large rocks, which were the source of the heat for the hall. I stood on one of the boulders.  People were beginning to enter the auditorium/cave.

We were dressed in rustic clothes, and our hair was shoulder length. At first I thought we  were native Americans; then, I thought, maybe we were Israelites from the time of Issac and Jacob.

Standing in front of me on a taller boulder was an elder. He had an aura. He may have  divine. He said to me that, as soon as we were ready to begin, he would call on me to read the minutes of the meeting.

I had no minutes. So I ran from the hall and began searching the huts in the village, every hut but my own, looking for minutes of the meeting. I found papers, but no minutes.

Suddenly it occurred to me that I may have never written down the minutes. I may have never written the minutes, and it was too late to write them now.

A feeling of disappointment with myself flooded me. I felt hopelessly incompetent. I was filled with despair.  I was resigned to self-defeat. It was an awful feeling.  I was relieved to wake up.

So, I want to suggest this morning that this is what we do. This is our job. We read the minutes of the meeting. This is what preachers do. This is what preaching is. We read the minutes of the meeting.

This is what the Bible is -- minutes of the meetings ... minutes of the divine-human meetings. The meetings are perfect and inerrant. The minutes are human and fallible. The  minutes are as influenced by human misunderstanding, human missing of the point, human focusing on the wrong thing as all minutes are. But the minutes are precious because they are what we have of the meetings.

I understand all too well what my dream last Saturday night was about. It has been a while since I've been to a meeting. Sunday mornings I've been going into the pulpit with no minutes of the meeting.

Oh, I know how to fake it. I've been doing this a long time. I have old stories I can tell, old illustrations I can reuse, interesting ideas to talk about.  But my preaching, really, has been pretty shallow lately, because I haven't  been going to the meetings. 

When I was in seminary years ago in Boston there was a preacher in one of the big churches there whom  students at the seminary used to call Dr. Tickle-text, because --they'd say-- he took the great texts of Scripture, stood in the pulpit, and tickled them for a few minutes, and then sat down. Dr. Tickle-text.

After someone had heard him preach on one of the great texts of Scripture, the person said about the sermon: "Never have I seen so small a rabbit pulled out of so large a hat." Dr. Tickle-text.

This is what my preaching is like lately. I haven't been going to the meetings.

When the Israelites were in the wilderness, when they made camp, Moses would pitch a tent outside the camp. He called it the tent of meeting. He would go there to meet God.

I've been reading about the tent of meeting this week.  I was surprised to discover that the tent of meeting and the tabernacle were the same thing. J and D called it a tabernacle. P and E called it a tent of meeting.  The Yahwist, who believed in an individualistic jealous God, called it a tabernacle. The Yahwist and the Deuteronomist thought it was about a gathering. The priests and Elohists, who believed in something like a triune God, knew the tent was about a meeting.

I've been been avoinding the meetings. I know how to avoid them: 1) Drive to church instead of walking. Find a reason I need to take the car rather than walk. A meeting is too likely to happen when I am walking.  2) Let my desk get messy. I can always miss a meeting because I need to push papers around my desk. 3) Turn on the TV as soon as I walk in the door at the end of a day, even if the only thing on it to watch is the 70s Show.

I know how to avoid a meeting.

I avoid meetings for a couple reasons.  I angry at God right now.  There are things I need to do as a pastor right now that I am angry about having to do. I am angry. I'll show God. I wouldn't come to the meetings.

The other reason I have been skipping the meetings is because I don't want to do what I have to do, or be what I have to be. When I am in  the presence of God --God doesn't even have to talk to me-- in the presence of God I know what I have to do and who I have to be. So I avoid knowing what I have to do and who have to be by not going to the meetings.

Then Sunday morning I have no minutes of the meeting to read. I have to fake it.  Pull out some old stories, old illustrations, warmed over stuff. Phone it in. Dr. Tickle-text. Pull out a small rabbit out of a big hat.

No meeting, no minutes.

I have been here before, so I am hopeful. There have been other times in my life and ministry when I have been angry and alienated from God. When I have finally drug myself to the tent of meeting, God has always been there.  God has been patient. God has been willing to meet me at the tent of meeting.

And our people are patient. They stand outside their tents in the wilderness, and watch to see if we are going out to the tent of meeting ... watching to see if the pillar of cloud will descend on us. They watch to see: Will we  stand in our pulpits and share our interesting thoughts and opinions and good ideas or will be bring minutes of the meeting?

They know. They can tell. They will tolerate our ideas and stories, but what they are waiting for is minutes of the meeting.

But to have minutes we have to go to the meeting. We have to give up our anger. We have to sit face-to-face in the presence of the divine whose very presence calls us to do what we don't want to do and to be who we don't want to be.

To have minutes of the meeting we have to pitch the tent of meeting out side the camp, and we need to make our way to the tent of meeting. No meeting, no minutes. 

This morning {name deleyted for security purposes] was baptized and I wanted to crawl under a pew

This morning at Foundry Church (pictured left) I felt like Christ was so present I wanted to crawl under a pew and hide because of my unworthiness to be there, nonetheless to be the pastor. Among the other things that happened this morning, I baptized [name deleted]. I poured water on his head, and laid hands on him, and told him he was joined with Christ for today, and for all the days of his life, and for all eternity.

[Name deleted] grew up in Iran. He became a physician and came to Washington to do medical research. His family was Muslim, but it did not work for him. He never felt Islam  fit him. It wasn't that he thought Islam was bad or wrong, but it just wasn't  who he was.

When he got to Washington, [name deleted]  explored a number of congregations -- Christian and otherwise. When he came to Foundry, he knew he was home.

[Name deleted] grew up Muslim, but at Foundry he suddenly realized he had really always been a Methodist.

[Name deleted] is the second person who grew up Muslim I have baptized since I became the pastor of Foundry Church. I know this is petty, but I sometimes ask my friends who make a big deal about being "evangelicals" how many people who grew up Muslim they have baptized lately.

What draws people is love -- the love of God  in Christ Jesus. It is the only thing that should.

Our new member's class at Foundry this morning had to move to a larger room. Our usual meeting place was too small to hold the folk who showed up. Almost 40 percent of our last 100 new members joined on confession of faith; this means they were not merely switching congregations or church brands, but  coming from inactivity to discipleship.

What draws people is the love of God in Christ Jesus.  I myself do not manage to be very loving, but Christ is. If I can manage to get myself out of the way, the love of Christ will do the work.

It is not about religion. Frankly, Christianity is not any more loving than any other religion. Christians are no more loving than anyone else. All these debates we have about who can belong and who can't are about religion. All these debates about what makes us acceptable and what doesn't are about religion. Most of us are much better at being religious than we are at being loving.

Religion isn't about love. Christ is.

Every week as I prepare for worship I pray that we will open our hearts to Christ. I don't care how good we are at being Christian. We might as well be any other religion if it is just about the Christian religion.  We might as well be one religion as another. All that matters is  Christ ... the love of God in Christ Jesus.

There is not much difference between much of Christianity and the religiosity [name deleted] grew up with. Sorry, many Methodist churches may as well be mosques or temples or, yes,  Elks Clubs.

I know all this is more complicated than what I have written here. And I admit there is a lot I don't know. Really, all I know is that Christ was so present at Foundry this morning that I wanted to crawl under a pew and hide because I wasn't worthy to be there. All I know is that when Amir was baptized this morning angels did somersaults in  heaven. All I know is that what matters is Christ ... and not Christianity.

Here's what I think:  If your primarily concern is  getting the creeds and rules right, you may as well be Muslim or Mormon or anything else. These things are not bad, but they are not Christ. Christ is bigger than our religions. When Christ comes to our churches, I suspect it is usually in spite of us rather than because of us. 

Here's what I think: More angels rejoiced in heaven today when [name deleted] was baptized than danced when you made sure the wrong people didn't join  your church or tried to keep them from attending a convocation at Lake Junaluska.

Recommitment

Several years ago Jane and I were in Zimbabwe to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the founding of the United Methodist Church there. About 10,000 people gathered nightly under a massive tent at Old Mutare Mission, the birthplace of Methodism in Zimbabwe. Some had walked for days to get there.

One evening retired Bishop Abel T. Muzorewa preached. Even though he spoke in Shona and I couldn't understand a word, I could tell it was a powerful sermon because, well, you just know when it is. At the end of his sermon, Bishop Muzorewa extended an invitation to full-time Christian service. Dozens of people responded. After a time of prayer at the front of the tent, those who had responded to the invitation were led away to one of the buildings on the mission grounds.

As we made our way to the van to return to our hotel for the night, I heard praying in loud voices, weeping, and moaning coming from the building. I asked one of the Zimbabwean pastors what was happening. He told me that those who had responded to the invitation would fast and pray throughout the night and into the next day to ascertain the depth of their commitment to ministry before they were accepted into the ministerial candidacy program. Of course, he said, no one would enter ministry without praying, fasting, and watching through the night to make sure his or her commitment was total. The Zimbabwean pastor said this as though to reassure me that United Methodists in Zimbabwe took ministry as seriously as surely we did back in the United States.

When we arrived back on the grounds of Old Mutare Mission the next morning, those who had responded to Bishop Muzorewa's invitation were still together, still praying.

Contrast that with this: Several years ago, when I was a member of another conference, I got restless one afternoon during annual conference sessions. I decided to take a walk and was wandering around the college campus where the conference was held. I happened upon the building where child care was provided for the children of delegates. I stopped to chat with one of the nursery attendants whom I knew. She told me that earlier that day she had heard one of the children say to another child: "My daddy is being ordained tomorrow. Then we'll be set for life!" "Set ... for ... life!" the child sang joyously. The attendant commented that the child had surely not come up with this on his own. It was something he had obviously overheard at home.

I have great respect for my colleagues in the United Methodist ministry. This is tough and demanding work we do. It is hard to both care for the members of a congregation and challenge them. It is demanding to be with people through their illnesses, divorces, griefs, and deaths. It is hard to live with the criticism --sometimes warranted, sometimes irrational, it doesn't matter-- we face from people whom we serve with all our hearts. Conflict, which is inevitable, saps our stamina and wearies us. It is no lark to live on the salaries we are paid. It is disheartening to see others promoted to pulpits and positions we might enjoy and to not understand the logic by which these decisions are made. It can feel as though our bishops and superintendents make demands of us but provide little support to help us. Are we expected to make bricks without straw?

It is especially hard to be in ministry in our denomination because we have been in numerical decline for 30 or more years. Many pastors my age and younger have never served a growing church. As a friend who is a church consultant reminded me recently, many United Methodist pastors who went into the ministry after 1970 have never had the experience of feeling like a part of something successful. Never. United Methodists in general, laity as well as clergy, my friend added, have not felt a part of a dynamic, thriving movement for the past three decades. No wonder, he said, so many Methodists are cranky and so many congregations demonstrate so much negativity.

Most of us went into ministry for lofty and idealistic reasons. There are exceptions. In my day some of my fellow seminary students may have been there to avoid the draft. Most of these left ministry long ago. There may be a few who are attracted by the low expectations and security our system seems to offer. These, however, are exceptions. We go into ministry because we want to serve God and to be part of making a difference for time and eternity.

In college I was a political science major contemplating law school. In large part I went into ministry because I thought the church, and the biblical ground on which it is built, offered a foundation to stand outside of and over against an unjust and violent world. I figured that unless we find our self-understanding and identity elsewhere, it is impossible to keep from buying into the basic assumptions of the society of which we are part. I saw the church as the solid ground upon which we could set our fulcrum so that we could move the world.

When is the last time I thought about this? When is the last time I reminded myself why I went into ministry in the first place? When is the last time I had a meaningful conversation with somebody else about why I do what I do? It is easy to get caught up in problem solving, getting all of those visits and phone calls done, pacifying unhappy members, filling all of those offices, raising money for the budget, teaching another class, attending another conference meeting, and forget why we are here in the first place.

In Zimbabwe I didn't want to get into the van and go back to the hotel. I wanted to spend the night praying, fasting, weeping, and moaning with those who had responded to Bishop Muzorewa's invitation to full-time Christian service. I wanted to feel as committed to ministry again as I had when I first began this journey. I wanted to feel as if I belonged to a community of commitment with those others who had answered an invitation to leave all else behind and to give themselves to full-time service.

Clergy in my conference do not do much to help each other remember and wrestle with the meaning of our ministries. Historically we meet on the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday to hear a sermon, to share our struggles very briefly in small groups, and to recommit ourselves to ministry. This is helpful but not very profound.

I think that we should pick a year within United Methodism and devote it to a renewal of our commitment to ministry. Clergy should spend a year meeting, sharing, praying and studying together to remember our decisions to devote ourselves to ministry in the first place and to discern our commitments anew. We should plan for this and prepare our congregations so that our people understand that this is going to be a year when we will focus more on discernment and renewal than on the business of the church. Pastors should be released from most church business meetings. How could it be possible that our laity could not have learned by now how to do trustee and finance meetings without us looking over their shoulders? Laity should be prepared and trained to assist with pastoral care. Pastors should be released from pulpit responsibilities four additional Sundays that year, and we should spend them meeting and praying together. Let gifted laity fill the pulpits those Sundays.

Understand, I don't want to renew my commitment to ministry just in some small cluster group. I want to do it with dozens, hundreds, and thousands of others -- all of us at the same time remembering what moved us to decide for ministry and recommitting ourselves. Maybe some of us will decide we are no longer committed to ministry. Fine. Let's arrange for severance packages and retooling for those who opt out. It would be the best money we every spend.

At the end of the year all 54,000 of us who are clergy should gather at one place and pray, sing, and share together. We should have a giant service of recommitment. If we need to, we could pass two-year budgets at our annual conferences the year before and cancel annual conference sessions that year to pay for this global gathering of the ordained. We could pray, fast and watch through the night, asking God for a fresh blessing of our ministries.

I suppose something like this is too much to hope for.

Ministry and Suffering -- a sermon preached at a License to Preach School

Since we have asked you to share sermons on selected texts this week as a way of helping each other with our preaching, and since this has required that you become vulnerable to one another and to me, I thought it would be only fair that I take the risk of sharing a sermon with you on the same texts we assigned to you.

We have been basing our sermons on the lectionary readings for the seventh Sunday of Pentecost or Ascension Sunday: Acts 1: 6-14; I Peter 4: 12-14; 5:6-11; and John 17:1-11.

Let's listen again to the lesson from the First Epistle of Peter:

1Pe 4:12 Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that is taking place among you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. 13 But rejoice insofar as you are sharing Christ's sufferings, so that you may also be glad and shout for joy when his glory is revealed. 14 If you are reviled for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the spirit of glory, which is the Spirit of God, is resting on you. 1Pe 5:6 Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you in due time. 7 Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you. 8 Discipline yourselves, keep alert. Like a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour. 9 Resist him, steadfast in your faith, for you know that your brothers and sisters in all the world are undergoing the same kinds of suffering. 10 And after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, support, strengthen, and establish you. 11 To him be the power forever and ever. Amen. (NRSV)

Peter (or a successor) wrote these words to the Christians of Asia Minor during the time of the Dispersion (I Pe 1:1): "Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that is taking place among you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you." (I Pe 4:12) And, of course, the reason he had to write this is because they were surprised at the fiery ordeal they were experiencing, and they did think it strange. Otherwise Peter wouldn't have had to write them to tell them not to be surprised, not to think it strange.

They were surprised by the fiery ordeal, as we all --I think-- are surprised by it when it comes to us. They did think something strange was happening to them as we all think it strange when trouble and suffering happen to us. This is not the deal we cut with God. The deal we thought we cut was that we would serve God and that God would bless us. Fiery ordeals were not the blessings we had in mind.

This is no less true for those of us who are in ministry than for anybody -- maybe more so for us. We have sacrificed even more than most. What have we done to deserve fiery ordeals?

But, beloved, ministry always includes trouble and suffering.

I love ministry -- not everyday but many days, overall. The joys and satisfactions of ministry are abundant. I would do it all again! Nonetheless, it is also true that ministry always includes trouble and suffering, and even a fiery ordeal or two or three. And when they come I am always surprised. Always. And it always feels as though something strange is happening to me. Always.

No matter how often I experience it, I am always surprised. It always feels strange.

Some bishops are now saying that seven years will be the minimum expected length of a ministerial appointment. They are saying that it will have to be a very unusual circumstance for a change to happen before the pastor and church have lived with each other for at least seven years. They say the second and third years, or the third and fourth years, sooner or later, are going to be tough years almost always. But, they say, if we can get through the tough years, the fourth or fifth years and beyond are likely to be productive years of ministry.

Some bishops are saying that if clergy and congregations are not willing to stick it out through the tough years, we will never get to the productive years of ministry. It is normal and perhaps necessary that the cycle of an appointment include times of trouble and suffering.

There are, I suppose, lots of reasons we experience trouble and suffering in ministry. For one thing, there is a lot of pain in our pews. If we have more than 50 people in our pews, there are almost surely going to be unrecovering alcoholics, untreated survivors of childhood abuse, untreated sufferers of bi-polar or borderline illnesses or depression, couples living in loveless marriages without any help, closeted gay men and lesbians, individuals filled with a sense of powerlessness and rage, and more.

And this is not even to mention the "ordinary" pains of living. A friend who is a hospital chaplain tells me that the dominant experience of the second half of life is loss -- loss of loved ones, loss of strength, loss of work, loss of health, loss of status, loss of power, loss of security, and finally the loss of life itself. We do almost nothing, he says, to prepare ourselves for this painful experience -- this fiery ordeal. We do almost nothing to help each other through it.

Our faith can offer us hope and healing for all this pain, but our religious practices are also part of our pain management system. Marx was not all wrong; we do use religion as an opiate. (William Sloane Coffin was once asked if religion isn't a crutch. He answered: "Yes, but who isn't limping?" Religion is an opiate, but who isn't in intolerable pain?)

When we get to our appointments with all the insights and tools we have learned at License to Preach School, if we do the ministry God has called us to do, we will sooner or later interfere with folks' pain management systems. Human beings do one of two things with unhealed pain: we either get healed or we try to find a way for others to carry the pain and feel it for us. Hello, pastor! There is a lot of pain in our pews, and if we are ministering in the name and spirit of Christ, some of that pain will make its way into our hearts and mind.

For me, no matter how often it happens, it is still a surprise. I am surprised. It does feel as though something strange is happening to me.

Another reason we will inevitably sooner or later experience trouble and suffering in ministry is because ministry is mostly about ministering in the face of resistance, and most of us are not prepared for this. Other than Rabbi Edwin Friedman, the writer who has helped me most to try to figure out how to do ministry in the real world is James Dittes, a professor of psychology of religion at Yale Divinity School who wrote books with titles like When the People Say No, Minister on the Spot, and Church in the Way.

The thesis of Church in the Way is that it often feels to us as though our congregations get in the way of our ability to do ministry. He uses the psychotherapeutic concept of resistance to help us understand that our people's resistance is the very place ministry happens rather than the place where our ministries are blocked.

Dittes writes about the obstacles that persistently confront us and seem to block our ministries: "Such obstacles are not merely evidence of a general 'sinfulness,' requiring a blanket denunciation and a general summons to renewed fidelity to the church and its gospel. They are not merely instrumental problems, requiring instrumental and administrative solutions -- rearranging situations, recruiting, organizing, training people more effectively. They are not deliberate attacks or frustrations for the sake of attack and frustration, requiring angry counterattack. Rather, they are occasions of specific response by particular persons to particular presentations of the church's message, mission and ministry. They are meaningful events, disclosing to those with eyes to see how that portion of message, mission and ministry is having impact on these particular persons, and inviting further ministry." (p. 17)

Ministry is all about leading congregations to the place of their resistance, and then ministering through the resistance to the next place of spiritual growth to the next place of resistance. This is a work full of trouble, suffering and fiery ordeals.

I've read Dittes and I know this intellectually, but I am still always surprised. I still always feel as though something strange is happening to me. So I really have very little that I can say about how to understand all this, but I Peter says three things that I find helpful.

First, Peter says that when we suffer we are sharing Christ's suffering: "Rejoice insofar as you are sharing Christ's suffering." (I Pe 4:13) We need to be careful here. Rita Nakashima and Rebecca Ann Parker have made a telling and powerful argument in their book Proverbs of Ashes: Violence, Redemptive Suffering and the Search for What Saves Us that Christian teachings about suffering have often been used to oppress suffering people, especially women. (Read a Christian Century review of the book, as well as other books that raise concerns about traditional understandings of the meaning of the cross and suffering, here.) Since reading their book I have been pondering and worrying about the way our glorification of suffering has sometimes kept people in oppressive and violent situations because they thought it was their "cross to bear."

Yet, I think it is safe to say that the trouble, suffering and fiery ordeals of ministry can, if we are faithful, be a sharing in the suffering of Christ. If we remain determined to move through the pain and resistance to the place of growth and new life, rather than to stay stuck in the trouble and suffering, and if we take care of ourselves -- drink eight glasses of water a day, exercise, get enough sleep, take our days off, avoid excessive consumption of alcohol, practice our spiritual disciplines, stay healthy -- then the fiery ordeals of ministry can be an expression of the suffering of Christ that will lead to healing and resurrection. Remaining vulnerable in the presence of pain is the way God in Jesus Christ does God's work, and it is the way we must do our work of ministry if we are followers of Christ.

In Minister on the Spot, Jim Dittes talks about the temptation to try to avoid the painful aspects of ministry and how the consequence can be that we miss ministry altogether while dreaming of some more fulfilling appointment. He writes: "The trivialities, the banalities, the meaninglessnesses, the groping inarticulateness, the complacencies, the blind and mechanical conventionalities, the lamp to be tended, the money to be counted and invested, the inconveniently fallen stranger ... . Surely each of these trivial occasions and encounters of the present -- those phone calls and committee meetings, that insufferable Council of Churches' president, those unruly kids and the scripturally illiterate congregation, the woman threatening suicide, the man threatening divorce, and the deacon threatening resignation, and all the other harassments against which one feels helpless -- surely these unlikely occasions are not to be taken seriously, for their own sake, as though genuine ministry can take place in them? Yet it may be so." (p. 18-19) It may be so. These may be for us a sharing in the suffering of Christ from which resurrection will be born.

The real point of Luke's account in the Book of Act of Jesus' accession, it seems to me, is not that Jesus ascended but that his disciples didn't. Why, disciples, do you stand looking up toward heaven? (Acts 1:11) The ministry of Jesus' disciples is in the broken world full of pain and resistance, trouble and suffering.

Secondly, Peter seems to suggest that suffering can be a means of creating community. "You know your brothers and sisters in all the world are undergoing the same kinds of suffering," he writes. (I Pe 5:9) Trouble, suffering and fiery ordeals can isolate us or they can bring us out of our ministerial loneliness into community. The late James Glasse used to say that when ministers get together we usually spend our time either complaining or bragging. In either mode, we are mostly competing with each other and not really connecting. Sharing our trouble and suffering in honest and vulnerable ways --admitting we've got problems we don't know how to solve, feelings we don't know how to live with, and fears we don't know how to overcome-- has within it the possibility for new community among us.

After spending seven years in conference staff positions, when I again became the pastor of a local church, before my first Lent back in the parish, I called a pastor whose ability to think theologically I respected and asked him to lunch. I want to talk about what to preach on Easter, I warned him. After sitting in pews and listening to Easter sermons these past years, I found myself unsure about what to preach on Easter, I said. I want to talk with you about what you think really happened in Jesus' resurrection that makes a difference for the world our parishioners live in today, I told him. He wrestled with his own theology of the resurrection openly as I shared my questions. After our lunch, he told me it was the first time in his many years of ministry that another clergyperson had ever asked to meet to talk about theology with him.

Trouble, suffering, fiery ordeals have the capacity to create community, if we are willing to take the risk of honesty and vulnerability with one another.

The third thing Peter says about suffering is --this is the most important one for me-- that trouble, suffering and fiery ordeals help by humbling us. He writes: "Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, so that God may exalt you in due time." (I Pe 5:6) Suffering helps by humbling us.

It is so easy to suppose that our ministries will go well and be effective because we are good at it and work hard. Or else, because we are so spiritual or so loving or so wise or so learned. Not so, if Peter is right. Our ministries will go well because of the presence and power of Christ in our midst, not so much because of us. "To Christ be the power forever and ever," Peter says (I Pe 5:11)

Twice in my life I have had unusual spiritual experiences --if they were spiritual. Once was when I decided to pray three hours a day. I had invited Dr. Benjamin Smith, pastor of Evangelistic Deliverance Church with 10,000 members, to preach for a Lenten midweek service. We were chatting and I asked him how he managed to administer a church with 10,000 members when I could hardly keep up with a church of a few hundred members. He told me that if he prayed an hour a day, his church was impossible to administer. If he prayed two hours a day, it was easier. If he prayed three hours a day it ran itself and, on top of that, just seemed to grow on its own.

I was feeling frustrated and defeated by my inability to grow my church much. Then and there, I resolved to spend three hours a day in prayer for the rest of Lent. The first day I prayed everything I could think of to pray, checked my watch. I had two hours and 45 minutes left to go. I don't recommend that anyone try this without working up to it gradually. It was in my third week of praying three hours a day that I had an unusual spiritual experience -- if it was spiritual. The week before I had started having strange and vivid dreams. One morning that third week, Tuesday morning actually, I had been sitting in my study praying for a couple of hours, when I fell to my knees as though I had been pushed. I thought I heard a voice in my head say: Don't you try to use me! I know Ben Smith! Ben Smith and I spend time together. Ben Smith and I are friends. But you are trying to use me! Don't try to use me! After that I stopped praying three hours a day. I was too scared to pray at all for a time. I felt as spiritually disconnected as I have ever felt. I felt as though I had been spiritually told to sit facing the corner of the room wearing a spiritual dunce cap.

It was that way for several months, until one summer night my son and I were camping on the banks of the Juniata River and late at night I thought I heard a voice in my head say, Now, if you've learned a lesson, perhaps we can do some interesting things together. Since then I have found myself ministering in ways and places I would have never imagined.

I am convinced Peter is right. Trouble, suffering, fiery ordeals can humble us, and prepare us for ministry in which the power and the glory is not ours but Christ's. "And after you have suffered for a little while," Peter writes, "the God of all grace, who has called you to [God's] eternal glory in Christ, will ... restore, support, strengthen, and establish you. To Christ ...to Christ... be the power forever and ever. Amen." (I Pe 5:10-11)

When Ministry Gets Tough -- A sermon preached at a clergy retreat

When Ministry Gets Tough

Mark 9: 14-29

I don't mean when ministry is hard work. Ministry is often hard work, satisfying work, but still work, still hard. We shouldn't expect ministry not to be hard work. I mean when ministry gets tough.

I was fortunate. My first appointments after seminary were hard work but they weren't tough. My first appointment was to a declining, aging congregation that lacked imagination about the possibilities for ministry. The great thing about this congregation, however, was that the leaders and members had only normal resistance to change.

Helping this congregation reach new people was hard work, but it wasn't all that tough. I paid my dues for a year or two by visiting hospitals and nursing homes and by showing up on Sundays prepared with something relatively interesting to say. I knocked on doors and met the people in the community. I opened the church building to the community in new ways, created new groups, began new ministries, trained others to take over leading the ministries I'd begun, and eased new people into leadership roles. I pretty much did what Lyle Schaller's books told me to do. By the time I left the church, there were some new people in the pews, children in the Sunday School once again, a new vitality in worship, and new imagination and energy for ministry.

I was fortunate that my first appointments were merely hard work and not all that tough. Eventually I was appointed to a church that was tough ... where the resistance to change was not merely normal but desperate and driven ... where issues of conflict and control dominated the church's life ... where manipulation and sabotage had become normal ... where truth-telling had become optional. There are congregations, I discovered, that are caught in compulsive, repetitive, destructive cycles of conflict, disorder, the undermining of leadership, and obsessive resistance to change and growth.

There are churches out there that are tough. If your itineration within the United Methodist Church is normal, it is highly likely that you too will eventually be invited to serve one or two of these churches.

There are congregations where ministry is unbelievable tough. During my first couple appointments, I didn't believe this. When colleagues told me horror stories I thought that they were exaggerating or that maybe they just weren't all that competent or hard working. Eventually I learned. The first time I experienced church people -- United Methodists! -- intentionally and maliciously lying to protect their control over a congregation, I was aghast and crestfallen. I couldn't believe such things could happen in church! I was naive.

Several years ago G. Lloyd Rediger wrote a book he entitled Clergy Killers. (Read an interview with Rediger from The Lutheran here.) I have some problems with his book. He focuses too much on problematic individuals. Problematic individuals you will have with you always! The real problem is destructive and unhealthy systems and cultures. When congregational systems and cultures become conflict-laden and control-centered, you can change the players but you will still have the problem. It is the system, not just the individuals, that are caught in compulsive, repetitive behaviors.

Lest we risk laity-bashing, we ought to acknowledge that tough congregations are often the way they are as a consequence of clergy who have helped make them that way -- clergy who have needed too much to be loved.

Matthew Linden, a pastor in the Greater New Jersey Conference, has written an article in the latest issue (Spring 2005) of Congregations magazine entitled "Entering The Twilight Zone: Ministry in the Wake of Sexual Misconduct." But the article is about more than sexual misconduct. Linden suggests that by the time sexual misconduct happens, clergy and congregation have become unhealthy in many other ways, and that merely getting rid of the guilty pastor will not bring health to the congregation.

Linden writes: "In congregations where sexual misconduct has occurred, nonsexual boundaries characteristic of any professional relationship have long since been breached. They fall away slowly and subtly, their erosion a mutual effort on the part of the minister and congregation. Sometimes the nonsexual boundaries fall during a pastorate prior to the one where the misconduct occurs. Simply removing the offending pastor will not restore them."

He adds: "An after-pastor [the pastor who follows a pastor involved in sexual misconduct] encounters a congregation that is extremely resistant to reestablishing appropriate professional boundaries, even in situations where the relationship between their absence and sexual misconduct is obvious. ... Reestablishing appropriate professional boundaries requires persistence and often involves crossing what have become cultural norms in the common life of a congregation. Because the congregation has grown so accustomed to clergy with poor boundaries, ministers with healthy boundaries may be perceived as distant, aloof, or uncaring. Still, it is better to err on the side of caution ..."

Linden makes three additional significant points in his article: 1) When congregations become unhealthy, mature members tend to withdraw from leadership roles leaving offices and positions to more needy, less mature members; 2) Informal networks tend to replace official structures, and decision-making processes become arbitrary, inconsistent and undependable, and 3) It takes ten years for motivated, focused congregations to recover, and much longer for congregations that are not motivated or intentional.

Forget the latest church growth theories, Linden says. The focus in churches like this must be on reestablishing appropriate professional boundaries, developing a new culture of mature church leadership and reestablishing open communication and transparent governance.

We clergy who need to be loved too much can collude with our laity to hurt churches --even without necessarily becoming involved in sexual misconduct -- and make them tough places for others to serve. We can make ourselves --instead of Christ-- the center of attention and adulation. We can make the avoidance of conflict an idol, thereby, causing conflict to fester until it dominates the congregation's life. I am amazed at the number of clergy I have known throughout the years who have requested a move but, when they were moved, lied to their congregations about it, suggesting they didn't want to go but the conference was forcing them to move against their will. This kind of deception is no small thing but indicative of the neediness of clergy who inadvertently help turn congregations into communities of distrust, conflict and extreme resistance to change and growth.

The lesson from Mark 9: 14-29 is not really, I believe, about the healing of a mute and deaf child. It is about the healing of a family caught in a cycle of compulsive, repetitive, destructive behaviors.

When Jesus returned from the mountain where he had been transfigured, he discovered an upset family whom the disciples had been unable to heal. Jesus healed the family.

In order to heal the family, Jesus does two things:

First, Jesus insists on trust. William Sloane Coffin in his book Credo helps us understand what is happening in this lesson. We usually translate the word credo as "I believe," he says. He argues that we really ought to translate it as "I trust."

Read Mark 9: 22b-24 this way: The parent says to Jesus, "If you are able to do anything, have pity on us and help us." Jesus replies "If you are able! All things can be done for the one who trusts." Immediately the parent of the child cried out, "I trust; help my mistrust."

When systems are caught in patterns of compulsive, repetitive, destructive behavior, requiring trust and the honest confession of mistrust is essential for healing. In congregations where people's trust has been violated by self-absorbed or narcissistic or untrustworthy clergy or powerful lay leaders, we need to calmly but consistently insist on trust, trustworthiness, and the honest confession of mistrust to begin to break through compulsive patterns of conflict, control and self-protection. This is tough ministry.

Secondly, in Mark 9 Jesus makes himself vulnerable to the pain the family is carrying, and he helps the entire community face the pain. Instead of trying to stifle the child and shortcut the child's expression of pain, Jesus allows the child to express it fully, even to the point that afterwards "the boy was like a corpse, so that most of them said, 'He is dead.'" (Mark 9:26) Jesus intentionally causes this to happen in the presence of the community: "When Jesus saw that a crowd came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit ..." and, thus, started the expression of the pain and the process of healing intentionally in the presence of the community. (Mark 9:25)

Allowing the pain to express itself, without becoming defensive or self-protective, is tough. It means choosing to be vulnerable, even when the pain and hurt is directed at you and you feel like you haven't done anything to deserve it ... even when the system is working hard to cover it up with a facade of showy friendliness and shallow caring ... even when the whole system sees you as the problem when you aren't (although after awhile it is hard not to begin to wonder).

At the end of Mark 9:14-29, the disciples privately ask Jesus why they could not heal the family but he could. Jesus answers: "This kind can come out only through prayer." When systems are caught in compulsive, repetitive, destructive cycles of pain, healing depends on the spiritual and emotional health of the pastor and core lay leadership. Reading Schaller is not enough. Technique is not enough. Being able to remain open, connected, and clear --trusting, trustworthy, and vulnerable-- in the face of convulsive pain requires great spiritual centeredness and self-understanding. "This kind can come out only through prayer."

In my translation of the Bible, there is a footnote after the word "prayer." It says: "Other ancient authorities add and fasting." If I could add my own footnote, it would say: "prayer and therapy." When I have done tough ministry, it has been critical for me to be supervised by a pastoral counselor or therapist who understands human and interpersonal dynamics and with whom I can be fully open and honest about my thoughts and feelings. Without honest self-examination and self-understanding, staying centered and nondefensive while serving congregations mired in conflict and pain is nearly impossible without supervision.

Staying vulnerable in ministry is at the very heart of ministry, but it is tough. There are experiences in ministry that make each of us want to close down and become hard. I myself find ministry with the dying very costly. I tend to be especially impacted when the one who is dying or has died is younger than I am.

Serving on conference staffs I had done little of this ministry for a number of years. Then, when I was appointed to Foundry, even before my books were unpacked, I got a call about a member, a young man, who was in the hospital dying as a result of complications from HIV-AIDS. I asked one of our lay leaders to go to the hospital with me. We sat with him. While we were holding his hands, praying together the Lord's Prayer, he prayed his last breath.

For the next several nights, I couldn't sleep through the night. I kept thinking to myself, "This, again. This, again." One night, after tossing and turning for some time, I got out of bed, went to our kitchen, made myself a cup of tea, and sat in the dark at our kitchen table sipping tea. There I experienced, well, (how to describe this?) not really a vision, but some kind of message from deep inside myself or from somewhere.

Sitting in the dark sipping tea, I found myself having a conversation with God. Actually, it began while I was thinking about an unfortunate conversation I'd had years ago with a bishop. (The mind can wonder sitting in a dark kitchen in the middle of the night.)

I'd had a really unfortunate conversation with a new bishop years ago when I was much younger and not very wise. I am embarrassed by the memory of it. I was the chair of a committee of an urban ministry that had conference approval to do a special fund-raising effort. I'd made an appointment with our new bishop to ask the bishop to send a letter to the churches on behalf of our fund-raising effort.

After some small talk, I told the bishop why I was there. I said I had brought with me the draft of a potential letter. The bishop took and read the letter. After reading the letter the bishop expressed a reluctance to sign it.

"Is there something you don't like about the letter," I asked very politely and carefully. "We could rewrite it or perhaps someone on your staff could write another letter."

"No," the bishop said, "the letter is fine."

"Well," I asked quietly, "do you have concerns about the ministry? Is there something about the ministry that causes you to be reluctant to send out a letter on our behalf?"

"No," the bishop said, "everything I've heard about the ministry is positive."

"I thought for a few seconds, then I said: "Well, could I ask then why you are reluctant to sign the letter?"

The bishop answered: "Because I don't like to ask people to do things."

After a long pause I did something inappropriate and unfortunate. "You don't like to ask people to do things?!!" I said with astonishment in my voice.

"What is it that you think bishops do?" I said. "Asking people to do things is precisely what bishops do. Asking people to do things pretty much sums up a bishop's job description."

I leaned forward in my chair and said: "If you didn't want to do the work, why did you take the job?"

Fortunately, the bishop was very gracious and even chuckled in response to my little outburst -- and even decided to sign the letter. I later wrote a note of apology. I never felt like I was punished in any way, yet my behavior was unfortunate and inappropriate. I was young.

Sitting in a dark kitchen in the middle of the night many years later, my mind wandering, I recalled that conversation, and I thought about the young man who had died just a few days earlier while we were reciting the Lord's Prayer, and I thought about all the people in my ministry throughout the years who had died too young from AIDs or cancer or car accidents or their hearts just stopping, who knows why. I did something then even more inappropriate, I suppose. In my mind, I asked God the same question: "If you didn't want to do the work of being God, why did you take the job?"

A second later an image appeared in my mind. It was the image of a crucifix -- one of those cheap-looking, pasty plaster crucifixes you see in Catholic gift shops -- the ones where Jesus looks particularly weak and pathetic, his head bent sideways hanging down, spots of red blood trickling down his side.

As the image filled my head, I heard in my mind these words: "This is the way I do my work."

With the image of the crucifix in my mind, I heard the words again more slowly: "This ... is ... the way ... I ... do ... my work."

And this is the way we do our work too, if we are ministers of Jesus Christ. This too is the way we do our work, even when ministry gets tough.

Only through prayer. Only through prayer.