Master at the Craft

 

 

I’ve been doing this ministry thing since…  It seems since Biblical times.  My memories are artifacts that I excavate from the comings and goings of this present day.  They could fill a museum.  There are many difficult parts about aging.  We creak when we stand up after sitting for a while.  We run out of energy more quickly than we’d like.  We aren’t as good with our thumbs as anyone below the age of 15.  Our arms are too short to read things without glasses.  But there are good things as well. 

 

One of those is a sense of confidence about the craft of ministry.  Forty years of practice really does help.  Those of us that have been at it a while have seen situations come and go repeatedly.  We’ve confronted shortages and resulting panics, we’ve been confronted by angry, suicidal, addicted, disappointed, grieving, homeless, excluded, sick, dying, betrayed, cynical, arrogant, hopeless, seductive, bipolar, schizophrenic, sociopathic, terrified, nasty, immature people  (That being a partial list).  And we’ve lived through it all.  We’ve designed classes, stewardship campaigns, worship services, mission projects, funerals, weddings, sermons, receptions, roasts, and banners.  We’ve moved furniture, recalcitrant people, mountains of books, and the hearts and minds of congregations.  And we’ve made it through despair, poverty, death, loss, terror, and being wrong, coming out the other side with some scars and a lot of gratitude. 

 

An incredible amount of learning goes along with all that experience.  It is a gift to be here, with all of that to support and inform the now of life.  But there is more than that.  This job is about more than skill at diplomacy and knowing when to cut and run.  It is more than being good at working a room.  At the core of our work is a deep consciousness of being owned by that which is so far beyond our philosophy or theology or business sense as to be unknowable except through grace.  And the older this old war horse gets, the more I rely on that grace to provide what my skill or experience cannot.  I am His.  That’s my bottom line.  That’s my credential.  That’s my ground of being.  That’s my ultimate concern. 

 

 

Secret Identity

 

My father always wore tabs, the white strips that descend from the throat over the Geneva gown.  Mom starched them every week.  He insisted that wasn’t necessary, but she did it anyway.  I think she considered it part of her role.  I found out later that they stood for the tablets of the law.  The Old Covenant that was the foundation for the New.  It made sense to me.  Those starched tabs were diving boards from which my father’s words bounced into the flips and swans that thundered and whispered from the high pulpit every Sunday.

 

When I started my ministry I wore a shirt and tie with the black robe over.  In some ways I didn’t know what else to do.  I was working, unconsciously, on a style, a voice.  The tabs were from another era.  I did the easiest.  I was busy.  But as I moved into the jungle, I realized I wanted something to help differentiate me in my role from the other denizens of the forest.  I was a missionary, a warrior of the light, a Marshall come to bring order to Tombstone Territory.  I needed a badge, a uniform, something to let folks know the Rev had come to town (Can you tell I was and am an unrepentant romantic?).  So I shopped (It’s the all American thing to do).

 

The Protestant version of the collar, a stripe around the throat, kind of turned me off.  I have no idea why.  I opted for the Roman collar, with a notch.  I guess I’m secure in my Protestant identity, I can wear Catholic.  I wore and wear it for worship and during Holy Week.  It’s my discipline.  It makes sense to me. 

 

I subsequently found out that the collar is a symbol for slavery.  It’s a slave collar.  That reaffirmed the whole thing.  It gave me an angle.  It resonated with the Apostle Paul.  He spent a lot of time in jail.  He called himself an ambassador in chains.  But after 9-11 it became much more than an angle. 

 

I live near New York City.  A lot of my folks work there.  Some of them were there.  Some of them died.  I worked at Ground Zero with the rescue workers, helping them stay sane and at the family of victims’ center in the old ferry station in Jersey.  But I also wore my collar, every day, every where I went.  People stopped me on the street, in diners, wherever. They took my hand, they told me about their son or their sister or their cousin.  They asked for prayers.  They cried.  We all needed something we could depend on.  Our security was gone.  People needed a symbol.

 

It changed my attitude toward my collar.  It changed my attitude toward being a slave of Christ.  It’s closer to my old attitude of warrior of the light and it’s much more real.  I am part of God’s army, the host of heaven.   I am a pillar.  Lean on me.  But never forget, I am a slave.  And never forget the one I belong to.  It’s where I get my authority, my orders, my direction, my hope.

 

Spider Man, not quite.  The Rev, definitely.

Lord, preserve us.

Way back in the dark ages, when I was an impressionable child, my sister, who considered it her duty to bring me beyond the sheltered haven of my parents' protection, took me to see Tony Curtis and Kirk Douglas duke it out as The Vikings.  I was blown away.  I still remember scenes and lines, not to mention bits of the score.  Every chance I got I became a barbarian.  My play mates were mystified.  I did research on the subject, without Google, the Web, and as an 8 or 9 year old could, finding out every scrap I could understand about these giants that came from the ice bound fjords, I loved to say that, to strike terror into the hearts of the sad and ugly English.  Hollywood had created a monster, with the aiding and abetting of my sister.


I remembered one image from the movie that showed a manuscript from those dark ages, recording a prayer illuminated with ancient images of people hiding in their castles.  It read, "O Lord, preserve us from the Vikings."  Simply put, but very clear in its terror, its horror, and its realization that very little but the hand of the Almighty could save them from this scourge from the sea.  It was said that the Norse raiders would come into towns and cleave the chests of citizens, removing their lungs and draping them over their backs, calling them Christian angels.  They were brutal, sociopathic worriers.


There is a group in the Middle East that claims no allegiance to a country or any other group.  They have left them behind.  They call themselves the Islamic State, or perhaps that's what others call them.  But it has become clear that there are few means they will not employ to reach their end of a purified Islamic State, a new Caliphate whose law and punishment and normality is terror.  And the prayer of Muslims and Christians alike is "Lord, preserve us from the IS."


Barbarians have no philosophy.  That implies a willingness to debate, which implies a willingness to listen.  They have no real desire to build a state or any structure of rule.  Talleyrand said, "You can do anything with bayonets except sit on them."  So, there is only conquer and destroy.  The brutality has no limit, so there can be no debate or discussion.  There is no law or rule of law except submit or die.  Such behavior is nothing new.  Most of us have such impulses muzzled and leashed by the lessons and teachings of our parents and those who worried and worked to make us better than Narcissistic sociopaths.  Some of us have enough reservation to couch our desires to rape and pillage within business or sports.  But not far beneath the civilization that leads us to stop at red lights and not slug our neighbor when they complain to us about the leaves blowing on his lawn, lies that battle axe wielding monster that gave rise to the prayers of the 'civilized English.'  


How are we to contest the world with them?  We cannot do it with reckless abandon, or vengeance.  Then the world will be taken over by the barbarians, those with the better weapons and better planning taking the prize.  We must be civilized.  We must be ruled by the law that makes civilization what it has become.  Tolerance, restraint, and a willingness to listen to even our enemies while we insist on the virtue of peace sound awfully philosophic or even religious.  But in a dark and brutal world, they represent the only way forward.  Oh, I forgot mercy.  What can you expect from someone who was so impressed by Kirk Douglas doin' his thing?


But when it comes down to it, I pray with all the faithful, 'Lord, preserve us from the barbarians.'

      

Labor Day

The summer is beginning to slip away.  Walnut trees are dropping yellow rain on the driveway, despite my vocal injunctions to stop acting as if it was October.  But at 8:30 tomorrow morning I have a class to teach.  There will be a room full of sophomores, half asleep, showing up because they're supposed to, that I have to drag into semi consciousness and invite on a journey of discovery.  Whew. 


The lush growth and dripping heat is only part of what I miss about the season of tomatoes and corn.  I miss not even considering what to wear, unless I'm trying to be appropriate or impress my lady.  I'll be emptying my drawer of T shirts soon.  I miss the switch from remembering what night of the week I  have to work, to do I have an evening off.  I miss reading for the hell of it.  I miss digging in my garden, and communing with my bonsai.  I miss long slow dinners in the gazebo by candle light.  I miss sand in my shoes. 


Don't you?

Duet

My wife, Chris and I sang a duet in worship this morning.  Sound kind of bland, doesn't it?  She reminded me that we did it seven years ago, just before we got married.  This year it was the Sunday after our anniversary.  Sounds kind of bland doesn't it?  It was anything but.  I felt as close to her in those few minutes as I've ever felt to anyone.  I was so grateful to the congregation, to our minister of music, to God for the opportunity to be involved in worship in that way. 

I realized that so many of us put lids on the possibilities we allow ourselves.  We see ourselves as limited, forgetting the presence and power of the Holy Spirit.  'Oh, I couldn't do that...' becomes a litany of limitation.  But the limitation is not only on us, it's on the community and on how we are allowing the community to become, how we are allowing the community to represent to the world.

OK, OK, I'm making a big deal out of one song.  But this day is the only one that we have.  Today is it.  Yesterday is gone, and tomorrow is uncertain.  This is the day to do what we can, and more importantly, to do what God can, using us.  Maybe it's time to get out of God's way. 

But hey, wow, that was way wonderful.

Epitaph

It's taken me this long to process the loss.  How could he be gone?  'O Captain, my Captain...'  Maybe he was from another planet, left here, marooned here by some cosmic storm.  He certainly operated in multidimensional currents.  No 'coming about' for the unwary listener or watcher.  But in spite of all the surprise and non sequitur, he was so tender, gentle in his unwillingness to hurt.  He saw tangents in every bland statement of reality.  He saw connections and possibilities and dared express them while holding on to us as we stood in wonder at what he could do with a simple question, an answer, or a shawl.

And in these discovered tangents he saw expressions of humanity at its silliest and at its best.  He found thin places, liminal, close to each of our questions about limitation and possibility.  And perhaps close to answers that do not come from rigid logic or the hard arithmetic of stuff, but only rise from where's and when's beyond, and precious in their rising.

Perhaps he was a castaway.  Perhaps he was tormented and alone.  Ahh but he will not soon be forgotten.  And what he leaves is more than the pain.  He leaves a whisper, a vision, and a gentle tear, along with the pure joy of now.  Gifts that will not die, even in the darkness.  The light shines and the darkness has not overcome it.

Go with God.

Pinko Liberal

Pinko liberals

It’s always been hard for me to understand how Christians can get upset with talking about money in church.  If you read just about anything in scripture and don’t waste your time looking for loop holes, you get a very clear indication that if we’re going to live according to what’s there, we’re going to have to get over any preoccupation with defending our own pile. 

My parents were upstanding Americans in the 1950’s, which meant if you weren’t toeing and healing the line, you were suspect.  Dad was pastor of a tall pulpit in the homeland of Ike.  And mother was the classic pastor’s wife.  She wore gloves on Sunday and taught the women’s bible class.  If you read history you know that at the time there was a monster polluting the brains and spirits of this nation.  It was fear.  And some in the political arena used it for their own purposes.  I was a kid and knew very little of what was going on.  But I wore an I Like Ike button and was roundly patted and appreciated as a ‘good kid.’  Even then I wondered what about that button made me ‘good.’

Years later I was asking my then retired parents about what it was like to live in that time.  Did they have any misgivings about the attitudes and assumptions that demanded so much of people and condemned those that didn’t follow the pack.  They both got quiet, which is something neither one was wont to do when discussing politics or social movements.  I said, “OK, what’s going on?”  My mother broke the ice.  “I voted for Stevenson.”  My father almost fell off his chair.  She went on, “Twice.” 

I didn’t put this in the wow category, but it was clear he was amazed.  “You never said a word about this.” 

“I didn’t want to make trouble for you.”  He smiled at her and took her hand.  “I did too.  Twice.”

After the laughter and the tears they had a new sense of alliance.  They talked about their subversive foray into liberalism and its roots in a very simple source, scripture.  They couldn’t leave the poor outside the voting booth.

They taught me that no political party was godly.  They taught me that if I was going to be Christian I had to let others have their opinion.  But they also taught me that if anybody needed something, it was our job to do something about it. 

I would hate to think that the resurrection would make the church liberal.  I’m pretty sure it would make the church radical.