PASTORAL WHITTLING: AN UNVARNISHED PRIMER ON PRIESTHOOD

As a rookie priest, 
            I was in a support group

            with veteran clergy.

Way back when one of those veterans 
        was a rookie his support group 
         included a retired old guy 
         who never said a word. 

He just whittled – whittled away in silence

            week after week, year after year.

Then one day, without looking up 
             from his whittling, he said,

            “Ya know, it would have been 
            a pretty good life

            if they’d let me kill just one a year.”

There are warm, wonderful moments in ministry

that feed our souls,

but there is also frustration built into it. 

What to do about the frustration?

In the 70s, clergy quit and became therapists.

Now we go to conferences 

            where they tell us to follow our bliss,

            but then we go back to work
            and it’s the same job,

            the same people, and the same headaches.

They won’t let you kill even one a year.

So, the best thing I know to tell you, Phil, is 
           to take up whittling. 

The frustration won’t go away,

            but if we dig into it, 

            we might learn something to help us 

            serve God with a bit more wisdom 
            and compassion.

Half the frustration lies in the distance           

            between what we expect the Church to be

            and what it actually is. 

These are Christians, right?

We expect better behavior in the Church 
            than in the World;

            but that doesn’t happen.

People do and say things in Church

            they could never get away with 
            at work or at home.

The other half lies in the difference

            between who we expect ourselves to be 

            and who we really are. 

This one is tricky because we get distracted

            by our reflection in people’s eyes

            and they see us in most peculiar ways.

Many will think you are considerably better 
            than you are.

Others will think you are considerably worse.

That’s ok because it keeps us from thinking

            this is a popularity contest.

The problem is it hooks our own confusion 
           about who we are.

Sometimes we pretend to holiness 
             and even fool ourselves.

Other times, we feel like imposters 
             calling ourselves clergy

            when we know ourselves to be 
             at least as sinful as the rest.

As we think about the Church which 
        – God help us –

we are called to serve, and the Church which 
– God help it – includes us, 
 our best guide is blessed Augustine.

He defended the Church from attack 
            by secessionists who, 
             like today’s secessionists,

            would only deign to belong to a Church 
            as pure, as holy,  and as spiritual 
             as they were. 

The real Church was not good enough for them.

Augustine replied with Jesus’ parable 
       about the field 

in which the wheat weeds were growing. 

The workers wanted to go pull the weeds. 

But the owner said, 
           “No, if you do that, you’ll pull up wheat too.

            Wait until the harvest. 
              We’ll sort it out then.”

The Church, Augustine says, i
        s a mixed field of wheat and weeds.

Or as the Augustinian theologian 
         Abigail Van Buren said 
          in her Dear Abby column,

            The Church isn’t a museum for saints. 

             It’s a hospital for sinners.

Jesus said, 
       Those who are well have no need 
        of a physician, 

         but those who are sick.

         I did not come to call the righteous 
         but the sinners to repentance.

So, a congregation isn’t the beloved community 
               – not yet.

It’s a motley crew of the good, the bad, 
             and the ugly. 

But, it’s really even messier than that 

because each member of the congregation 
is actually a mixed field of wheat and weeds  
            unto himself or herself.

The Carmelite abbot and theologian, 
          William McNamara, was once pressed 
           into teaching religion to second graders.

He asked the class,

            If all the good people were red 

            and the bad people were blue,

            what color would you be?

One little girl shot up her hand and answered,

            I’d be stripy. 

That kid had read her Augustine. 

A congregation is a mixed bag.

Each member is a mixed bag.

And you, Reverend Sir, are a mixed bag too. 

You may not like that.

You’re not supposed to like it.

But you have to recognize it 

and work with it because that’s how it is. 

Your job is to mediate God's love to these folks 

in their moral and spiritual complexity

            and to accept God's love for yourself 
             as the same moral mongrel they are. 

Such unconditional love of the congregation

            and of yourself may not be easy 
             but it’s simple.

The job, however, has a disconcerting part 2 
               that complicates things.

You are in the congregation to share God’s love,

            and, as the saying goes,

            God loves us the way we are 
            – but because God loves us,

            God doesn’t leave us that way. 

When Jesus was criticized 
            for hanging out with sinners, 

            he said, 
I did not come to call the righteous but sinners to

–wait for it –  repentance. 

Repentance. He wasn’t condoning their sin.

He was connecting with them, 

          so he could call them to repentance. 

Quote: Preaching that makes sinners feel good

                   . . . betrays the gospel. 

That wasn’t Franklin Graham talking. 

It was Blessed Oscar Romero.

If we aren’t in the repentance business, 

                  we might as well go home. 

Repentancedoesn’t mean groveling in guilt.

It means change. Turning the will around. 
Doing a new thing. 

A clergy person is a change agent. 

 That, my friend, is tricky business.

To start with, it makes you a target, 
           so don’t be reckless.

General rules: Take your time and use your head.

But here are the two specific points 
                about being a change agent.

First, don’t be trivial.

This isn’t about changing it 
             from the way they like it 

            to the way you like it 
             or what was cool in seminary. 

It’s about coaxing them into the Kingdom Mission

            of good news to the poor, 
            release to the captive,

            and letting the oppressed go free. 

We coax them into the Kingdom Mission 

            because that’s where they come 
            face to face with Jesus

            so his grace can blow apart the prisons 

            of their personal agendas

 and lead them out into the amazing adventure 

             called real life.

Don’t move the furniture. 

Move their hearts. 

Second, you can be the change agent, 
            the catalyst,

            only if you are open to be changed 
            along with them. 

You know some things they don’t 

            but knowing things is only a piece of it.

This isn’t about what we know. 

It’s about who we are. 

The process of becoming a new creation 

            is a group project.

We change each other. 

Ideas don’t change people. 

Programs don’t change people. 

People change people. 

You cannot be a change agent

            unless you are willing 
            to be changed yourself.

 So I leave you with this blessing from the late John O’Donohue:

May the Spirit of God lead you 
             onto the wilderness road.

May she send you chasing after chariots

            beyond all reason and propriety. 

May she bring you to dark-skinned eunuchs 
             and Samaritan women

            and young ones who dream wild dreams.

May they receive you into their homes . . .,

            so that you may teach and convert 
           one another. 

May you enter the waters of baptism together

            to die and rise in Christ together.

In the name of the Father and of the Son 
            and of the Holy Spirit.
                                                      Amen

                                                                                                     

THE SANCTITY OF PUBLIC FRIENDSHIPS

This All Saints Sunday, 

           we remember St. Jerome, 

            a bad 5^thCentury theologian,

            who did a questionable job 

            translating the Bible into Latin

     while abusively maligning the women 

                   who cared for him.

But he once removed a thorn from a lion’s paw,

            so they became fast friends.

We remember Sts. Sergius and Bacchus, 

           officers in the Roman army

until they admitted they were Christians.

Then Emperor Maximian forced them 

            to parade in drag through the streets

            before executing them.

Speaking of being in drag, 

        there was the 4^thCentury St. Pelagia.

She started out as an exotic dancer 

             with the stage namePearl.

After her conversion, 

she changed her real name Pelagia 

to its male form, Pelagius,

            dressed as a man, 

            and lived in Jerusalem as a monk.

3^rdCentury St. Calistus began life as a slave,

            then after his emancipation launched 

            his highly successful career as a thief.

Later he became the Pope, 

             and decreed that penitent sinners,

            including murderers, 

            were welcome in the Church.

St. Odo of Cluny was a 10^thCentury monk.

who instituted many church reforms 

       – most importantly requiring monks 

to wash their underwear every Saturday.

Some saints were notably kind, good, 

        and generous. 

Others, not so much.

Some were smart 

         – like Augustine and Thomas Aquinas.

Others not so smart.

Some, like Joan of Arc, shaped history.

Others, like Jean-Baptiste Vianney 

            lived simple lives far removed 

            from the world’s great affairs.

Saints are not necessarily moral heroes 

                who got it right.

Many were deeply flawed. 

Some were downright nuts.

So why do we celebrate them?

Collectively, the saints represent 

               the communion of sanctified humanity.

They are not sanctified 

            because of their individual virtues but 

           because they joined together 

                         in a holy bond.

Tertullian, the first theologian to write 

            about the Trinity, said, 

A Christian alone is no Christian at all.

Just so, sainthood is about  communion,

              relationship made holy because 

              it is a partnership in God’s mission.

Ritually, we join that relational network 

               when we sing the Sanctus. 

In Heaven, the saints and angels perpetually sing

 the music of the spheres, “Holy, Holy, Holy.”

So we say, “Therefore we join our voices 

               with angels and archangels

               and all the company of heaven.”

Then live that holiness in our relationship  

              with each other. 

The Communion of All Saints is the spiritual unity 

            of all believers.

But within that unity 

             there is a lot of personal diversity,

            that can be hard to manage.

Augustine despised Jerome’s Latin translation 

           of the Bible, and accused him 

            of ruining the faith.

Paul wrote this about Peter 

        whom he called Cephas, 

When Cephas came to Antioch 

I opposed him to his face 

because he stood condemned.

In 12^thCentury France, Peter Abelard 

            and St. Bernard of Clairvaux

            wrote beautifully of divine 

            and human love.

But they loathed each other.

Bernard devoted himself single-mindedly 

to destroying Abelard’s academic career.

If the world is supposed 

            to know we are Christians by our love,

            no wonder the world is confused.

So is this talk of the Communion of All Saints

                 pious rubbish?

It may well be rubbish.

Or it may be that God is at work in our conflicts,

            using our stumbling, messy relationships 

            to sanctify our souls and transform us

into the unlikely agents of God’s mission.

Maybe, as the saying goes 

               God rides the lame horse 

         and carves rotten wood.

Maybe God does not choose to live 

in a commune of blissed out airheads,

but rather in a community 

of flesh and blood people

with all the faults and foibles 

that make us human.

In case that is true,

            we might want to consider today 

             what it means to really be Church

       and how to go about it.

Really becoming the Church,

changes both our expectations 

and our behavior.

On both fronts,  we can learn something 

        from community organizing.

I am delighted that you are working to create

a broad based community organization,

       because that’s a way we can learn 

       how to be Church.

As for expectations, perhaps we are lonely; 

            so, we come to church

            looking for soul mates, 

            intimate personal friends.

Maybe we find a few. Maybe we don’t.

Most of church people are not going 

            to fit for us in that close personal way. 

Some of us will even irritate each other.

What we can offer is, 

       in the language of community organizing,

public friendship.

Public friends may not want to go out for a beer

or share their darkest secrets.

But public friends can work with each other.

We share a common mission so

we are willing to hear someone’s story,

       to understand where they are coming from,

            to find out what they have at stake 

            in a situation.

We can trust them to be honest with us

            because we are honest with them.

When Jesus commands us to love one another,

            the word we translate as lovemeans 

             something far closer to public friendship 

             than personal friendship. 

It’s more about being partners than buddies.

We may be blessed 

        to make some personal friends in Church.

But that’s gravy.

The proving ground of our faith 

       is the public friendships, 

the partnerships in mission.

To establish a network of public friendship

            for God’s mission, 

            there are three basic steps:

 First, we need to all know the mission.

The catechism states the mission in broad terms:

“to restore all people to unity with God 

    and each other in Christ.”

We have spelled out the specifics 

               in the Five Marks of Mission. 

Every member of the Church needs 

                  to know the Marks.

If you don’t already know them, 

          just Google “Five Marks of Mission.”

Then write them on your doorposts. 

Tattoo them on your arm.

Repeat them when you wake up each morning.

  

Second, we can work out the ground rules 

             for our relationships. 

A small congregation in Utah was declining, 

           aging, and torn by perpetual conflict. 

They negotiated a behavioral covenant.

They made their expectations explicit 

            and put them writing.

Seven years later, 

            they were the largest Episcopal Church 

              in the state.

The guide for that is Behavioral Covenants 

               in Congregations by Gil Rendle.

The third step is the spiritual discipline 

             of surrendering our preferences

            to the gospel mission through 

              intentional relationship practices

like praying for each other,

listening to understand instead 

of planning our reply,

       speaking to someone we don’t know 

       each Sunday and learning something 

                    about them.

  

It includes trusting the leadership,

            forgiving each other when we stumble,

            subordinating our own favorite projects 

             to the common good

                        of the whole Church.

Community is built brick by brick 

       through the years

by such relational actions.

This isn’t easy.

It takes intentional persistent effort fueled 

             by God’s grace.

Why would we undertake such an arduous task?

Because it will grow our souls 

            and enlarge our lives.

It will expand our capacity 

           for joy and appreciation.

It will bless those around us 

             and make us a channel of blessing

              instead of a pit of need. 

And it will, with God’s help,

            change our world into the godly home 

            our Creator  earnestly and desperately  

            wants for us all.

Let us pray:

God we are so used to seeing ourselves 

as individuals with personal destinies.

Remind us that we are made in your Triune image, 

the image of community.

Help us to love each other and be made one as 

you are one. 

Whisper your love to us 

that we may whisper your love to the world. 

Amen. 

(Common Payer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals)