Today is the forty-first anniversary of my ordination. On this June day, I stood in front of 300 or so people, quaked out my vows, felt the hands of my new colleagues on my head and shoulders as I took on the office of ministry. There is nothing special about forty-one years, but every year on this day I reflect on this weird and wild ride that is a life in ministry. It’s a bit like Dr. Seuss…”Oh the Places You’ll Go.” Every year different things come to the fore. Here are this year’s reflections.
I was ordained six weeks before my twenty-fifth birthday. I should have had “clueless” tattooed across my forehead. At some level I knew that I didn’t know nearly enough to launch me into this life, but I blundered forward as best I could. That I didn’t screw up worse than I did is testimony to grace and the power of the Holy Spirit. And though I know a lot more now than I did then, I still have moments of cluelessness.
I have spent almost fifty years in service to the church. I was ordained to the ministry of word and sacrament and the office of pastor and teacher. This continues to shape my life. I believe in the power of the gospel to transform just about anything that needs to be transformed. That said; the church is a helluva disappointment in many ways. I have moments when I wonder if my service to the institution has been in vain. It is such a screwed up mess.
I have seen churches wrenched apart by conflict that goes on for generations, an ecclesiastical version of the Hatfield’s and McCoy’s. I have seen the worst of what church people can be. I have seen clergy violate the trust of their office and leave a mile wide path of destruction in their selfish and broken wakes. I have seen churches mired in “the way we’ve always done it” to the point where they choke the life out of what’s left of their living history. Still, it’s what we have (for better or worse) for the ministry of the gospel.
Still, I believe in the life giving, life affirming radical love that is the heart of the gospel. It’s just that I am so disappointed that the church is such a miserable failure at living that out. Now the unofficial keeper of the social status quo, the church has forsaken its role as a radical agent of transformative love and justice making change. It’s enough to make this preacher wring her hands.
Yet, I still stand up every Sunday and preach from the center of my being, because it is what I am called to do. I want to believe it makes a difference but sometimes it is hard to tell. As Scripture reminds us, “God gives the increase.” It’s not about me.
Still, it’s not all gloom and doom. I have seen the church rise to the occasion of local need, global struggle and desperate pain. I have witnessed the healing power of community to reach to the heart of human brokenness and bring hope. I have felt the movement of the spirit when the word comes alive in the preaching and the listening energy is enough to blow me out the back of the chancel. I have witnessed individuals come alive in their faith and be “born again.”
Still, I believe in the ministry of word and sacrament. I believe in the value of gathering at the table to be nourished by the gifts of grape and grain and standing at the baptismal font to bear witness to the promises made with water.
Still, I believe the church has the potential to be transformed, if it can just get out of its own way. If the church can worship God more than it worships its building, it may have a chance. If the church can be the radical life giving community that Jesus intended and intends it to be, there may be hope for the institution. If the church can grow enough in grace and faith to embody a PART of what is called for as the new community in Christ, there may be hope. I have no vested interest in whether the church in its current incarnation survives. Sometimes I think the church should be like a phoenix and rise up out of the ashes of the past into something new and exciting. But the fire has to come first.
I’ll get the matches.
The Irreverent Reverend 