The Wager: A Re-Frame That Mattered

Religion is what people do with their wonder.  — Abraham Heschel

From my perch in aging, now a distant eighteen years from retirement, I am amazed. I am astounded by the wager we make. You and I have this in common: we have bet our lives on a reality we cannot measure or control or prove or name precisely. This reality, in the words of Rudolph Otto, is mysterium tremendum et fascinans: mystery that makes us tremble with awe, shakes us up, yet ever lures us forward with fascination. Furthermore, you and I wager that this mystery, most clear in Jesus of Nazareth, is a Love from which nothing in life or death, now or later can separate us. In other words, you wager that reality in its essence is relational, inter-connective, oneness, love-energy, shalom. And, as if that is not wonder enough, this gracious mystery wants to be incarnated or embodied in us.

So strong was this fascination that you staked your vocational life on this invisible Spirit that, like the wind, blows where it wills. Daily you gamble with what you have, your life energy. Daily you place your bet with the coins of your time — 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 hours a week; 20, 30 even for some 50, 60, 70 years of your life — declaring a wager that can look foolish in a world that distrusts what’s not explainable. You surrender. You doubt. You adore. You wonder. You stammer. You accept being “fingers pointing to the Moon” — so you point. You witness. This fact remains: Without the existence and our experience of this mysterious Spirit our vocation collapses into folly.

Will Campbell was a maverick Baptist in my time. Once I was in a group of pastors where Will was present. The conversation turned toward an “ain’t it awful” direction. Will, it seems, weary of the clergy complaining, proceeded to stop the bitching session in its tracks. “Well, as I see it,” speaking in his drawn out Southern drawl, “life is a horse race. And I’m bettin’ on Jesus.” While the mystery remains with multiple interpretations of Jesus, nevertheless you and I keep looking to Jesus as our way, our truth-full witness and our clue to abundant living. In short: you keep bettin’ on Jesus, so much so, you serve the church that called you to be his body in the world. Amazing. Absolutely amazing.

This re-frame, a full-of-mystery wager, stoked by radical amazement, surfaced with clarity for me against the backdrop of its opposite — my denomination’s ideological turn toward “certainty.” For this re-frame it’s important to understand this context. In the 1980s and 90’s a fundamentalist arm of Southern Baptists gradually, deliberately seized control by establishing doctrinal norms, the primary one being the infallibility of Scripture. Denominational agencies, including seminaries, were required to affirm a doctrinal statement of faith. This set of beliefs served as a knife that divided those “in” from those “out,” the faithful from unfaithful, truth from error. I felt the sharp edge of this knife, so much so, the congregation I served was cut from its denomination’s ties in 1992. I was also dismissed as an adjunct professor at a near-by seminary. I, and those like me, were deemed cancer to the body and must be cut out.

This was my learning: up close I saw the danger of religion that hardens its arteries in the form of set beliefs. Mystery is forfeited. Wonder is silenced. “Right” beliefs thrive on certainty, fueled by binary thinking with its either/or, right/wrong, in/out, true/false ways of seeing. And, this as well, belief systems require opposition to stay alive. Advocates for their own belief system enter the battle for “truth” with self-sacrificial allegiance.

During that fundamentalist takeover a gift dropped into my lap. In 1983 I was introduced to the life and thought of Rabbi Abraham Heschel through his book, Man Is Not Alone, loaned to me by a member of the congregation. That book and his other writings re-awakened in me what was being depreciated by my family of faith — the awesome wonder of faith, hope and love that had summoned me in the first place. We hear Heschel’s voice in these few quotes.

“Our goal should be to live life in radical amazement . . . get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted. Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible; never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed.”

“The surest way to suppress our ability to understand the meaning of God and the importance of worship is to take things for granted. Indifference to the sublime wonder of living is the root of sin. Wonder or radical amazement is the chief characteristic of the religious man’s attitude toward history and nature.”

“Only one response can maintain us: gratefulness for witnessing the wonder, for the gift of our unearned right to serve, to adore, and to fulfill. It is gratefulness which makes the soul great.”

A personal story captures the heart of his witness. Heschel, from a long line of hasidic rabbis, spent most of his years as teacher and writer at Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. When he was coming toward the end of his life his rabbi friend, Samuel Dresner, visits him. Dresner writes: “Heschel spoke slowly and with effort . . . ‘I did not ask for success; I asked for wonder. And You [Yahweh] gave it to me.’” Religion, as he noted, is what we do with that wonder.

In retirement I came across James P. Carse’s book, The Religious Case Against Belief. Carse illuminates some important nuances of wonder in his distinguishing three types of ignorance.

• Ordinary ignorance is simply not knowing. We don’t know who will be the next President or who will win the World Series next year or when we will die.
• Willful ignorance is choosing not to know. We may choose not to hear the news of a bad diagnosis or see the contradictions in Scripture or admit the verification of global warming. We can close our eyes or refuse to listen to what we don’t want to see or hear.
• Higher ignorance, Carse suggests, is learned curiosity about what we don’t know. It’s the “wondering about” that fuels scientists, philosophers, and yes, theologians and preachers. This perspective invites us to lead with inquisitive questions, not answers. Only from “not knowing” can we reach for the understanding we don’t possess. Higher ignorance exchanges the certainty of right-believing for paradox, curiosity and mystery. The risks of faith, Carse insists, do not guarantee safe, conclusive conclusions. Rather, they assure the exhilaration of creativity and new learning.

With the witness of Heschel and Carse highlighting the wager we keep making, how then might this re-frame translate into ministry? I suggest two opposite postures. You can either lean in or step back.

Leaning in means leading from curious questions, admitting, even valuing the stance of not-knowing. In preaching you publicly, and with a playful curiosity, lean into the connection between the storied, biblical text and the storied life of congregants. In pastoral care you lean in with curious questions, probing with the parishioner into what new territory their crisis may be taking them. In committee meetings you lean in from a not-knowing position with curious questions that invite creative solutions. In pastoral conversations you lean in, asking open-ended queries, experiencing the wonder of where the vulnerable exchanges take you, the other, and your relationship. Or coming up close, very close to a flower, butterfly, weed or any one aspect of nature, you and I cannot help but marvel at its beauty and complexity.

Or, you can step back allowing the radical amazement of any situation to sink in. Have you ever stepped back from glancing through the church directory or from scanning the congregation on a Sunday morning and felt the wonder of it all — all these people choosing to volunteer their time, money, love energy in common cause, making church possible? Have you ever paused for even a moment in the pulpit with Bible before a congregation and pondered the miracle of this 2,000 year old narrative in your hand or the miracle of your worship space bequeathed by those not present? And if we step way, way back we can’t suppress the awe over being a very recent species, arriving the last 30 minutes if we imagine evolution as a 12-month calendar. Have you ever walked away from a family, whether profoundly grieving or celebrating, asking yourself, “How can people love so deeply and be loved so profoundly? Where does such capacity come from?” What mystery! What grace, what gift!

This practice you can do any time and from any place: stepping back, pausing, focusing and noticing the breath-taking gift of what or who is before you. Immediately you go to that place of wonder, radical amazement. You may even hear yourself saying, “This wonders me — this thing, this person, these persons wonder me!”

You and I are in the mystery business. We work with realities — love, life, faith, trust, community, grace, forgiveness, hope — that we cannot measure or prove or name with certainty. In the spirit of Rabbi Heschel, we could say, “I asked for wonder and God gave it to me in a vocation.”

But we cannot live and serve from wonder and mystery alone. We must risk words and Word becoming flesh, only to fall short every time. This is what we do. We wager. We wager on the mystery with our lives. We wonder at the mystery, yes, but also wager on its Truth. We lean into life with curiosity and occasionally step back in awe. Over time this posture became a new way of framing the complex ministry we offer.

 

Collegial Friends: A Re-Frame That Mattered

The growth of any craft depends on shared practice and honest dialogue among the people who do it … when any function is privatized, the most likely outcome is that people will perform conservatively refusing to stay far from the silent consensus on what works — even when it clearly does not.  — Parker Palmer, The Courage to Teach

Isolation is your vocational reality. Being a pastor, embodying this role, colors the water of every relationship, including neighbors, family, and particularly, of course, church members. In these relationships the role is a significant factor. Our ordination sets us apart as different, inviting projections, mostly unconscious. Expectations unnamed are always in play. Indeed, you are living symbols of More than you are. This question inevitably lingers: How will I manage this isolation?

I have come to believe that there are two kinds of pastors: those who conclude, “It’s up to me,” and those who say, “I cannot do this vocation without collegial community.”

Pastors in the first group offer their ministry in virtual isolation. They are on their own to give shape to their work. It is up to them. It’s up to them to interpret the gospel, read the “signs” of our time in history, intuit feedback, determine their use of time, judge appropriate responses to congregational crises, establish practices of self-care, worship while leading in worship, and integrate the learning from the plethora of resources available to us. No doubt these pastors have warm and effective relationships with members but, as is the case with all pastors, there is so much of themselves they cannot share. This includes the secrets they carry with confidentiality. These pastors, I observe, tend to be competent and self-confident, qualities that, while strong, can undermine the need for colleagues. For these pastors, their isolation, already a component of our vocation, will likely harden and over time encourage a fusion of personal identity with vocational role.

Those in the second cadre intentionally form relationships in which they are out of role with colleagues who understand the role. That’s a critical distinction: being both out of role and closely connected to others who understand the role’s promise and complexity. These deliberate relationships take form in various ways — unstructured cultivated relationships with peers, structured small clergy groups that meet regularly or in scheduled meetings with a coach, spiritual director, therapist, or consultant. All these examples meet the criterion of this re-frame: out of role with those who know the role.

Many of you are in this second category. You meet this criterion. You have deliberately sought out peer relationships in which you are both not in role and yet experience the support needed for exploring your role. This might happen with a friend, perhaps a clergy friend or others you meet with regularly over coffee or phone or internet or time-away together. Many of us have benefited from therapy, coaching, and spiritual direction. Consultants are another resource. I developed a relationship with a consultant, a former parish priest, with whom for twenty years I would occasionally review a pastoral or congregational dilemma. Perhaps you are fortunate to have staff colleagues with whom you can be open and trusting, but note the limit — you are still in role. The common factor in all these relationships is this: the isolation is broken; you feel not so alone; and your ministry seems less on your shoulders. Some of you have initiated such relationships. It may be enough.

For me it was not enough. I became inspired to reach for a deeper expression of collegial friendships during my decade on the staff of the Department of Pastoral Care at North Carolina Baptist Hospitals, Winston-Salem, N.C. The department had developed over the years a strong program of Clinical Pastoral Education. I am not a CPE supervisor but I was an active participant in this model of theological education. I experienced its genius: a small community of practicing clergy peers committed to each other’s mutual learning under skilled facilitation. During those ten years I kept asking, “Why is this model reserved only for preparation in the practice of pastoral ministry? Why is it not the way of doing pastoral leadership and ministry?” The question, never answered to my satisfaction, kept buzzing around my head like a persistent mosquito.

I took this question with me when, in 1983, I moved from being a director of pastoral care in a hospital setting to being a pastor again, serving Pullen Memorial Baptist Church in Raleigh, N. C. The immediate contrast was striking. In my former role the boundaries and accountability were clear. Not so in my new role. At first I reveled in the freedom to construct my own life in ministry, but soon unspoken agreements and unnamed expectations had me scrambling for a clearer role definition. Within broad limits I was on my own to create its contour.

With my question of collegial community in mind I joined a circle of friends, a small group of men who had been meeting for over ten years. For two hours every other week we gifted each other with an acceptance close to unconditional. It was a container I needed. With these friends, I found support for my life — but less so for my life as pastor.

I needed more. I wanted to be with pastor friends who could focus with me on our efforts at priestly and prophetic leadership. The question was still alive from my years with Clinical Pastoral Education: Could some variation of this collegial learning be possible in parish ministry? I began the search for peers who might be interested in this experiment. After a year or so, I sent this letter to a circle of clergy friends:

I fear we have internalized the hallmark of our American culture — individualism. For all our talk about communion and indeed for all our efforts in building community with others, we tend to craft our work by ourselves. What Alexis de Tocqueville said of our forebears in Democracy in America could be said of us: ‘They form the habit of thinking of themselves in isolation and imagine that their whole destiny is in their hands.’

Instead of continuing like this, I wonder whether you would be interested in being part of a clergy Sabbath Day — a time to nurture our souls with colleague-friends, a time to return to our first love, God, a time to be reminded that the ministry of the church belongs to God and not to us.

Three pastors responded. Another joined us later. Each Wednesday for several years we set aside a Sabbath day for silence, prayer, conversation about our work, rest, laughter, celebrating Eucharist, and walking in the woods. Never in my years as pastor have I felt so balanced between inner work and outer work, contemplation and action, play and work, self-care and self-giving. We were not alone in our need to step back and tease apart our tangled ministries. Together we reflected, played, prayed, and imagined by learning off of each other’s experience in ways that yielded clarities that surprised.

Yet, over time, the full day became a half-day, then an occasional half-day, and finally no day at all. Our clergy Sabbaths, like sand castles, gave way to wave after wave of pressing congregational needs. This fragile container of sacred space cracked, and finally crumbled after four years or so.

Absent was a clear covenant among us that could have withstood the pull of competing commitments, both from church and family. Absent was a covenant with church leaders who would support and appreciate this expression of vocational and self-care. Also absent was a facilitator, which I came later to regard as important. Although we felt its value, we stopped short of declaring that this way of offering pastoral ministry, namely, a few pastors committed to mutual nurture, collaboration, and accountability, is non-negotiable.

The question, now a tested possibility, stayed alive within me until retirement. In 1998 I retired a bit early at sixty-three in order to continue the experiment. And I have. During these two decades of retirement I have tested this hypothesis of collegial communities that I came to name AnamCara, Celtic for “soul friend.” This was my working definition:

AnamCara as a network of small collegial circles of five to eight clergy leaders of congregations who meet regularly to offer mutual nurture, collaboration, and accountability in their practices of theological reflection, leadership, and soul care.

The experiments took different forms. From a Lilly grant I organized and either led or co-led four ecumenical, inter-faith clergy groups, each of eight to ten participants, who met in retreat settings regularly (monthly or bi-monthly) for either a year or eighteen months. I was consultant to three other clergy groups. For twelve years I have led a group of Episcopal clergy who still meet monthly for three hours. All in all I have worked with approximately sixty clergy leaders of congregations.

My underlying question in forming these collegial groups was this: Will these clergy leaders complete this way of practicing ministry saying, “This has been another valuable continuing education experience, thank you very much.” Or will they say, “Being in some expression of collegial community must be a primary context from which I offer ministry.” In other words, will they regard the experience as an educational “add on” or will they see and embrace another way of being in ministry?

A small minority, about twelve of the sixty, continued to commit to a practicing community of peers. Steve spoke of this shift in his self-understanding:

“I can no longer imagine doing pastoral ministry without my group of soul friends. Our time together often feels like a taste of the Kingdom, a feast of deep laughter and friendship among competent peers who respect each other. In a wonderfully paradoxical way, the worship, study, and conversation we share make me a better pastor and remind me there is more to my life than ministry.”

Briefly, this is what I learned:

• The recruitment and organizing requires a person or two called to this possibility.
• A skilled facilitator frees the pastors to be completely out of the leadership role.
• Pastors are more willing to participate fully if the facilitator knows pastoral leadership personally.
• AnamCara is a radical alternative to the deeply internalized individualism in our culture.
• Once trust is felt the hunger for collegial friends is intense and generative.
• Ecumenical groups of clergy, with their commonality of serving congregations, offer the richness of differing traditions.
• To be led in worship and common prayer is an experience some pastors seldom experience.

In 2009 this vision was published as AnamCara: Collegial Clergy Communities, which can be purchased through this website.

In this reflection I have traced my engagement with the isolation that accompanies our vocation, both as a pastor and a pastor in retirement. As I have noted, this way of being in pastoral ministry is only one context in which to define our vocation. Its appeal is limited. But for me this model — a small community of practicing clergy peers, gathering together in a facilitated environment — has been a re-frame that I have explored through the years. It has mattered.

Covenant Promises: A Re-Frame That Mattered

This re-frame started in the most unlikely place. A conversation yielded an insight that morphed into a frame through which I saw most of ministry.

Martin was an exchange student from Germany. At the end of his year with our family his parents came for their first visit to our country. After their whirlwind tour of our nation they ended their vacation with us. I asked Fritz, the father, “You’ve covered a lot of our country, exploring an amazing amount of territory. With all that travel, what surprised you the most?” His surprise surprised me. “I’m surprised by all the churches.” Fritz went on, “It’s remarkable; each church is on its own. Not so in our country. We all pay taxes to support the church whether or not we attend.”

His observation had never occurred to me. Even now, I must admit, when I see a church building I often, like Fritz, marvel at that congregation’s existence. You and I pass probably twenty or thirty churches as we drive through our communities. Has it ever struck you as remarkable that each congregation, whatever the size and flavor, consists of enough people who give and keep promises? That’s the glue. When congregants stop keeping their promises, trust erodes, and soon the building is empty with locked doors to prove it.

After this surprise I began to notice that all relationships are held together by this rather fragile thread — the willingness and capacity to make and keep promises. If you look closely, they are kept alive by ordinary, simple everyday interactions. “I will be home at six. If not, I’ll call you. I promise.” … “Agreed. Let’s do it.” … “I’ll tell you about it when I get to the office.” … “Will you give me a ride?” … “How about coffee at ten, our usual place. Will that work?” … “I forgot. Our meeting was right there on my calendar but I didn’t see it. I’m so sorry. Can we re-schedule?”

Everyday acts of making and keeping promises, and dealing with broken promises, were largely unnoticed by me. But once noticed the formula became clear: promises-made, both small promises and big life-defining vows, risk commitment; promises-kept embody faithfulness, building trust; promises-broken sow seeds of distrust and, if continued, result in the death of the relationship. It is as simple as that, as fragile as that, as profound as that. Relationships live or die by promises-made and promises-kept and broken promises healed … or not.

The growing awareness made its way into my opening statement for wedding ceremonies:

  The wedding ceremony is a joyous occasion … a solemn occasion … and a worshipful occasion. This is a joyous occasion because the possibility of joy from marital life together is one of the deepest we can know on the earth. This is a solemn occasion because the implications of the promises spoken this day will have a ripple effect — for good or for ill — upon countless others down through the years. And this is a worshipful occasion because we worship a God who delights in promises-made and promises-kept.

This statement seemed adequate enough until my divorced friend, Leo, attended one of the ceremonies that I was officiating. He offered how he felt alien in the service, like someone looking in from the outside. How could he worship this God, he wondered, with broken pieces of his marital promises in his hands … and heart?

So for the next wedding ceremony I added a phrase:

 And this is a worshipful occasion because we worship a God who delights in promises-made and promises-kept … and who delights in the healing of broken promises.

That seemed satisfactory. I wanted those, like Leo, to feel the possibility of reconciliation within primary relationships strained and even broken. But Leo continued to feel left out. My words still excluded Leo and those with his life experience because Leo never found any healing in the relationship with his former wife. No reconciliation; no friendship; no contact. They had promised faithfulness “till death do us part.” Well, death happened. In the relationship death-dealing kept increasing, life-giving kept diminishing.

So I added another phrase to the litany:

And this is a worshipful service because we worship a God who delights in covenant promises-made and covenant promises-kept … and who delights in the healing of broken covenant promises … and who delights in the healing of those broken by broken covenant promises.

Note that I also added the word “covenant” to deepen the biblical, theological dimension of exchanging promises. Covenants, in contrast to contracts, include the exchanges of promises among humans within the larger covenant of God’s promises. In covenants God’s promises are triangled into the relationships.

You and I share familiarity with the biblical concept of covenant. From my study this is what has remained significant for me. God’s covenant with Israel and New Israel (church) is the covenant promise to be with us and for us, exposing the pain and consequences of broken promises, while at the same time ever summoning us with a forgiving, healing “love that will not let us go.” Relationships, formed by implicit or explicit promises, can die, that is, cease to be life-giving. Faithfulness, in those instances, might require leaving these relationships and leaning into the grace to continue in other relationships, always, once again, formed by promises-made and promises-kept.

This is not “cheap grace” that bypasses the hard work of accountability. It invites the inner work of confession that can flow into forgiveness of the other and oneself, again and again, “seventy times seven.” Forgiveness, according to Jesus’s actions, was often the first declaration in a troubling situation. By letting in this divine gift of forgiveness we have the security necessary to face our brokenness and offer it up to the assurance of grace. It’s breathing in the breath-taking generosity of God that undergirds both our capacity for risking mutual promises and our freedom to detach from dashed promises.

Covenant is at the heart of relationships. This makes our promises sacramental, a “means of grace.” They light up the grace (gift) of life and love in the everyday exchanges of promises made and kept; they make possible the grace (gift) of life and love in the healing of broken promises and in the healing of those broken by broken promises. All grace. All gift.

The philosopher Hannah Arendt, author of The Banality of Evil and The Human Condition, makes central the requisite of covenants. The capacity to make and keep promises provides islands of security as one faces into the future of uncertainty. And the capacity to forgive the consequences of broken promises grants freedom from being held hostage to one’s past. She placed side by side both the power of promise and the power of forgiveness.

Seeing pastoral ministry through the eye of covenant promises — made, kept, broken with the possibility of restoration, and always the possibility of grace — became a major re-frame that mattered during my last ten years or so of being pastor. I offer a few examples in addition to the marriage covenant already noted.

Church membership can be framed as a covenant. The person promises; the church promises. I gave effort to clarifying these promises. But disappointments and unmet expectations will occur. So I included this promise: when the covenant isn’t working as expected, then the disappointment or failure would be named, heard, and confessed in the hope of a new, deepened covenant. To see membership as covenants increases the likelihood that these differences and disappointments along the way, including the ending of the covenants, can be redemptive. Even a member leaving in anger is sometimes willing to see it in covenant terms. By reviewing the covenant both parties can acknowledge the good, confess failure and disappointment, call upon forgiveness, and bless the future covenants with another congregation.

To see staff relationships in covenant terms is another example. It means spending time making covenant, that is, clarifying expectations, rooting out assumptions, writing the promises down, and committing to review them periodically. The challenge for me was confronting or allowing myself to be confronted when the promises were broken, the little ones as well as the larger promises. For re-covenanting to have integrity it must include naming the failure, asking for forgiveness, and re-promising. Otherwise the covenant softens, accountability diminishes, avoidance of conflict sets in with the opportunity for growth being lost.

I recommend a clearer covenant between pastor and the elected lay leaders. I wish I had put more energy into this crucial partnership. While lay leaders and I did talk about mutual expectations in general terms, I would now advocate specificity. Since we are called to different but complementary roles of leadership, a covenant can define these roles, becoming an agreement that can be reviewed and modified as needed. This enhances not only accountability but also the permission to address broken or unfulfilled promises before they fester and enlarge.

The covenant lens is particularly relevant when addressing congregational conflict and challenges. Every congregation has a covenant or mission statement, a stated reason-for-being. There is some purpose around which a congregation gathers that’s both explicit and implicit, formal and informal. For the purpose of illustration, let’s assume that some heated differences arise around a budget or property or personnel concerns. The concept of covenant promises provides a way to frame a conversation that invites faithful listening and creative problem-solving. Given the frame — we are held together by covenant promises — then we can ask what are our responses in light of our mission, in light of being the body of Christ, in light of being bound together in faith, hope and love — in other words, in light of our promises.

The most volatile challenge I faced as a pastor was when in 1991 a member of our congregation requested for himself and his partner a public service of blessing — in essence, a wedding. What kept our congregation from splitting over this heated possibility was framing the process in terms of our covenant. How will we be in covenant with members who are gay (LGBTQ) persons? By being the body of Christ what is our sense of what Jesus would have us do? What’s the mind of Christ? Given our covenant grounded in God’s generosity, how will we speak our truth to each other in love and listen to the felt truth of the other? The language of covenant promises provides a theological and ethical framework for proceeding with highly charged conversations. Covenants are the containers for difficult speech and collective discernment.

In summary, the church is called to embody covenantal relationships with each other within God’s larger covenant with us. If so, all relationships can be viewed in this covenantal context. That means promise-making (risking commitment), promise-keeping (trust), confronting broken promises in the hope of re-covenanting (reconciliation), and the healing grace offered to those broken by broken promises (confession/forgiveness).

Arendt helps me taper this gospel truth more precisely: promise-making and promise-keeping provide communities of trust, hope, and love for facing into an uncertain future; the radical giving and receiving of forgiveness grants the freedom to release the hold of brokenness from our past. This became a re-frame that mattered.

 

Agent of Change: A Re-frame That Mattered

Change is at the core of our vocation. We hear it in the weighty words like repentance, conversion, redemption, transformation, and reconciliation. But how change occurs is complex, more mystery than not. During my walking around in this mystery I came across a pair of glasses that helped me see from a particular angle.

I came out of seminary excited, feeling ready to be an agent of change. The Search Committee that offered my first pastoral opportunity shared a similar expectation. They proposed: “Here is where we are as a congregation. Here is where we want to be.” The subliminal message I heard: “Your leadership can change us.” So I set about to be an agent of their change?

But along the way — about five years actually — I began to question my capacity to change “the other.” It didn’t work. A particular change might be willed for a period, but when the pressure was released the behavior went back to previous patterns. It didn’t work with my wife, not with my children, not with friends, not with the congregation, and not with myself. Any willful effort to change always invited the counter force of resistance. Clearly, something was missing in my view of change.

What was missing — and it became a re-frame that mattered — is understanding change from a systems’ perspective. It speaks counter-intuitively: focus on yourself, not your congregation, and that, to some degree, will change the congregation. You work on yourself — your clarity of vision, your learning, your integrity, your transformation, your responses, your relationships, your questions, your calling, your presence. It all sounds totally self-serving and selfish until you see the paradox: by working on changing yourself you change the system. By focusing on our functioning in relationships we change the relationships. This perspective — centering in on changing self not congregation — felt like a 180-degree turn.

Let’s review the systems view of change. Imagine a system as a mobile with various hanging, dangling parts. We know from experience that if the height of one part is changed, then the total mobile is changed. All the parts of the mobile are thrown out of balance until the force of togetherness (homeostasis) brings the parts into balance again … but in slightly new positions.

Remember a sermon in which you took a stand that challenged the congregation. It was a new position you were taking, like changing your part of the mobile. The sermon was unsettling. The congregation, like a mobile, was thrown out of balance, however slightly. But you also noticed, either immediately or over time, there was a power in the congregational system at work pulling toward a new stability. The mobile-like congregation eventually settled down into a new balance, somewhat changed.

Or, imagine a number of separate parts connected to each other by rubber bands. Let’s say that you take one part and pull it upward to a new position. Note what happens. All the rubber bands, not just one, are stretched. Then, three possibilities emerge. One, all the rubber bands connecting the other parts could pull the deviant part back to the comfort level of what had been. Or, the deviant part will stretch so far that the band will break, causing a “cut off,” a disconnection. Or, the pull of the adventurous part could invite all of the parts to change in that direction to some degree.

Think again of that same visionary sermon you preached. Notice the options: Did your vision get no traction, no movement of change from the system, with congregants saying in effect, “We are not ready for that”? If so, you go back and wait for another opportunity. Or, was the vision so “far out” it was rejected, “cut off” like the break of a rubber band? Or, was there enough curiosity and excitement from congregants for there to be significant movement toward the vision articulated in the sermon?

Each metaphor illustrates the central point: changing yourself, your position in any relational system changes in some way the relational system as a whole, whether it’s two people or an entire congregation.

While we cannot change the other, we can offer with clarity the changes occurring in us in a way that invites the possibility of significant change happening in them. We challenge by defining our self in relationships. Note this difference. To try to change another is to say, “This is what I think you should believe or do or be.” It’s a “you” message. To focus on our self is to send an “I” message. My message, “Here is where I am with … (issue, situation, belief, conflict). This is what I see or feel,” contains an inherent invitation, “Where are you with this? What do you see or feel?” By focusing on defining yourself and offering that self-awareness, you challenge the other person or persons to do the same, namely, to take responsibility for defining themselves. And these mutual self-expressions create change, hopefully change toward growth and maturity.

This is the essential interaction: This is what I see; what do you see? It’s present in preaching — this is what I see in this text; what do you see? Or in a committee meeting, “This is where I see the connection with our mission; how about you?” These interactions strengthen mutual capacity to take responsibility for our thinking, feeling, and doing.

But this is an important clarity. This focus on self is not to be confused with autonomy or independence or self-differentiation alone. In systems’ thinking, according to Murray Bowen and his interpreter Ed Friedman, a self is a connected self, a self in relationship. The self is always in relationship, like the parts of a mobile and the rubber bands illustrated in my two metaphors. There is so such thing as a separate self. I once heard Friedman muse, “Maybe life is all about how to be a self in relationship.” That’s the heart of it. That’s the challenge of it. It’s the essence of leadership.

I found in this re-frame both a gift and cost. The gift is the energy saved in efforts to change the other. Simply put, willful leadership is exhausting. There is relief in realizing that we cannot motivate people to change, as if we know what others need to become. It’s freeing, not wearying, to stay focused on questioning, challenging, offering, and inviting.

While the gift of this re-frame is huge, I experienced cost from it as well. I did so in three ways. First, because you and others will inevitably “see” differently, conflict can be expected. And if the differences become heated then your work is how to stay connected without agreement. It is costly, hard work to stay in relationship when differences are being mutually voiced and felt. This takes time, emotion, patience, vulnerability, and detachment from outcome.

A second cost. Don’t underestimate the time, maturity and effort it takes to find the space within yourself to clarify your responses. This work of self-definition is demanding. To react from our oldest “reptilian” part of the brain is quick and easy; to respond with thought-through, non-anxious words and presence reflects years of inner work.

A third cost. Challenging others with what you see, along with the invitation for them to do the same while staying in relationship — well, that’s a tall order. It’s an unrealistic ideal to expect such maturity from everybody, including yourself. Leading from self-differentiation will elicit multiple responses: some will be unable to respond with “I” statements; some will experience your self-definition as coercive; some will misinterpret your intent and content; and some will blame you for challenging the status quo. The stretch of the “rubber band” may be too much, too fast, too threatening. No one told me that this expression of intentional leadership could reap so much misunderstanding and loneliness. While systems’ thinking altered my understanding of change, I had to look elsewhere to find the inner strength required to adopt it.

Being a part of change within our multiple relationships is at the heart and in the heart of our call. We are about transformation. In this reflection, like a pair a glasses, I’ve offered one aspect of change I came to see more clearly. For me it was a shift: from focusing on changing others to focusing on changing myself, and from that place stimulate and engage others in their choices. It became a re-frame that mattered.

The Congregation’s Angel: A Re-Frame That Mattered

You remember the hand gesture — locking your fingers inward and saying, “This is the church, this is the steeple,” and then, as you open your hands, “open the door, here’s all the people.”

That’s the way church looks — an aggregate of individuals. When you look out over the congregation on a Sunday morning, what do you see? You see individuals separated in rows, each with a distinct appearance, each with a different personality, each with a different history with you. Or, looking through the church pictorial directory you notice individual faces, most of whom are shown within families, each with different names. Or, in your imagination when your congregation comes to mind you likely think of individuals to call or families to visit.

But on some level we know there’s more. Intuitively we know church to be more than separate individuals and family units. We just know it. There’s an invisible reality that will never show up in a church directory. Consider two fictitious individuals reflecting on their first visits to a particular congregation:

“I walked down the aisle, found a seat, looked around, breathed in the ambiance of the space, glanced through the worship bulletin, and took a deep breath. I don’t know why but I just felt at home. This fits. I could be a member here.”

“The people seemed nice enough. The sermon was okay. Nothing wrong with the music. But, somehow, I didn’t feel engaged. I’m not sure what I am looking for, but this is not the congregation for me.”

This felt, invisible force that each of these church visitors experienced we call by a number of names: “culture,” “spirit,” “corporate personality,” or “gravitas” of a congregation. Walter Wink calls this reality the “angel” of a congregation. Wink’s interpretation of angel, new to me, immediately became a re-frame that mattered.

Angel? Angel of a congregation? Who believes in angels these days? Aren’t angels disembodied figments of a non-enlightened mind? What possible meaning could this ethereal construct have for us?

Walker Wink is convincing. He opened my eyes to an added dimension of congregational life. This New Testament scholar wrote a trilogy that shook the theological world, including my theological worldview: Naming the Powers (1984), Unmasking the Powers (1986), and Engaging the Powers (1992). In Unmasking the Powers Wink notices that in the Book of Revelation, in chapters two and three, seven letters are sent to the seven churches in Asia Minor. But they are addressed to the angel of each congregation, e.g. “To the angel of the church of Ephesus,” “To the angel of the church of Sardis,” etc. In contrast, Paul addresses his letters to an entire congregation, like the church at Ephesus or the church at Philippi. Until Wink’s observation I had never noticed this before. Frankly, up to this point angels had no place in my understanding of life. They were contrary to my way of thinking. Never had I taken them seriously — until Wink came along.

For Wink the angel of each congregation represents its totality. The angel is not something separate or moralistic or airy. Rather, the congregation is the angel’s incarnation. The spirit or angel of a church is embodied in the people and place. The angel represents the spirituality of a congregation, its corporate personality, its interiority, its felt sense of the whole. Angel (aggelos) in this context means “messenger.” The angel of a church conveys its true unvarnished message. It tells it like it is, the good and not so good. In the above illustration of fictitious visitors, these individuals encountered the angel of the same congregation. They engaged its spirit or culture. For one visitor the experience felt uninviting; for the other it was a coming-home feeling.

The angel or spirit in each of the seven churches in Revelation reveals a mixture of mature and immature characteristics. These letters picture Christ’s spirit addressing the angels of these congregations with both affirmation and challenging critique. For example, to the angel of Ephesus: “I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance … [but] you have abandoned the love you had at first.” (Revelation 2:2) To the angel of Laodicea, the message begins with a scathing indictment, “…because you are neither cold or hot, I am about to spit you out of my mouth,” but ends with, “Listen, I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me.” (Revelation 3:16, 20) In fact each letter ends with the same challenge: “Let everyone who has an ear, listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches.”

Although Wink, and this reflection, focus on congregations, it is important to note that every collective entity with continuity through time has an angel. A family or a business has it own unique spirit, as does a school. We even speak of “school spirit.” Wink provides a way to name the invisible spirituality within any visible institution. Wink reclaims a biblical image — granted an unfamiliar one — for naming this invisible reality.

This is the picture: In these seven letters in the Book of Revelation, Christ is imaged as walking among the congregations, engaging the angel of each, sometimes critically, sometimes affirmatively — all in the service of transforming the angel into Christ-likeness. The living Christ is at work not only in the lives of persons in all their relationships. The Spirit is also at work loving, confronting, healing, and transforming the spirit-angel of each congregation.

Now, let’s turn to the significance of this re-frame during my last stint as pastor. This awareness I received from Wink dove-tailed so perfectly with family systems theory. As the new pastor I set before me two tasks: one, come to know the people; and two, come to know the system, the corporate spirit that I later learned from Wink to be the angel of the church.

The second task felt like detective work. I saw clues. I noted the architecture, the placement of pulpit, choir, and other symbols. What’s the message they tell about our spirit-angel? I kept asking questions: what’s the glue that holds us together? I continued to listen for favorite stories about past events, past crises, and past pastors. What former rituals continue to be life giving? And what are people in the community saying about us? One observation began to clarify as a characteristic of our long history: our angel had two strong wings — attention to worship and attention to social justice. Of course, there was more to learn about the angel, but this awareness jumped out with clarity and became a reference point for the rest of my leadership.

This was my assumption: The angel, if I allowed it, was introducing itself to me. I was being invited, less to analyze the angel than to learn to love the angel. In what may appear strange, I was forming a pastoral relationship with the angel, as well as with the people. It’s not unlike learning to care for another person. I was being invited to love this particular congregation with all its complexities, gifts, failures, inconsistencies, and richness.

Perhaps some specific examples will help you understand the value of this double vision — seeing individual persons and paradoxically seeing the invisible corporate spirit, the angel.

I first experienced the angel of this congregation as cool, reluctant to extend a warm welcome to visitors. The church had been through some stressful years that absorbed the energy required for getting through a significant transition. So when the congregation gathered for worship members wanted to be together, to reassure each other, to enjoy each other. Wink gave me language for what I was intuiting, namely a wound in our angel that needed healing. For the next decade a priority for our leaders was to recover the church’s former generosity and eagerness to welcome the stranger.

This angel was severely tested in my ninth year. The congregation was discerning whether or not to add a ritual to our ministry — the blessing of a same-sex union. At the time there was not a more contentious, divisive issue in the larger church. This was the surprise. During this extended process of decision-making, we experienced more conflict outside the congregation than within it. We splintered, but we did not split.

I wondered then and now — what kept us steady in the water during this whirlwind of controversy? I believe it was the angel. During those stressful months, often a member would say something like, “Yes, we will lose some members. Yes, we will lose some money. Just like we did when we elected women deacons in the ’40s and when we racially integrated in the late ’50s and when our pastor was speaking out against the Vietnam War in the late ’60s. We made it through then. We’ll make it through now.” The angel with its passion for social justice, rooted in favorite passages such as Micah 6:8 and Jesus’ mission statement in Luke 4, provided the keel that kept our ship from overturning in turbulent waters. When enough members said, “This is who we are,” they were referring to our angel.

This imaginative metaphor of a congregation’s spirit inspired my occasional sermon that addressed the angel of our congregation. In a 1990 sermon, drawing on Wink’s interpretation of these verses in the Book of Revelation, I imaged Christ walking among us, engaging our angel. I spoke of Christ’s affirmation of our angel’s heart for community matters arising from and supported by our core practice of worshiping God. I gave some specific examples of this rhythm between worship and service, being at our best when not taking ourselves too seriously. But I also imagined Christ confronting our angel for our sometimes pride in feeling special, “progressive,” and yes, superior. I also envisioned our angel being chastised for being, at times, so open and inclusive that such grace could be morphed into cheap grace with little sacrifice or commitment.

And I ended the sermon, “So, these are some reflections on our angel. More importantly, I want you to take home this picture — the image of the spirit of Christ encountering our collective spirit, walking among us with the desire to transform our angel into his likeness.”

I conclude this reflection by noting a peculiar characteristic of our work. Like few vocations, pastoral ministry is all about seeing the un-seeable. The realities of trust, hope, and love — indeed, the Mystery we name God — are all invisible Spirit, like the wind, an uncontrollable force experienced but not seen. Even inter-personal relationships, the very heart of our work, cannot be seen or precisely measured. In these words I am underscoring another invisible reality on the list: the angel. Discerning and loving the angel of the congregation in the service of further transformation became for me a re-frame that mattered.

 

Pulling Back the Veil: A Re-Frame That Mattered

This may be the most crucial re-frame of all—pulling back the veil on reality as relational, as deeply, totally relational. It’s shifting from seeing “separate” to seeing “connection,” from seeing parts to seeing whole, from seeing “either/or” to “both/and.” And it’s not just seeing. It’s an embodied awareness that changes everything.

And this re-frame is more like re-framing again and again. In other words, the veil doesn’t stay parted. Most of the time the veil remains, but occasionally it parts for us to see anew this larger reality.

I remember when I first consciously pulled back this veil. I was director of a growing Department of Pastoral Care at the time, around 1976. We were expanding our home base—Clinical Pastoral Education and Pastoral Counseling at N.C. Hospital/ Bowman-Gray Medical Center in Winston-Salem—to other cities in the state, namely, Fayetteville, Raleigh, Morganton and Charlotte. Five separate ministry centers, in five separate cities, led by five separate staffs. As director of them all, they all looked very separate, but it didn’t feel that way, particularly when butting heads around the budget. In those moments we found ourselves in the same boat, interdependent, connected—like it or not. What affected one affected all. In those moments the veil was pulled back revealing a surprising truth: separation is an illusion; the School of Pastoral Care is one invisible web.

Soon Edwin Friedman came on the scene. Translating and interpreting for religious leaders the family systems theory of pioneer Maury Bowen, he helped me pull back this same veil. His book, From Generation to Generation, plus his lectures, opened my eyes to see and think systems. And as leader I was in the position of the “eyes,” overseeing the body of this interconnected, complex system. I found it to be a foreign language, learned only—as all languages are learned—by practice, practice, practice. I began to see our expanded pastoral care system as connected like rubber bands. When one ministry made significant changes, such as adding staff, then every center would feel being stretched to accommodate. Either these stretches would remain with new adjustments made or the other ministry centers would resist, like a strong rubber band, bringing the system back to its familiar pattern. Both, efforts to change and efforts to resist, now made sense, to be understood and valued. With the veil parted, the department became a web of relationships. What looked separate was, in fact, deeply interconnected, relational at its core.

But this is important to note. Relational systems’ seeing does not replace separation seeing. And it shouldn’t. In fact, it can’t. We grow up with a binary operating system installed in us. Either/or seeing and thinking are our first and necessary ways of making sense of the world. Soon in those first months we begin to distinguish between mom and dad, dog and cat, night and day, rain and sunshine, right and wrong, and most significantly, distinguishing me from you. We could not manage a day, even an hour, without binary, dualistic, differentiating thinking that enables us to see separate parts, separate choices, separate persons. But, like many of us, I was stuck in that worldview, in that way of viewing the world. That is, until the veil was parted and I could see beyond separation, polarities, and difference.

Albert Einstein captures this unveiling beautifully, succinctly:

A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.

This is the veil that parts. Without it we are left in prison, “a kind of optical delusion of [separation] consciousness.” According to Einstein, pulling back the veil becomes a major “task” that frees us through widening our circles of compassion, embracing all living creatures and all of creation.

Isn’t that a description of our task—to keep widening our circles of compassion, crossing all boundaries that imprison us in our separate ways of thinking and behaving? Jesus didn’t say, love our neighbor as we love our separate self. He commanded us to love the neighbor as our self, as an extension of our self, a reflection of our self. Essentially, on the deepest level, there’s No Separation! You hear this truth in Paul’s phrase: “We are members one of another.” Not, we are separate peas in a pod. Rather, we actually spill over into each other, acknowledged or not. Or, the native-American prayerful awareness: “All my relations.” That’s the luminous web in which we live and move and have our being.

I can’t resist noting when this acknowledgment burst into Thomas Merton’s awareness. This parting of the veil was, for this Trappist monk, an aspect of his turn back toward the world:

In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world . . . This sense of liberation from an illusory difference was such a relief and such a joy to me that I almost laughed out loud . . . I have the immense joy of being man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the sorrow and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun . . . If only they could all see themselves as they really are. If only we could see each other that way all the time.”

You know first-hand this experience. I’m assuming you have experienced moments of being profoundly connected to the “other,” including God, so much so, the lines of separation evaporate into “with-ness,” love, union, unitive awareness. The moments might be while preaching when losing yourself in Something larger/Spirit, or when seeing a third way beyond “fight or flight,” or experiencing the love in a group, another person, nature’s beauty that transcends the beginning sense of separation, or those times of being silenced with awe from living within the Mystery that love is, that life is, that beauty is, that forgiveness is, that this breath is. You know the experience. 

This pulling back the veil is more than an intellectual insight. It was for me at the beginning when challenged by Friedman to “think systemically.” It became more than a leadership tool. This truth moved down into the heart to a deeper kind of knowing that reality is essentially relational. Some name this awareness “unitive consciousness,” others of us prefer “Christ consciousness.” This awakening converts the seer, opening the way to see non-judgmentally the potential creativity in all relationships. The converted seer builds bridges, not boundaries.

We cannot think our way into this revelation of radical relatedness. We cannot make it happen. But we can keep opening ourselves to this re-framing by cultivating practices that invite and even anticipate this awareness.

Here is one, a simple one, a sample that can be practiced at a moment’s notice:

Stop, be still for a minute or two, allowing your breathing to carry this repetition:

• I am profoundly connected with what is before me—a person(s) or thing. I am in relationship. I am in love, within love with what is before me. 
• Repeat over and over and allow this truth to be felt throughout your body. And when the “monkey mind” with its agenda asserts itself, as it will, then simply and gently return to the breath with your prayerful awareness.
• You have your own ways and practices that invite this “parting of the veil.” I hope you value the importance of intentional practicing and remain alert to “see” what happens.

This metaphor—pulling back the veil of separation—suggests a sudden and permanent change. In fact, this shift in consciousness is usually gradual, occasional, erratic . . . yet transforming. It’s another re-frame in my pastoral life that mattered. It matters still, increasingly so.

Preaching as Conversation

Funny, the things I remember about preaching. Like the time someone suggested that I preface each sermon with the warning noted on cigarette packages: “What you are about to receive may be hazardous to your health!” Don’t know what he meant, but I liked it. For sure, the gospel is hazardous to ready comfort and quick fixes. Dangerous, indeed. As Jesus warned John, sometimes it will take you where you don’t want to go.

Recently another one-liner was jogged to awareness when a pastor friend, on the verge of retiring, asked me if I missed preaching. His question reminded me of that very same question upon my retiring, “Mahan, will you miss preaching?” My quick response even surprised me: “Well, how will I know what I believe?”

Somewhere along the way preaching became for me a week-to-week conversation with a particular set of pilgrim comrades. It’s unique. I can’t think of anything like it. The regular interaction was always on the same topic: What does following Jesus, loving God and the “other” look like in our time and place. It’s where I hammered out in public what I believed as a way to challenge members to engage in the same inner work. My part of the conversation was more external; their part of the conversation more internal.

I once commented — and here is another one-liner — “Why, I could begin each sermon with . . . ‘as I was saying.’” That’s true. I was picking up on an on-going conversation about the stories of God incarnating in the world. Out of a week of pastoral conversations, plus the study of the text (a form of conversation), I would pick up on the conversation, making it public, knowing that those present would in turn carry forward the conversation within themselves and within their relationships. Week by week, Sunday by Sunday I imagined this feedback loop occurring.

So back to the question: Do I miss preaching? I do miss that privilege. There is nothing to compare with preaching that comes out of a network of relationships and cycles back into these same relationships — over and over again. Preaching to congregations full of strangers never appealed to me. I always feel in those contexts that the sermon is a presentation, more a performance, less a to-be-continued conversation.

Then along the way, toward the end of my ministry, Walter Brueggemann shows up to deepen this understanding of preaching. In an article in Theology Today (1990) entitled “The Preacher, The Text, and the People,” he draws upon the concept of “triangles” from family system’s theorist Murray Bowen.

Bowen noted that life requires homeostasis (balance and stability). When two human beings become anxious they will likely “triangle” in a third person or issue or symptom as a way to reduce the tension. Always, a tripod is more stable than a dyad. You know the experience: two persons in conflict may “triangle” you in as problem solver or as the “problem.” If it works, you are left holding the anxiety while they walk away feeling lighter. These challenging triangles are the daily bread for pastors.

But Brueggemann draws on the positive use of “triangling.” He points out that preaching is often seen as a transaction between pastor/preacher (A) and people /congregation (B). It looks that way. Preacher in the pulpit, people in pew; preacher speaking, congregation listening; preacher interpreting, people agreeing or not agreeing. In other words, preaching appears to be a two-way interaction with the focus on the preacher and his message.

What if, as Brueggemann suggests, the voice of the biblical text is “triangled” in as “C”? What if the text is the focus, not the preacher, not the sermon. In Brueggemann’s thinking, you as preacher (A), along with the congregation (B), come under the authority of the text (C). It’s the text that matters. It is the sense of God’s Word through these words that matters. You, the preacher, are talking out loud about your engagement with the text, hoping the congregants will not only be in conversation with you, but even more, be in conversation with the Spirited text.

I found freedom in this view of preaching as a three-way conversation. Less did I obsess about correct interpretation, a polished sermon, a brilliant message. In this way of framing, the preacher becomes more prompter than expert, more witness than final authority. The preacher is liberated to engage the text, struggle with it, play and fuss with it — out loud — trusting that your authenticity, vulnerability and ideas will provoke a similar engagement between congregant and text, “B” with “C,” parishioner with Spirit. We say in effect: “Fellow pilgrims (congregants) this is what I see, feel and hear in this text, what do you see, feel and hear? This is the Word that comes to me for us, what is the Word that comes to you?” The shift occurs: the sermon becomes more about God, less about you.

An addendum: This understanding of preaching as conversation, drawing on Breuggemann’s insight, has implication for other pastoral functions. “Triangling” in the “text” can also be a way of pastoral leadership. Take note, for a moment, of situations with potential for win-lose debates (between “A” and “B”) — e.g. differences over budget figures or couples in conflict or controversy on some public issue. Now see the difference when in such a situation you intentionally “triangle” in the “text” as “C” (i.e. your church mission or the loving act or an agreed upon guiding principle or mind of Christ, etc.) and ask how does our faithfulness to this agreed-upon commitment speak to this situation? What would faithfulness to the “text” look like? Looking through the eyes of our covenant commitments, what connections or possibilities do you see?

It’s a practice I recommend — triangling in the “text.” This reframing, like a pair of glasses, can change or reenforce the way you see preaching and even pastoral leadership.

Do I Have a Witness?

The title I will explain later. First, some eye-opening statistics about pastors. This from the Barna Research Group: 1500 clergy leave pastoral ministry each month; 70% of pastors report struggling with depression; 50% would leave if they had another way to make a living; 61% of congregations have forced a pastor to leave; 83% of clergy spouses want their spouses to leave pastoral ministry; and 80% of pastors report that they receive no support from peers.

Alarming statistics. Surprising. Well, on the other hand, not surprising. I’ve been in a few of those categories myself for a time. Many of you have as well. And I have been alongside a fair number of clergy in the heart throes of such anguish. This data can, indeed should, wake us up to the widespread pain among pastors, which includes, lest we forget, some long-suffering lay leaders as well.

But the shock of these dismaying statistics sent me in a surprising direction. In my imagination, I pictured myself in an African-American congregation. There the preacher was, in the pulpit, reading these startling statistics, saying, “Now, brothers and sisters, this is bad news, real bad news! We gotta’ hear and heed what’s happening in our churches.” Then the preacher adds: “ But, beloved ones, I’m asking, is that the whole story? Is this an epidemic spreading among all pastors? I’m wondering, is there some good news out there about pastors and churches? Is there any hopeful news? Do I have a witness?” And, in my mind’s eye, I spring to my feet, saying, “Yes, I’ve got a witness! I see more than these alarming statistics. I have a witness.”

My witness is this: There are a host of pastors out in church-land who know the joy, feel the privilege and find the courage to serve the church — let’s say, at least 75% of the time. Mostly they love what they do.

Yes, I have a witness. For the last fourteen years in “retirement,” I have come alongside, as elder-friend, to sixty or so clergy on a sustained basis. Calling on Paul’s metaphors, each pastor or priest is an “earthy, cracked, clay jar” for sure, but they carry the treasure of “good news” with extraordinary chutzpa. I have been up close. I’ve seen it. I have experienced the “afflicted,” “crushed,” “perplexed,” but not driven to on-going “despair,” and, more often than not, they continue to “make the life of Jesus visible” in their ministry.” (II Corinthians 3:7-11) I have observed it. I have a witness.

But having just written this, I wonder: What’s common among these — most of the time — alive and life-giving pastors? Are there a few mutual threads characteristic of them all? Here’s a few that come to mind: They all . . .

• self-define themselves as leaders and work at it.
• have spiritual practices that nurture and deepen soul.
• are being transformed by the challenges of their work.
• cherish a few soul friends with whom they can be out of role, yet who understand the role.
• laugh a lot.

Gladly, I stand up as a witness to these pastors, and others like them, who are mostly unnoticed, under-valued, and under-appreciated. Do I have a witness?

Eschatology as Provocative Re-frame

Plan with the end in mind — a piece of advice I keep coming across in leadership material.

This bit of wisdom came to mind during two recent conversations with pastors getting clear about their retirement. While not time to announce their plans, their clarity was internal. I asked both of them, “What’s this like for you?” They both made similar responses, “I feel lighter.” And, I noticed this in both. They were working the same questions: “Now that I know the end time, what is most needed from me now? And what do I most want to give?” 

Let’s pull off our “theological shelf” and dust off this esoteric word — eschatology. Yes, both of these pastors are living in a personal scatological “end time.” And obviously this awareness is bringing clarity, and with it an exchange of one kind of energy for another. The difference is striking.

Then I began to ponder my own pastoral experience. In my first flight as pastor I served a seven-year old congregation. We both had little flight experience. Jointly we felt the exhilaration of a new beginning with no awareness of endings. Our sense of limitless horizons contributed to an eventual “burn out” in my case.

Later, much later, I became pastor of an almost hundred year old congregation. What a difference! I knew immediately — no matter how long I stayed — that I was an “interim” pastor. I served that congregation for fifteen years, a longer than usual ministry in one place. Yet, in terms of its history, fifteen years granted a very short privilege to come alongside this congregation rich in heritage.

Then, with that same congregation, I entered my 60′s with a deep weariness setting in. I went to the lay leaders saying two things: one, I felt I had more work to do with them; and two, I needed a few months to step back and catch my breath. During that time I asked to relinquish worship and committee responsibilities. We came up with a plan.

What surprised me during that mini-sabbatical was the “eschatology” that kicked in. I knew my time as pastor was coming to an end. This awareness forced the questions: for these next few years what does this church most need from my leadership? And, given my excitements, what do I most want to give? The clarity — a result from this sense of end-time — contributed to my final years being the most joyful and creative.

It’s something for you to think about. You are an interim-pastor. Your congregation was there before you came; it will continue after you leave. It is as if you come on board of a train at a particular station platform. Then somewhere down the tracks you will depart at another station, waving back to all the well wishers until they are out of sight.

This scatological re-frame, working with that end in sight, raises generative questions: Given the limited time, what does this congregation most need from me? And, given my gifts, concerns and interests, what do I most want to give?

It just may be a fast track to some joy, lightness, energy and clarity.

P.S. I’m playing imaginatively with this scatological re-frame. I picture myself at my death-bed, hearing this question from my grandchildren: “What were you thinking to left us a planet damaged beyond repair?” I want to be able to say, “Regrettably I woke up late, but when I did, I took action.”

Locating God

Where is God? Where do we look for God in our secular age?

I was asking these questions out loud while driving home from a recent discussion group. In the group one person was telling the Jonah story, treating it like a myth or parable. The presenter was asking: where is the Jonah in us? What are the ways, like Jonah, we flee from a God so radically loving of “the enemy,” Nineveh in this case?

A few in the circle quickly self-identified themselves as “secularists.” They interpreted the story literally, dismissing as fanciful any God who stages an ocean storm, including a large fish to swallow fleeing Jonah, later regurgitated on the land. “We can’t relate to this story. We don’t believe in God, especially that kind of God,” they all said in various ways.

Later in the conversation, a member of the circle (let’s call her Kelly), one of the “secularists,” spoke movingly of her long history with an elder in a remote Mexican village. Once a researcher in this village, she remained his friend through the years. When she heard of his dying, she made the long trip to be at his side. It seemed that he was staying alive to have his last moments with her.

By the time of her arrival, the elder has slipped into a coma. “Too late,” she lamented. But Kelly stays, remaining at his bedside, holding his hand in hers. She spoke of a profound, palatable presence of love that pervaded the room. Even the animals seem aware of this difference. Hours pass until the unexpected happens. Her mentor opens his eyes, fully and clearly, smiles, squeezes her hand and the hand of his son, then closes his eyelids, and stops breathing. It was a brief moment, so full, so unexpected, so unexplainable.

I blurted out, “Why God was all over that!” She smiled with a puzzled acknowledgment that neither of us pursued.

While driving home, I imagine saying more to Kelly. I wanted to add: “Kelly, in my way of seeing, what you experienced was God. The invisible, loving presence, so palatable to you, I name Spirit. The name is not so important to me, but naming the experience is. Your love for and from this Mexican elder, culminating in that sacred moment, is a Reality more than just you and him, more like a magnetic field, a Mystery that pulled you beyond explanation into awe.”

I assume most people have such profound moments igniting similar responses: “Wow! What a gift. And surprise. A presence, too deep for words!” Every one, from time to time, gets knocked off their feet with unexpected goodness. But I’m sad when these life-shaking experiences are left without symbols, story and metaphor, without rejoicing in community. Naming, I think, gives these spiritual experiences a marker, a container, an anticipation for more.

Isn’t this what church, at its best, does? Church, as corporate worship and caring relationships, can provide the context where such experiences are named, appreciated and expected. Of course, we cannot make these extra-ordinary events happen, but within community we do offer liturgy, story, and silence where openings to gracious/terrifying Mystery are invited and celebrated — the very fuel for acting compassionately in our worlds.

This is my assumption: Kelly, and many “secularists” like her, do have spiritual experiences. She strikes me as a person open to wonder over breakthroughs of kindness, beauty and self-giving acts of compassion. But with her image of God so tied to an other-worldly figure removed from our humanity, she may miss the connection so obvious to me.

I am thinking of the preachers among you. Probably you have a congregation full of those who still worship a God separated from this world who intervenes from time to time according to whim. I keep being surprised about how imprinted in our psyche is a deity “up there, out there,” not in here, the invisible, in-between part, the love energy in relationships.

I suppose I am a literalist at this point. I take this truth at face value: “Everyone who loves is born of God and knows God, for God is love.” (I John 4:7). There’s where I look for God.

A Spiral Upward

I experienced, and I have noticed this paradox in pastoral ministry. It was about me and up to me; yet it was not about me, nor up to me. A strong ego on one hand; a transcended ego on the other.

Maybe this dynamic is more of a spiral movement, round and round from one side of the paradox to the other. The hoped for direction of the spiral is this:  ministry happens more and more through us, not just from us, more letting it happen than making it happen.

In one sense, ministry is about you, and its up to you. That’s the way it begins. During the season of pastoral formation, the seminary and early years as a pastor, you need to be self-focused. After all, you are preparing for a particular vocation. There is so much to learn, so much knowledge to take in, chew and digest. You are busy ingesting church history, systematic theology, biblical studies, Christian ethics, liturgy, and church polity. It’s all foundational to the work looming before you. In addition, there is the “practical” side of the curriculum, the skill-set of pastoral care and congregational management required. Hopefully, all this adds up to a strong sense of self.

And, upon assuming leadership in a congregation, it’s all the more about you and up to you — your preaching, your leadership, your personality, your pastoral visits or lack of them. On the surface, that is the way it looks, about you and up to you. You are visible, up-front, public, employed, hence a convenient, obvious rack on which to hang unending judgments.

But occasionally, and increasingly so, we experience pastoral ministry as impossible. For all our heroic efforts to meet expectations, both ours and others, we come to the end of the day whispering to ourselves, “I can’t keep doing this. I don’t have what it takes.” How often, it seems, what worked doesn’t work any longer. Or those insights we glean from this book or that conversation are insufficient for long-term travel. Even the conference we attend or lectures we download grant short-term benefits that dissolve like cotton candy.

I remind you what you know. These times of “impossible” can be times we trust the More than we are. Likely, we ask our will power and personal acumen to take us as far at they can. But it’s never far enough. Our finest efforts break down, in small and, for some of us, in big ways. It’s the heart of 12-Step wisdom: only at the point of admitted powerlessness can we experience the Higher Power, God, that is.

Recall those “impossible” moments when you fell into a wisdom not your own. It could be in the midst of a sermon or counseling session or interpersonal conflict or contentious committee meeting, when the “possible” surprisingly emerges from the “impossible.” You know this experience. I imagine it as being a violin making music you didn’t compose.

I am suggesting that maturity in ministry, as in life generally, is yielding to this spiral upward — from our ministry being about me and up to me to it being not about me or up to me. It seems, if we allow it, that increasingly we experience creativity and strength coming more through us than from us.

Think of the mature among us. They speak less about striving, controlling and trying so hard, and more about allowing, being carried, graced as an agent of intentions much larger and wondrous.

This spiraling movement from self to transcending self calls for poetry, not prose. Rainer Rilke names it beautifully.

The Swan
This clumsy living that moves lumbering
as if in ropes through what is not done,
reminds us of the awkward way the swan walks.
And to die, which is the letting go
of the ground we stand on and cling to every day,
is like the swan, when he nervously lets himself down
into the water, which receives him gaily
and which flows joyfully under
and after him, wave after wave
while the swan, unmoving and marvelously calm,
is pleased to be carried, each moment more fully grown,
more like a king, further and further on.

I’m left with a question. I’m asking myself, and now you, what helps us die, to let go of clinging, allowing the giving of our selves to the Water that receives us gaily and flows joyfully under us, granting us pleasure in being carried? What helps us do that?

A Spiral Upward

I experienced, and I have noticed this paradox in pastoral ministry. It was about me and up to me; yet it was not about me, nor up to me. A strong ego on one hand; a transcended ego on the other.

Maybe this dynamic is more of a spiral movement, round and round from one side of the paradox to the other. The hoped for direction of the spiral is this: ministry happens more and more through us, not just from us, more letting it happen than making it happen.

In one sense, ministry is about you, and its up to you. That’s the way it begins. During the season of pastoral formation, the seminary and early years as a pastor, you need to be self-focused. After all, you are preparing for a particular vocation. There is so much to learn, so much knowledge to take in, chew and digest. You are busy ingesting church history, systematic theology, biblical studies, Christian ethics, liturgy, and church polity. It’s all foundational to the work looming before you. In addition, there is the “practical” side of the curriculum, the skill-set of pastoral care and congregational management required. Hopefully, all this adds up to a strong sense of self.

And, upon assuming leadership in a congregation, it’s all the more about you and up to you — your preaching, your leadership, your personality, your pastoral visits or lack of them. On the surface, that is the way it looks, about you and up to you. You are visible, up-front, public, employed, hence a convenient, obvious rack on which to hang unending judgments.

But occasionally, and increasingly so, we experience pastoral ministry as impossible. For all our heroic efforts to meet expectations, both ours and others, we come to the end of the day whispering to ourselves, “I can’t keep doing this. I don’t have what it takes.” How often, it seems, what worked doesn’t work any longer. Or those insights we glean from this book or that conversation are insufficient for long term travel. Even the conference we attend or lectures we download grant short-term benefits that dissolve like cotton candy.

I remind you what you know. These times of “impossible” can be times we trust the More than we are. Likely, we ask our will power and personal acumen to take us as far at they can. But it’s never far enough. Our finest efforts break down, in small and, for some of us, in big ways. It’s the heart of 12-Step wisdom: only at the point of admitted powerlessness can we experience the Higher Power, God, that is.

Recall those “impossible” moments when you fell into a wisdom not your own. It could be in the midst of a sermon or counseling session or interpersonal conflict or contentious committee meeting, when the “possible” surprisingly emerges from the “impossible.” You know this experience. I imagine it as being a violin making music you didn’t compose.

I am suggesting that maturity in ministry, as in life generally, is yielding to this spiral upward — from our ministry being about me and up to me to it being not about me or up to me. It seems, if we allow it, that increasingly we experience creativity and strength coming more through us than from us.

Think of the mature among us. They speak less about striving, controlling and trying so hard, and more about allowing, being carried, graced as an agent of intentions much larger and wondrous.

This spiraling movement from self to transcending self calls for poetry, not prose. Rainer Rilke names it beautifully.

The Swan

This clumsy living that moves lumbering
as if in ropes through what is not done,
reminds us of the awkward way the swan walks.

And to die, which is the letting go
of the ground we stand on and cling to every day,
is like the swan, when he nervously lets himself down
into the water, which receives him gaily
and which flows joyfully under
and after him, wave after wave
while the swan, unmoving and marvelously calm,
is pleased to be carried, each moment more fully grown,
more like a king, further and further on.

I’m left with a question. I’m asking myself, and now you, what helps us die, to let go of clinging, allowing the giving of our selves to the Water that receives us gaily and flows joyfully under us, granting us pleasure in being carried? What helps us do that?

Music Matters

I am just back from one of those powerful, ‘full of power’ week-long conferences. You know what I mean, events that renew your body, mind and spirit. Upon returning, I’ve experienced the familiar frustration of naming this “power” to those pressing me for its meaning.

​I found myself focussing on the leader, a typical fall back position. After all, the leader is up front, visible, the one most easy to blame or commend. I chose commending. I spoke of her inner freedom to offer fully who she is, her clarity of thought, her humor, her generosity and other such glowing, yet nebulous words. I gave some examples. I drew a few mental pictures.

​But, upon reflection, it was the “music” that empowered me. She helped us make music together. Her vulnerability invited ours. Her self-giving invited ours. Her wisdom invited ours. The power is from what happened between us — the invisible, immeasurable, mysterious — like a symphony. I most enjoyed what flowed through her, much like the music that flows through the violin and violinist in concert with other musicians.

​Then I remembered a quote from Anthony DeMello in Awareness. I pulled down from my shelf this favorite book in former years, leafed the pages, finding these words:
​

“What I really enjoy is not you; it’s something that’s greater than both you and me. It is ​something that I discovered, a kind of symphony, a kind of orchestra that plays one ​melody in your presence, but when you depart, the orchestra doesn’t stop. When I meet ​someone else, it plays another melody, which is also very delightful. And when I’m ​alone, it continues to play. There’s a greater repertoire and it never cease to play.” ​(p.54)

​That’s it. That’s the deeper truth. Last week I experienced a symphony, many variations on a theme, with numerous players involved and — yes, an authentic, skillful maestro leading us all.

​Then my mind jumped to another memory:
​

The surprise came at the end of a banjo lesson. Cary Fridley, my teacher, began describing the ​work involved in “cutting” her next CD: recruiting musicians, practicing privately, practicing ​together again and again — all in preparation for the final recording session coming up ​the next week.

​“I get increasingly anxious as we approach the recording,” she admitted.

​“Well,” I asked, “what helps you with your anxiety?”

​Her response was profound beyond her knowing.“When I can get to that place within myself ​and with others where the music is more important than me, then I am not anxious.”

​Maybe the music is what’s important, what really matters — the Music we experience through others; the Music others experience through us. Name it Love, Grace, Spirit, God, Sacred, Christ, as I am prone to do. But today Music is my word of choice.
​

Flying Close to the Sun

Over the phone I was hearing a familiar story. Another visionary (not a pastor) flying too close to the sun with wax between the wings melting, intimate relationships dissolving, then the predictable fall from the sky. I hung up the phone, and sat in silence for a while, feeling deep sadness. A profound tragic sadness.

​This is the tragedy: he has been a voice of life-changing news. His vision was eye-opening for many. His five-talent skills were invested for good, much good.

​This is the sadness: he came to believe he was good news. His admirers made the message about him. And, sadly, he came to believe them.

​I’m referencing the familiar Greek myth. Icarus, in spite of the warning from his father, Daedalus, flies so close to the sun that the wax attaching wings to body melts. The wings fall, along with his body, into the sea.

​Flying high is a part of a pastor’s job description. It’s not optional. It’s inherent in the fine print of an unwritten contract. With no small amount of chutzpa, every week pastors stand before congregation being a living symbol of More than they are. They enter into the dark places of human anguish, vulnerable to the raw cries, “Pastor, where is God in this? Why us? What should we do?” Pastors fly high with their humanity on display, becoming the subject of evaluations seldom heard and a Rorschach for outrageous projections — all the while holding confidential information without it showing. What daring, I say. What audacity.

​Most pastors I know fly high with a vision that they cannot but proclaim. They cannot stop themselves from attempting the flight. They seem to heed a compelling summons that will not let them go.

​But they fly high at the great risk of self-destructive and others-destructive hubris.

​But I call attention to the rest of the story. Often left out of the telling of this myth is the other advice that Daedalus gives his son. He also warns him not to fly too low, too close to the sea, less the water prohibit the lift of his wings. This is the counter caution: flying too low, playing it safe are equally self-destructive. Fear of failure, risk, and vulnerability is as lethal as flying too close to the sun.

​This seems to be a cautionary tale in two directions: the danger of believing your service is about you; and the danger of believing it is not about you. One hazard is pride that “goeth before the fall;” the other is low self-regard that lacks boldness.

​I’m left wondering if there is a wax that holds in high flying? I suspect its substance includes humility, not hubris. The few visionary leaders that come to my mind are keenly aware of the Wind that sustains and empowers them. If pressed, they speak of yielding to and working with a force far more than their power or even their understanding. “Success” or “achievement” are not in their vocabulary. “Gratefulness” is.

Where Saving Happens

This time it was the closing sentence that grabbed me: “In the end, it is the reality of personal relationship that saves everything.” Everything? Everything?

The other parts of Thomas Merton’s letter to friend Jim Forest have for years challenged me. His counsel is still near impossible for me to read:

“Do not depend on the hope of results . . . you may have to face the fact that your work will be apparently worthless and even achieve no result at all, if not perhaps results opposite to what you expect. As you get used to the idea, you start more and more to concentrate not on the results, but on the value, the rightness, the truth of the work itself . . . You gradually struggle less and less for an idea and more and more for specific people . . . In the end, it is the reality of personal relationship that saves everything.”

I like results. I work for results. I depend on results for affirmation of my worth. I love goal setting and the satisfaction of checking off my list what I have accomplished. I enjoy working with groups, like congregations, who want to go from “A” to “B,” and not deterred by seldom arriving at “B.” I love the illusion of making things happen, making time, making progress, making love, making a difference. I often overhear myself saying, “Don’t be attached to outcomes,” only because that’s the word I need and often forget.

But “in the end,” Merton writes, “saving” is about personal relationships. What did he mean, “in the end?” Well, at seventy-seven, I am coming toward “the end.” Is this a truth that takes time to understand, lots of time, a near life time? Or, maybe it takes coming “to the end,” the breakdown of repeated efforts to “makes things happen” before this truth opens up to us.

For instance, here’s what I am thinking about the pastoral role. As Merton suggests to me, it’s about a particular understanding of “personal relationships” with “specific people.”

As pastor, you are helicopter-ed down into a set of established relationships, called a congregation. These are specific people with specific names with specific histories. You give up the luxury of loving from a distance. You plant yourself there amid all the differences of age, temperament, and interest in God or church. You claim the privilege of roaming around this web of relationships doing one thing — relating. Relating is what you do in all the various roles. In preaching, ritualizing, teaching, managing, leading, caring — you intentionally enter relationships or offer new ones. It’s the string that threads all the beads that, when seen separately, make the job impossible. It’s what you do — appear, relate, and see what happens. In one sense, it’s all you do.

This to me is the bottom-line good news of the gospel: God is relational; Reality is relational; Love is relational, Love never ends, Love is a Force from which we cannot be separated, either in life or death. New science, particularly quantum physics, is helping us recover what is essential gospel truth — there is no such thing as a separate, disconnected part, particle or person. All is connected.

This says to me that God/Spirit/Love/ Justice is found within relationships, within connections, within the inter-being space, within the in-between part. In the deepest sense, I don’t love Janice, she doesn’t love me. Rather, through a measure of trust and vulnerability in our relationship, we know Love, we are in Love, we fall into Love, we channel this Love. This saving experience, as I understand Merton, can only happen within personal relationships. It’s the invisible, in-between power that flows through open connections among living beings.

So, I submit that our job is to show up in these relationships with authenticity, holding, and curiosity.

You show up with authenticity, being present as much as possible in the present with who you are — your gifts, your attention, your listening, your vision, your questions, your humor, your voice.

You show up with authenticity, holding, that is, embracing respectfully the inevitable differences in any relationships, refusing to coerce or sever or quick-fix or polarize, being non-attached to specific results, holding these relationships in the Light, to honor a Quaker phrase. If you can do this, let’s say, 60% to 70% of the time, well, that’s huge!

And you show up with authenticity, holding, and curious about what growth, learning, grace will emerge in these relationships. You assume that within these relationships God is at work. Something new is trying to be born that’s liberating, that’s good news, that’s healing. You show up looking for this evidence of Spirit at work, and when possible, align your energies with that Force, midwifing new life.

This is where I go with these words of Merton: “In the end, it’s the reality of personal relationships [with specific people] that saves everything.” It’s what pastors do: with God, in God, offer a certain kind of relationship, no matter the circumstances, no matter the expectations, no matter the responses, no matter the outcomes. It’s what we hope to do.

​A New Take on Problem-Solving

“A problem cannot be solved on the same level of consciousness that created it,” says another truism from Albert Einstein. I keep seeing this quoted (without reference), so much so, I have find myself treating it like a meditation. I often turn this saying over in my mind, not sure what Einstein had in mind, but enjoying what it does with my mind, and now, hopefully, with your mind. And strangely, it’s about going beyond our normal thinking.

​Problems are normally framed by ordinary consciousness, that is, binary thinking. Binary thinking comes with our human equipment. It distinguishes differences in order for us to function. Early in our development we are told: this is a dog, not a cat; this is blue, that is green. And so on. So the internal groove is there, pulling us to think in terms of this/that, right/wrong, good/bad, in/out, up/down, positive/negative. So a problem is defined on this level of consciousness.

​Einstein suggests that for resolution, the approach must come from a higher (deeper) consciousness. From there you resist polarization, holding with respect the differences, while looking for creative options that would be missed by taking either/or sides. It means seeing beyond the differences, separation and firm judgments for the new that might emerge.

​Let’s take a highly charged current “problem.” In our state, on May 8, we will vote on an amendment to the state constitution that establishes marriage as defined between a man and woman, another major set back to same-sex marriages. Vigorous forces are mounting their charge “for” and “against,” myself included. I have written two pieces for the local paper appealing for the vote of “no” to this amendment.

​But here is my dis-ease. This “problem” will not be solved on this level of consciousness. In fact, this voting will likely deepen the divide between gays and most straights, between black and whites, and between one flavor of Christianity and another flavor of the same. A negative vote may stop a further injustice, and I personally believe it would. But resolution, even movement, requires another consciousness. This higher (deeper) consciousness sees mutuality, not only difference, sees relationships, not only issues, sees the challenge of dialogue, not a problem solved by voting.

​I’m thinking that this consciousness sounds a lot like the Kingdom (Realm) of God, loving God and neighbor as yourself, in other words, no separation. Then there is Jesus talking about, and then incarnating, loving and praying for enemies, in other words, no separation. This sure sounds like Paul in Romans 8: No-thing in life or in death can separate us from the Love en-fleshed in Jesus. And this different consciousness sure fits with another of Einstein’s statements quoted in my last posting: “[Human beings express themselves] as something separate from the rest . . . a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us . . .”

​Let’s come back to the May 8 vote on Amendment One. From the level of non-dual awareness, what do you see? By holding with respect both sides, what sticks out?

​What strikes me is that both sides care passionately about marriage — the courageous covenanting between two persons until death does the parting. And, this vigorous debate about marriage occurs in a time when the validity of marriage is under question. It is forcing us, if we allow it, to have a public reflection on the meaning of marriage. The institution of marriage has always been dynamic and changing, never static and timeless. So, what is the shape of marriage in our changing times?

​With this May 8 vote upon us, I long for an alternative to winners and losers. What if some black and whites, some gays and straights came together — with confidentiality and safety
established — and explored the meaning of marriage in our day. Of course, any creative resolution of differences will take time, a long time probably. But the conversation and yearning for discernment would be flowing from a different consciousness. And, regardless of outcome, relationships, with differences respected, would be deepened. This “what if” I plan to explore.

​I wonder, am I even close to what Einstein had in mind?

On Being a Change Agent

The term “change agent” has been around for a while. We all want to be agents of change. Our faith perspective is full of “change” words, like repentance, conversion, growth, formation, transformation. But being a “change agent” is tricky, even down right dangerous.

I was talking with a pastor about the difference between two congregational experiences. The earlier one ended in disappointment and early resignation. The current pastoral relationship seems to be thriving. I asked about the difference.

He noted that in the earlier experience he came to the congregation with changes in mind. The search committee thought that they knew what the church needed and persuaded my friend to join them in reforming their system. End result? Disaster, as you might have guessed.

I thought of Menken’s comment: “Every third American devotes himself to improving and lifting up his fellow citizens, usually by force; this messianic delusion is our national disease.” You and I know this delusional disease. We have “caught that cold” more than once, believing by willful force lasting change can occur.

This pastor approached his current congregation with a different stance. He assumed that church members had within them, though not yet named, the best sense of their direction. So the first year he listened and listened and listened, including listening to his own responses as well. In it all—and this is the faith part—he assumed that the Spirit was nudging, ever trying to give birth to something new. Some patterns and possibilities emerged to which he, along with lay leaders, could align themselves.

Let me linger for a moment with the “birthing” metaphor. It’s obviously a gift from feminine consciousness and experience. I find it provocative to think of leaders as midwives who assist in the new life wanting to be born.

Back to the phrase, “change agent.” Maybe we should retire the phrase. It implies we can make change happen. But we learn, sooner or later, in every relationship that pushing for change only, and inevitably, invites a push back. Oh, we may be able to force the “rubber band” to stretch a bit, but as soon as the pressure is released, it goes back to where it was.

We are left with a paradox, one I learned from family systems theory. And its so counter-intuitive. The best chance for meaningful change is working at staying in relationship while changing ourselves, The dynamics of change are much more than this, but not less. It’s true, whether we are talking about leadership of a congregation or surviving in a marriage or working on a staff. It’s our best chance for meaningful change.           

 

Fussing with the Text

I asked a Monday morning sort of question: “How did it [the sermon] go yesterday?”

This pastor, in his first years with his first congregation, is finding his way of preaching. His response: “Well, its weird. I’m scratching my head. I got more positive comments from that sermon than any of the others. Usually I don’t get any specific comments. But I didn’t feel good about it. When I finished and sat down, I felt awful. My sermon was disjointed. I rambled around, but it wasn’t for lack of preparation. Rather, as I worked with the text during the week more questions surfaced than answers. And it showed, I guess. So, I’m bewildered. I don’t understand. They liked it, at least some did. I didn’t.”

Here is my hunch about what happened. And, of course, it is only a hunch. This we know, mystery of the spoken word (written word as well) defies neat explanations.

In my friend’s head, by his own admission, are ideals of “good” preaching. A sermon is to be a polished, clear, poetic, eloquent. It is a packaged message from pulpit to pew. That’s the way it appears — preacher speaking to congregants, a performance no less.

My hunch is that his vulnerable, honest wrestling with text drew his listeners into their own engagement with the biblical text of the day. I bet that he was naming their questions and their “what ifs.” With considerable courage, I imagine him publicly fussing with this biblical passage, or, better worded, allowing this Word in words to fuss with him. Perchance his curiosity whetted their curiosity; maybe his yearning for truth ignited their yearning; perhaps his longing for meaning awakened their longing. I like to think that his out-loud conversation with the text was like every other engaging conversation, that is, stumbling for right words, anguished pauses, reaching deep for breakthroughs of clarity. Not polished. Not compact. Not a neatly wrapped package. But authentic, reeking with authority.

Perhaps listeners found themselves more caught up in the storied biblical text than being caught up in him — and they loved him for it. “Thanks, Rev, your sermon really spoke to me this morning.”

A Good Word for Un-fulfillment

I felt good about the first half of the retreat. Then something happened, perhaps only noticed by me upon reflection.

Five co-pastor teams came together for two days and I was their leader. The aim of the retreat was obvious: These are pioneering pastors eager to be with other co-pastors who are taking similar risks. These pastors, attempting a new model of congregational leadership, needed space to learn from each other’s stories. So I structured the retreat to allow for mutual learning. Indeed, it was happening as they named their joys and challenges with those who could understand.

But during the last half of the time, when I began to offer some content on leadership, a shift occurred. The agenda became more mine than theirs. They began to respond to me and less to each other. I have never been a co-pastor, yet I felt full of my multi-decades of pastoral experience. I just had to share some of my wisdom, I felt. I left the retreat, driving down the mountain, with a gut feeling of dis-ease about my leadership, yet not knowing why.

But the next morning, while re-reading Gerald May’s The Awakening Heart, I saw “it.”  The proverbial “light” came on. During the last part of the retreat, feeling full of my ideas, I was filling in the empty space so requisite to their exchanges. I ceased to hold open the space for deeper sharing to occur. In wanting the retreatants to have a “fulfilling experience” I discounted the potential of un-filled time together.

May writes: “Most importantly, the myth of fulfillment makes us miss the most beautiful aspect of our human souls: our emptiness, our incompleteness, our radical yearning for love. We were never meant to be completely fulfilled; we were meant to taste it, to long for it, and to grow toward it. In this way we participate in love becoming life, life becoming love. To miss our emptiness is, finally, to miss our hope.” (p. 103)

Don’t you hate it when you have to re-learn something you thought you knew? I have always valued unfilled spaces in my relationships. I have treated, like a mantra, Kahil Gibran’s advice about marriage: “Let there be spaces in your togetherness.” I knew that. I know that. How humbling not to act on what you know. As one friend puts it, growth is like a spiral staircase. You keep circling around to the same issues with the hope you are moving toward some measure of maturity.

Behavior Change: How Does It Happen?

Change. You and I are in the change business, more typically called by us—conversion or transformation or repentance. In our preaching, teaching, leading and pastoral care, we assume that, with God, positive/healthy/redemptive change is possible.

Yet, we lament how hard change is, how little significant behavior change actually occurs in ourselves and in others. Apostle Paul names it: “I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.” (Romans 7: 18,19)

I found some help from the current research on the brain. Specifically, I pass along some findings noted in an article, “The Neuroscience of Leadership,” by Jeffrey Schwartz and David Rock (Strategy and Business, Spring, 2009)

Let’s begin by understanding the pain in change. One part of the brain (basil ganglia) is hardwired for routine, set habits, and familiar activity. It will set up a fierce fight against desired changes in behavior. When the prefrontal cortex, the hard working part of the brain, wants to implement some important change, expect the basil ganglia part of the brain to rise up with a resounding, “No. Don’t do that! Stay with what’s comfortable and predictable!” This part of the brain makes strong efforts to sabotage. Because of this persistent resistance, Skinner’s incentives, “carrot and stick” approaches to changing behavior do not last. Neither do, according to Rock and Schwartz, the approaches to change from humanistic psychology that depend on empathetic listening and self-understanding.

From this brain research, what is required in change are three things. One, from the prefrontal cortex, there must be a sustained focus of repetitive attention on the desired changes. This means practicing this new behavior regularly, even daily. From such focused attention, even in the face of discomfort and impulse to return to familiarity and routine, new patterns and connections in the brain will be formed. And eventually, the new pattern drops to the basil ganglia, becoming habitual.

Think of learning to drive a car or learning to play a song on the piano. If the repetitive focus of the prefrontal cortex remains strong during the disorienting phrase and does not yield to the resistance, eventually our driving the car or playing the song becomes more routine and comfortable. That is, the behavior comes more from the basil ganglia than prefrontal cortex.

A second insight, relevant to our work, is the place of small peer-learning groups. For example, the Toyota company has fostered behavior change through workplace sessions in each unit that occur weekly, even daily. In these meetings, workers talk about how to make things better. In the interactive, collaborative process, they are training the brain to make new connections. In fact, Rock and Schwartz note, “These shop-floor or meeting-room practices resonate deeply with the innate predispositions of the human brain.”

A third finding I find significant is the importance of self-direction in change of behavior. Any pressure to change from others, as in advice-giving, will be resisted. So for lasting change to occur, a person must choose it. This is why coaching is effective. A coach supports and honors the self-direction of the client by asking curious questions and wondering with the client about options. The motivation for change must be from self, for self-chosen goals.

I take away from this article these three things to ponder: the crucial role of regular practicing; the importance of peer-learning; and the importance of self-direction, for our change and the change we hope for in others.

The Time of Your Life

It’s an interesting phrase: “I’m having the time of my life!” From a faint remembrance of NT Greek, I can identify that as “ kairos”time, “wonder-full time,” as in Jesus came “in the fullness of time.”(Galatians 4:4)

These “kairos” moments of wonder/awe/astonishment are huge surprises of joy that occasionally wake us up to abundant life. But they are occasional. We can’t produce them, plan them, manipulate them. Like accidents, they just happen. Yes, our intentional anticipation makes us more “accident prone.” But “kairos” moments remain gifts, not achievements.

So, let’s think about what we do have some control over — “chronos,” the other kind of time, as in clock time, calendar time. This we have to work with: our presence in time. “I’ll stop by at 4:00” . . .”Let’s make it at your place at 11:00” . . .”Does 7:30 work for you?”

Other professionals have tangible tools to yield, drugs to dispense, documents full of rules to follow. Much of their work is scheduled; most of our work we schedule. Their day is largely structured; we, for the most part, structure our day. Most leaders report their use of time. We don’t.

I felt the difference when I moved from being a director of a hospital department to becoming a pastor again. Oh, the freedom to plan my day! But soon I was feeling, oh, the burden of this freedom, so many demands and so little time. My to-do list, created in the morning, ended the day with maybe half of the resolves checked off.

e.e. cummings has a word for us: “To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best to make you somebody else, means to fight the hardest human battle ever and to never stop fighting.”

If that’s a human dilemma, and I think it is, then how much more this is true for us. We don’t have one contract about our use of time with an employer; we have multiple, ill-defined contracts with a congregation full of employers. And if our primary offering is our “presence in time,” then congregants rightfully have claims on our calendar. Their personal needs and the needs of the institution fill our schedule. Given the nature of our work, not from some evil intent, much of each day is spent responding to needs as they arise. Before we know it, we can feel defined by others, or in cummings’ words, these expectations can “make you somebody else.”

I’m interested in how you handle this freedom. As for me, this one practice helped me most in this “fight” to maintain the final word of self-identity: working at self-definition at the front end of a day or season or year.

My day was, and is, different when I can take at least an hour in the morning to remember. I turn to readings and prayer that call me back to the one mirror that reflects my deepest identity, as Abba’s beloved, as a follower of Jesus, as a graced channel of Spirit. I assume that the day will bring other mirrors that reflect lesser identities, so I try to start the day “rooted and grounded” in the Love/Life much larger than me. Then I look at the calendar’s day and week with this priority in place. What matters most about this day? How will I align myself with this Spirit today?

Also, periodically, usually every month or so, with calendar in hand, I would look at my investment of time through these questions: What does the congregation at this point in time most need from my leadership? And, what am I passionate to give?

And finally, once a year during vacation, Janice and I would review the next year, first penciling in a week of renewal for each one of us, then a week for us, and finally at least a week for the family.

I’m not discounting the truth that much of ministry is in the unplanned interruptions. To the contrary, because of this truth I attempted the ever redefining of calling, values and core identity at the front end of the day or season or year. This attention to “chronos” time made “yes” and “no” easier to discern.

I am interested in how you “fight this hardest battle” with the time of your life.

Relationships, Not Issues

Listen to the language around you. Notice how often problems are defined as “issues” e.g., the racial issue, Islamic terrorist issue, the abortion issue. Or closer to home, “Pastor, we’ve got an issue ____ that needs solving.” (You fill in the blank—“our giving is way behind the budget this year”; or “Jan doesn’t respond to e-mails fast enough.” Or, even closer, more personal, “Pastor, some of our older members don’t think you visit enough,” or, “I get lost in your sermons, not sure what your point is.”

My assumption around most “issues” is this: the problem is someone else’s fault and someone else (often you) should solve it. In family systems’ language, an “issue” (C) is often triangled in as a way to avoid the responsibility of the persons involved (A and B). Issues invite projection; the problem is out there. Issues, on the other hand, can challenge those in relationships to take responsibility for resolution.

Consider this rule of thumb: redefine issues as challenges to deepen relationships.

Let’s try this with the above examples. From “racial issue” to “How are we in relationships that cross racial lines?” From “Islamic terrorists” to “How can we foster understanding and deepen relationships with Islamic persons?” From the “abortion issue” to “How are all relationships, including with the fetus, impacted by the option of abortion?” From “Pastor, our giving is behind . . .” to “Thanks for raising this. Who do you think, along with the two of us, needs to join us in deciding how to respond?” From “Jan doesn’t . . .” to “Have you talked with her or him about your concern?” From “ . . . don’t visit enough” to “You are exactly right. Help me. Since you know these members so well, would you be willing to visit with me, perhaps even set up the appointments? A bonus would be getting to know you better.” From “getting lost in your sermons . . .” to “Thank you for letting me know. I want you to understand my messages, and I want to listen to your questions and confusions. How about us getting together over coffee and talk about last Sunday’s sermon?”

My biggest pastoral challenge in this regard was when a gay couple in the congregation asked for a public service of blessing on their commitment to each other. Most people, including the media, wanted to define this as a “gay issue.” I kept saying, with limited success, “No, this is not an issue. This is about people, two members who are part of our community. Let’s ask, ‘How will we be in relationship with Jim and Bill, with each other, with our sense of God’s purpose?” And I kept saying during our many months of discernment, “How we decide is as important as what we decide.” That is, how we listened, how we expressed ourselves, how we studied, prayed and worshipped together would either deepen our relationships or fracture them.

In retirement, I have been gifted with close Quaker friends. By valuing the leading of the Spirit within and between persons, they make every effort to listen and not coerce. In fact, for them the process of decision-making is an extension of worship. Making decisions, for them, is another way to deepen their relationships with each other, with the Spirit and with the world. That is their intention.

I suppose there are “issues” that are just that, issues. But, most of the time, I submit, they distract us from the hard work of deepening relationships.

 

The Mountain, Not the Weather

“What’s it like, Carl, when you moved from professor to pastor?” I asked. At the time, I was making a similar transition. His response, “Well, your highs will be higher and your lows will be lower.”

Carl was right. The nature of our work makes it so. Even within the same day, you can move from the thrill of celebrating the Wilson’s first born to the shock of Lou’s diagnosed, inoperable cancer . . . from the high of someone “getting it,” hearing grace to the low of another hearing “judgment, I’m not enough” . . . from the charged promises embedded in pre-marital counseling to the despairing news of Al moving out of his house . . . from the synergy of committee collaboration to the fractiousness of committee differences . . . from the hope in Alice’s baptism to the lament of Jim’s exit from the church in anger. What a roller-coaster ride ministry can be, up and down, emotionally high, emotionally low.

In some sense this is life, everybody’s life. In a given day, we are stretched between the poles of suffering and wonder. Our hearts are asked to contain huge amounts of both pain and joy.

For us, the occupational hazard is in the projections. As pastors, we stand up, stick out, and like a Rorschach test, we invite judgments all the way from “You are the best preacher I have heard”

. . .”you listen well, not like our previous pastor” . . .”you are just what we need” . . .”I love the way you put things” to “your sermons are good but I wished you visited more” . . .”you visit, I appreciate that, but I wished you studied more for your sermons” . . .”you talk about money and mission too much” . . .”You don’t speak enough about money. Just lay it on the line!” We are employed by those with the right of evaluation. Multiple employers; multiple evaluations—salted with projections.

Of course, we internalize these projections, even if for a moment, feeling special, feeling inadequate. As if riding on an emotional roller-coaster, “up” we go toward ego-inflation; “down” we go toward ego-deflation. Or as one pastor admitted, “I go from ‘I am so privileged to be doing this,’” to ‘I want to get out of here.’”

Ah, “ego” is the word. Our ego loves the excitement of roller-coaster rides. That’s not bad, but it is so limiting . . . and exhausting. There is another larger part of us, sometimes called the Self or inner observer or inner Witness or Christ within. It’s that part of us that can sit back, stroke our chin with curiosity, and ask, “What’s going on here? Where is the kernel of truth is what’s being said? What’s being ‘hooked” in me that needs the light of day?”

In my case, often lurking in the shadows was my need to be needed, to be loved, to be applauded. So these projections, if I allowed them, could invite me, once again, to thicken the truth of being loved as gift, not achievement.

Working with projections, ours and others, can be this kind of inner soul work. The “highs” and “lows,” like the weather come and go, while the mountain rests secure in its grace. At our deepest identity, we are the mountain, not the weather.

Preaching from Astonishment

“The way to faith leads through acts of wonder and radical amazement. Awe precedes faith.” (God’s Search for Man, Abraham Joshua Heschel)

I heard it first from Heschel: awe/wonder/ radical amazement precedes faith. Astonishment comes first.

Did you not find it so? At some point, and many points after, you were overwhelmed with the outrageous generosity of God. You got it! You realized with heart and mind that all living beings, including yourself, are enfolded in a gracious Mystery, most clear but not limited to Jesus. Amazing! You “saw” it, that the love you are wired for is already present, a gift to be received and lived from. In those moments that interrupted times of doubt and despair, you turned (repented), trusting yourself to this “hold on to your hat,” astonishing Presence. And your initial “turnings” led you to ordination then on to pastoral leadership.

But astonishment is hard to sustain. Like love, astonishment is both an effortless happening and the result of constant effort. We fall in love; we create love. Love happens to us; we make love happen. So it is with astonishment, awe, radical amazement.

With this in mind, let’s think about preaching. It can be difficult to sustain astonishment in our preaching. After all, as pastors, you preach—say, forty sermons a year, not counting the funeral and wedding messages. How can something so regular maintain its mystery and wonder?

Let’s get even more specific and practical. And personal too. I’m remembering a typical week of sermon preparation. For me it started on Monday. I loved, well mostly, I loved the discipline of wrestling with a text. It’s a spiritual practice I miss. Early in the week my pattern was to live with the text—think, pray and play with it, carry it around with me to the hospital and committee meetings. The text for the week was always just over my right shoulder.

Then about Wednesday I would pull out the commentaries and take some notes. Thursday, for me, was “fish or cut bait” time, because Sunday was a comin.’ With earnesty now, I looked for a path within the forest of possibilities in my head and notes before me. If sermons make one basic point, then by Thursday I was agonizing over the question, “What’s the point in this text that pierces? Where am I going with this? Where is it taking me?” This could be a very anxious moment for me. Sunday is coming closer and no clear point is emerging. No clear path could be seen. By now it might be Friday or even Saturday.

Over the years I developed this practice: With various ideas and the text before me, I kept asking over and over, “What’s astonishing about this text? Where am I being surprised and radically amazed by this passage? What about this scripture both summons and confronts me, and through me the church and community?”

Recently I was overhearing a debate about how much of the preacher’s life should show in the sermon. I think this is a confusing question. If this means lots of personal references, then we should wonder about ego promotion. But if this means the passion of the preacher about the text, then that is another matter. I assume the person in the pew benefits from our open and lively engagement of the Message. This invites their lively engagement with the text. They want to feel our passion, our curiosity, our questions, and, yes, our excitements.

I’m saying that the most important aspect of sermon preparation is your wrestling with the text—however long it takes—until it blesses you with astonishment. It’s the place to preach from.

How do you hear this?

Friends That Form You

“You and I are different because ____________  lived among us.” I liked to include this sentence in the opening statement of a funeral or memorial service.

Andy, my first long-term friend died last week. Suddenly that sentence became intensely personal.

It’s true. Without Andy I would not be me. I am different because he lived. But how? How has our friendship of 46 years formed me?

I have begun the pleasure of living that question. I mark his disciplined naivete, leading with curious questions; his gift of listening others into being; his relational understanding of reality; his discovery of dying as birthing; his authority/authenticity that authored hope in others. There is more, much more to be harvested from my grief. But this awareness startles me: these are not primarily ideas. These are embodiments that, to some extent, are being embodied in me. I see him in me. These, and other revelations to come, hint at the difference in me because Andy and I were friends.

I confess. I am an “idea” junkie. I relish, like the bite into a fresh peach, new “insights” or fresh perspectives.  Over the years I have fallen in love with theories, and only with stubborn reluctance have I been able to acknowledge the limits of each one. I’ve assumed that it was ideas that formed me.

More to the point, I am suggesting to you, we are being formed by friendships. Maybe the ideas and theories that stick to our bones, those that become transformative, are the ones embodied in relationships. Maybe our friends create us. Or better said, they provide containers in which God’s on-going creation and creativity occur. Friends are “believing mirrors,” to use Julia Cameron’s phrase. They mirror back to us our competency, craziness, possibilities, limits, options, and encouragement — all marinated in laughter and wonder.

Intuitively I have known this. From the first “cell group” in university days, I have always been a part of a circle of peers that met regularly to befriend our lives and work. And now in retirement, I am still at it, fostering clergy collegial communities — yes, named AnamCara (soul friend). In addition, there are the less structured friendships along the way, nurtured by an occasional e-mail, coffee or vacation together, or telephone call. It’s clear to me now  — friends, including familial friends, are our truest social security.

We are trained to think of the lonely artist or lonely pastor. It is their name we see on the book, or portrait, or sermon. But if you look closer and inquire, any artist or pastor “worth their salt” will talk about the circle of friends who make their work possible.

Not surprising, this reflection has been formed with friends.