Advent 3 | Ministry Sunday

Several months ago, a terrible event occurred to Frances, a friend of mine. She was dining at the Berkeley City Club with her husband of over fifty years, when he quite suddenly fell very ill. They rushed him to the hospital, and shortly therafter, he died. His aorta had ruptured without any warning, and there was nothing the doctors could do to save him.

Frances and I are in the same peer supervision group for spiritual directors. I found out about her husband's death because Nancy, another of our group, had called with the news. "Make sure you call Frances right now," she said. I muttered some kind of response that I don't recall, and hung up. Then, I froze.

I stood motionless for some time trying to sort out the mix of feelings coming over me. On the one hand I was very sad. Frances' husband Rod was elderly, certainly, but I had observed that he was also one of those folks that seems to always be buzzing, always working on some project, always busy. It seemed doubly sad that someone so able, so active, should be cut down before his time. I felt deeply for Frances, and wanted to comfort her.

On the other hand, I am aware that I am a very peripheral person in her life. More than an acquaintance, less than a close friend. I feared intruding to call her at such a sensitive time. Why should her mourning be disturbed with a phone call from this person she barely knows? How insensitive is that? In the moment I felt the best thing to do was to simply give her space, and offer my condolences at what I imagined would be a more convenient time.

In our subsequent peer group meetings, it became painfully clear to me how lonely Frances was, how desperate for a comforting word, and I also became very clear that I had failed her by not calling her immediately, by not showing up, even though it seemed to me that I had very little to offer her in her grief.

I had learned some kind of lesson, but apparently not too well. Because shortly after this, our own beloved Conrad died. I had visited him not long before, and was profoundly uncomfortable. For I felt that while we should be talking about his fears, his feelings about his approaching death, or other unresolved issues, instead we talked about what it would be like to live in Europe. If he had not been dying, I would have felt that it was a most appropriate pastoral visit. But as it was, I drove home feeling a little sick, and a lot like a failure. I had not been able to steer the conversation towards what I considered an "appropriate" topic, and felt ashamed that we had focused so much on me in our talk.

I was striken with grief when I heard he had died. I felt I had failed him, and cocooned myself in my own sadness. What I ended up doing was failing Beth even worse in not being present for her. I thank God Fr. Richard was there, and seems to be so much more skilled than I in such occasions of extremity. In my rationalizations, I told myself that that is why Richard makes the big bucks around here, why he is the full-time priest. It is true that I work pretty much full time outside the parish, and that Richard handles most of the visitation work. But I could not kid myself that I had let Beth down in a very big way, and I suspected that I had probably let Conrad down, too.

I then thought of all the parishioners who had died in the past several years, and how I might have been a better pastor to them. I sank into a pretty severe depression, and realized that I had a choice. I could either slit my own wrists, or I could try to correct the problem.

I am happy to report that I chose the latter option, and realized that "Doh!" I have had absolutely no training in death and dying. What I needed was to take a class, get some continuing education in the subject. It was with some relief that I realized that ignorance is not the same as malfeasance. I resolved to get some training.

The first thing I did was to go to the Graduate Theological Union's website to look for a class. Unfortunatley, there was nothing. I was amazed, incredulous. How could there NOT be a class on this? I sent some emails out to some friends with connections at the Seminaries and asked them for help.

One friend suggested that I call the Dean of the Lutheran seminary and ask his advice. I did so, and he regretted that he knew of no such courses. In fact, in the pastoral care class that he taught, there was only a single three-hour session devoted to death and grieving. But, I think, feeling bad that he did not have more to offer me, he invited me to come by for a visit. I thanked him and agreed.

When we met, I liked him immediately. He bade me get comfortable, and then we dove in to the subject. I told him much of what I have just told you, and asserted that if there were just a class, some guidelines that would tell me what it is I am supposed to say, how I am supposed to act, perhaps I wouldn't be such a clueless failure as a pastor. I told him that I was pretty much an agnostic, and couldn't stomach spouting platitudes or promises of some mythical afterlife. And short of that, I just didn't know what to DO.

Gary was very kind, and said he understood my delimma. Then he asked me a simple question that I should have seen coming, but didn't. "What if you had just come from the doctor where you were told you only had a month to live. Your pastor is coming for a visit. What do you want him to say? What do you want him to do?"

I grabbed the Kleenex box because I was beginning to lose my composure. "I don't think I would want him to say much," I told him. "I think I would just want him to hold me while we cried together."

He nodded. "There really isn't much TO say. The best thing we clergy can do is just be there. We don't need to spout platitudes, people don't want that. They don't want pie-in-the-sky stories about heaven, either. Mostly, they just don't want to be alone, and they want to know they are loved."

Apparently, like most other occupations, success in ministry is 96% just showing up.

I have discovered in my spiritual direction that success in that ministry is largely about simply being real. When a client shows up, and it is clear that they have me or perhaps all clergy on some sort of pedestal, the first thing I try to do is to smash that idol, to topple the pedastal, so that it is clear that I am there not as some authority, but as just another flawed, hurting, neurotic, and ambitious soul. I have discovered that when I show up with all of my own wounds exposed, they become tools and allies. Being real with my clients is often the first step to them being real with me, and some amazing work often results.

I am beginning to suspect that it is the same when people are facing illness and death. Perhaps I do not need to show up with all the answers, or with profound words of comfort. Perhaps I just need to show up, complete with all my warts, fears, insecurities, and unruly emotions.

The Gospel has always been about wholeness, after all. If I cannot show up as a whole person as your priest, what good am I to you who are also striving for wholeness?

Simply showing up and being who we are is not a bad template for ministry in almost any arena, I am discovering. Several years ago I got quite nervous about our dwindling numbers, wondering if Grace North Church was going to survive. I concocted an elaborate scheme for how to renew the worship to make it more attractive to younger people. I submitted proposals for changing the liturgy, for changing the music, for rearranging the furniture, all desinged to make the church more appealing to generation Xers, and in the process completely alienated the only actual people that we did have. In the end, our parish split. We lost all of our young people, made many of our older people angry and suspicious, and I felt so betrayed and wounded I almost quit myself.

But we have not died. Instead, by simply being here and being truly who we are, more people have come. Yes, we're small, but I no longer think we need major growth plans or liturgical overhauls to make us attractive. We are attractive because of who we ARE, not because who who we MIGHT be. We are an attractive church BECAUSE we are small, eccentric, traditional, and all the other things that use to bother me about us as a parish. I love US, and I think that we have a lot to offer just as we are to this neighborhood.

Now, do I think we could benefit from being a bit more intentional? Yes, of course, just as I think continuing education could probably help me be a better pastor. It would not hurt us to get a committee together to look at who we are, what we really have to offer, and how we might better represent ourselves to the community at large. We are unusual in that we have a very highly-developed aesthetic sensibility; we love the beauty of Jacobean language in worship; we love music, and we touch the divine in the hearing and the making of music, be it classical, rock-n-roll, jazz, or folk songs, and have many talented musicians amongst our number; we are proud of our free-thinking heritage in teaching, preaching, and public discourse. But most of all, when we say, "everyone is welcome here, no matter how weird you are, what you have done in your past, or what you believe" we mean it. That is a lot for a little church to offer. I don't think we should try to be anyone other that who we truly are. We just need to let people know we are here.

In the incarnation, Jesus gives us a pattern for ministry that has long gone ignored. Jesus did not come in glory and power; he did not, as the Gospel of John might have us believe, have all the answers and raise himself up as the answer to all the world's questions. It will do us no good, as ministers in his name, to try to do this now. Instead, Jesus came to us as a vulnerable and fallible human being, full of his own insecurities and hurt, who screwed up now and then, who often did not know exactly what to say. The Pauline tradition has tried to paper over the cracks in Jesus' character, but they are plain to see for anyone who cares to look. From his failure to come when his friend Lazerus needed him to his anguish in the garden, Jesus was far from the perfect messiah. And yet, in all of his humanness, he showed up, and he stayed with his friends until the end. He was not perfect, but he was whole, and he was present with his whole being, strengths and weaknesses alike.

A couple of weeks ago, I received Richard's email that Harriet had died. Once again, I felt lost in a vertigo of thoughts-I shouldn't bother Jim, maybe Richard is there, I don't know what to say, I have no comfort to offer. "Knock it off, dammit!" I told myself and picked up the phone. As I dialed I said a prayer that God would give me the right words. Jim didn't pick up the phone, but it was quickly passed to him. I told him I had just heard about Harriet. I told him I was so, so sorry, and asked if there was anything I could do. "I'm just glad you called, Johnny," Jim said. "Thank you." I told him I would be praying for Harriet's soul, and for him and his family. I told him to please give me a call if there was anything I could do. Then I hung up the phone and wept.

I still don't know what to say. I still struggle with conflict-avoidance, not wanting to involve myself where emotions are high. I still don't have any answers. And I am still going to screw this up on occasion. But I have learned something very dear, even if I'm not sure exactly how to live it out. All I really have to do is show up. Maybe that's enough for all of us. Let us pray

Eternal God of love and power, we give thanks in this advent season for Jesus, who showed us how to minister to one another with his whole being. He came to us not as a god, but as a human being, not in power, but in weakness, not invincible, but vulnerable, not perfect, but fallible and uncertain. We rejoice that we are his body on earth now, and it is sometimes a frightening prospect, for we feel like we should be more than we are. Yet you do not ask perfection of us, but only wholeness. Help us to show up with all that we are, to rest in our own integrity, to embrace ourselves even as you embrace us in love. And help us to bring that love and acceptance to all that we meet. Jesus, we know that you have no hands on earth but ours, and that they are just as feeble and willing as your own were. Save us from our own pretensions, save us from our own fears, for your name's sake. Amen.