Pressing & Receiving

What a gift vacation was!  It's hard for me to receive such obvious gifts of grace, which in large part was exactly what this vacation was.  By my mom and Denny's generosity, my family was able to go on a trip that we wouldn't have otherwise taken:  seven full days down in a wonderfully spacious and beautiful home overlooking the Gulf of Mexico on St. George Island.  The word "bestowed" seems appropriate for the time we had.  Denny and my mom's generosity bestowed on me opportunities to rest and play in God's incredible creation.  Denny and my mom's generosity bestowed on me opportunities to be fully attentive to my children.  Denny and my mom's generosity bestowed on me quiet mornings on third level decks sitting in beach chairs drinking coffee and reading the Gospel of John.

For one week, in other words, I lived as if grace truly mattered and in the awareness of love and benevolence.

So ... I return to work yesterday ... and once again I am pressing.  Actually, it started even before that.  I figured this would happen, and it did.  By early evening on Sunday, I was beginning to stress.  For one entire week, my mind would casually drift into the evening, laughing and playing card games with family.  Sleep came easily.  Then Sunday night came.  At 2:00 am in the morning, sleep was no longer a gift.  It was a necessity that was relentlessly outdistancing me. 

My mind was astir.  Now that I was to return to work, I was falling into an old trap I've fallen into so often as a young pastor:  the trap of what Parker Palmer calls functional atheism.  For one full week, I had lived in the awareness of grace and blessing.  But, now it was time to return and prove to others that I am capable of doing my job.  More than capable.  I want to prove that I'm successful.  I want others to see that I'm worth their investment.  I need to demonstrate to others that I'm not just some sorry sack of a pastor.  Gosh dang it, I'm a Management Fellow from DePauw University.  I've been trained to justify my worth.

In other words, it only took a mere six hours for this sin-sick soul to completely forsake the reality of grace and to step full-heartedly and foolishly right back into the strictures of the Law. 

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Almost ten years into ministry now, and you would think I'd have figured this out.  But like the old Caedmon's Call song, I'm right back at the first day of school.  The very thing that so fully won me over to Christ - the incredible freedom that is ours in his name - is the very first thing I leave as I step out the door to do ministry in Christ's name.  Foolish man that I am!  Who will save me from this endless backsliding into the need to perform and justify?

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There's a little book Jonathan Carroll once gave me when I first started in ministry down in Owensboro, Kentucky.  It's called The Art of Pastoring by William C. Martin, and it - like the vacation from my mom and Denny - is a gift.  I consider it a gift "bestowed."  At the end of this gem of wisdom, Martin writes this about pastoral work:

"Yours is a difficult, impossible, frustrating, and spirit-killing profession if practiced without simplicity and freedom.

"Practiced with simplicity and freedom it is a noble, rewarding, delightful dance with the Spirit of God and with the souls of people.  I pray for all pastors, everywhere.  You are so deeply needed in our world. 

"Be yourself.  Be gentle.  Be happy." 

How true those words are!  And how strong those two currents rush within me as I enter back into pastoral work! 

No sooner do I set foot back on the land of our home than I find a river trying to pull me away from simplicity and freedom.  And so I step into my work with a stiff back and depressed vision of the world before me.  Perceived slights and spirit-killing attitudes of judgment seep into my heart and thereby poison my attitude.  So, I miss the joy of a community right around me that is alive and God-blessed and unique and holy.  I feel drawn to go down the road called blame, and to linger in back-alleys named resentment and envy.

But, by God's grace, I do feel that other stream.  Perhaps not as strong at first.  Maybe not a rushing river.  Maybe it's more like a gentle stream leading on into the overgrowth and the shadows of the woods.  "Come to the water," the voice of this stream calls.  "Let mercy and gentleness lead.  Don't worry about performing or controlling or protecting.  Dance.  Listen.  Love the world around you as if it were God's holy place.  For it is.  The Word has become flesh and dwells among you.  So be yourself.  Be fully yourself even when doing so feels woefully inadequate in worldly terms.  Be yourself even if in your simplicity you look the fool.  Be yourself even when that noisy rush of competition and performance threaten to drown out love and peace.

Life is not something to be mastered.

It is a gift.

It is bestowed.

It is, therefore, to be received.