In the beginning, God...

The writer/pastor/seminary professor, M. Craig Barnes, writes:

You cannot determine who you are by what you do. But few people believe that anymore... The biblical depiction of life begins with the words, "in the beginning God..." And it ends with a magnificent future that is also created by God. Just about everything in between also testifies to the eternal truth that life is made, redeemed and certainly blessed by God... As our theologians remind us, creation occurred "ex nihilo," or out of nothingness. This means that all things, even the dust with which humanity was created, derive their existence from God. So when we seek a different identity derived from anything other than God, we don't actually become different but only return to the nothingness we were before God created our lives. This is what gathers in the pews of church every Sunday ~ creatures who believed the serpent's lie that their identity could be changed by reaching for something other than what they were given by the Creator.

Some believed they could get a different - preferred identity - if they only got married. Others thought they just needed to find a better job or buy a better home in order to have a better life. Still others cling not to dreams but to the hurts of yesterday ~ as if they could improve the past by holding it so tightly. And all that the reach for a different source to their identity has left them with is souls filled with the primordial nothingness. Having grown exhausted reaching for a preferred self, many just give up and settle for busy or comfortable distractions that numb the emptiness of their souls.

Man, does this ring true to me!  Every day I see some form of this truth in ministry ~ sometimes I recognize it in myself, too.  And always the outward form is exhaustion: more and more, we are sick and tired of not being ourselves created in in image of the Lord.  And like the ancient story of adam ha adama suggests:  we tend to keep blaming others for our bad or even sinful choices when all God wants is to love us back into health. 

One of the reasons I mostly cherish ~ but sometimes chaff ~ at living into my calling by God to serve as a pastor begins and ends with blame. Barnes notes that on a local level ~ NOT an institutional or theological level as my Celtic friend Blue Eyed Innis so carefully notes ~ complaints about ministry are usually "a veiled lament about deeper issues of the soul." So, the blessing of being a pastor in a congregation has to do with inviting and encouraging a person to journey deeper into the wisdom of the soul: it is always uncharted territory, creative, challenging and fraught with danger but also deeply rewarding when both pastor and parish are open to the direction of the Holy Spirit.

I quit a doctoral program in Spiritual Direction after 9/11 because it became clear that in my Reformed tradition, most spiritual direction in a congregation was going to take place in a group setting. And while I learned a great deal in my first year of post-graduate study in this program, it was clear that individual spiritual direction was a long way away. Today, however, I find that I am doing both group direction and, in very limited and carefully defined ways, individual direction, too ~ and both are deep blessings to me. What's more, I see the opportunity to do more of this ministry taking root and shape the longer I am in this community. (Note to self:  this may be the next study/sabbatical forum, yes?)

Simultaneously, when individuals choose NOT to go inward and explore the wound or toxicity or fear of their soul ~ when they choose to stay trapped in the past and blame others (myself included) ~ well, this is the most frustrating and anguishing aspects of pastoral ministry.  And through one sad mistake after another, I've learned I have only two options in these cases:  1) Shake the dust off my sandals and move on trusting that God is God so I don't have to be; and 2) Pray that all souls will be returned home to the Lord ~ just some sooner than others.  I guess that implies a third and fourth option:  don't take yourself too seriously, learn to laugh a little at your failures and have a life bigger than just your church!

Barnes notes that the Christian hope claims that "in Christ we recover the life we were created to enjoy.  So let's be clear, we don't MAKE a living. We receive it through our participation in Christ who has brought us home to communion with the Creator." In a quiet, tender and playful way, the Bible gets it right AGAIN:  in the beginning God.