Thoughts on thirty years of ministry...

When I entered Union Theological Seminary 33 years ago, I had two small children, had worked as an organizer with the United Farm Workers movement of Cesar Chavez, had tried to clean up the care provided to profoundly disabled children in a custodial care home, worked in a variety of gas stations and restaurants and believed myself to be fed up with both traditional politics and church.  While finishing my undergraduate degree in Political Science from San Francisco State University, I entered the realm of "sanitized Marxism" (a phrase borrowed from Cornel West.) By the time I arrived in NYC, I had studied the major texts of the New Left, read and re-read the essential Liberation Theologians of Latin America and was ready for the church to serve as the vanguard of social and spiritual change.

Like many before me, Luke 4: 18-19 rang true for me: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.

And the songs that I was playing and calling my own from that time?  "Darkness on the Edge of Town" by the Boss, "Psycho Killer" by Talking Heads, almost anything by the Clash and a ton of Pete and Arlo.
Instead, the United States elected Ronald Reagan.  Still, I went to my first congregation in Saginaw, MI - home of three steel foundries and a major division of General Motors - with the expectation that Christ's upside down kingdom would be as compelling and energizing to others as it was to me.  What I found, however, was ordinary people struggling to keep food on the table in the midst of a recession, young people obsessed and seduced by either fashion or money and most people with little time left for challenging the status quo at the end of every hard earned day. I was amazed - and often overwhelmed - at the weight of pain and emptiness people carried with them every day.  And began to get in touch with my own demons. 

Springsteen's "Reason to Believe" is the song I sing about Saginaw and think of Paul's words from Romans 12: I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual^* worship. Do not be conformed to this world,^* but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Other songs from that era for me were:  Born in the USA, Dancin' in the Dark and Don't You Forget About Me.)

Three years later, I was called to a small, inner city congregation on the West Side of Cleveland:  once an Irish and German neighborhood that had moved hillbillies from Appalachia through before becoming home to a new generation of Puerto Ricanoes, I was in heaven.  "This is where things are going to happen," I kept telling myself - and I stayed for 13 years trying to make it so.  In that time, I travelled to the former Soviet Union twice, was elected to the Board of Education as part of an inter-racial reform team, experienced the slow disintegration of my first marriage and rediscovered the importance of intimacy with Christ.  We integrated that small, tough church - and developed some important ministries to the children of the hood - and then the county hospital bought all the surrounding land and levelled everything in a mile radius of the church and ten years of mission work died.

I loved everything about Cleveland - it is a peasant town in the best sense of the word - filled with salty saints, dill pickles and pumpernickel bread.  There are great pierogies, too along with collard greens, pico de gallo, the Cleveland Indians and some of the best microbreweries on the planet.  Facing my failures - learning to laugh at myself in humility not shame - and trusting that God's grace was bigger than my imagination became the heart and soul of that ministry.  An inner revolution, to be sure, with a lot of time spent learning how to be present with others in compassion. 

Not much changed externally in those years, but I was born again... and found myself singing along with Paul Simon:  a man walks down the street, he says "why am I soft in the middle now, why am I so soft in the middle now when the rest of my life is so hard?" And the text that still rings true from this time comes from Psalm 131:  O Lord, my heart is not lifted up, my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvellous for me. But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; my soul is like the weaned child that is with me.^*(Other important songs from that era include:  the solo work of Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul, U2's Joshua Tree album, Joan Jett and more Talking Heads.) 

So it was off to Tucson, AZ - a wild and laid back community close to the Mexican border  and I was finally going to prove myself as a pastor.  No more fussing with the body politic here because this congregation had been through an internecine battle of epic proportions. And I began working 12-14 hours a day trying to bring healing and hope back into the place.  And after five years, there were signs of life and numerical growth.  We had a ball doing ministry in this strange and unique place:  strong youth groups, intense adult formation gatherings, brilliant and creative music and the chance to mature and ripen as a spontaneous preacher.  It was a blessing...

... and also a curse.  The intensity of my striving - my need to be successful - almost killed me and nearly destroyed my second marriage.  Seems I am a very slow learner but it was here that I learned that the institutional church will reward my addiction to work by consuming me in every way possible.  Until, of course, I had nothing left to give.  So as my spiritual advisor cautioned, "The time has come for you to discover the right reason for staying in ministry.  You've already unearthed all the wrong reasons for going into this work, let's find the ones that bring life." 

And so we began... and I rediscovered the spirituality of music.  I wrote my doctoral  dissertation on how living into a musical spirituality could be soul food as well as prayerful.  We built a rockin' fun band, Stranger, and found ways to welcome in people from the fringe.  The songs of U2 became essential at this time in my ministry - especially "I Still Haven't Found What I've Been Looking For," "Beautiful Day," "Love Part II" and "When Love Comes to Town."  The Boss reunited with the E Street Band and put out "The Rising" which is still dear to my heart - along with "You're Still Missing."  I even got a chance to regularly play a few tunes with our local favorite bar band, The Rowdies, notably:  "Keep Your Hands to Yourself," "After Midnight" and "You Shook Me All Night Long."

After 10 years, our connection to the GLBTQ community was solid and we were becoming the spiritual home to some transgendered folk, too. We were straight and gay, young and old, rich and poor, women and men and children and  I developed deep and loving friendships in Tucson that I will treasure forever.  

And then it was time to move on... this time to the small New England city of Pittsfield that had once been a thriving industrial center.  Now, 20 years after GE had left, it was finding a way into new life through the arts, small scale farming, tourism and modest size manufacturing.  No sooner had we arrived than the stock market crashed and the hopes of renewal were put on hold. But little by little, sometimes with just faith and no evidence, people have made their way through the troubles and things are starting to grow strong in the town and the church. None of us are out of the woods yet, but there is life here and it is deep and beautiful and real.  We are attracting younger families, we have built a deeply creative musical ministry that incorporates tradition and jazz alongside Taize chants and rock and blues.

And once again, I have learned - and relearned - that resting in God's grace and doing just my part of the work is what ministry is all about:  it isn't fixing what isn't mine, it isn't healing an other's wounds and it isn't trying to do everything all at once.  The unforced rhythms of grace are about changing what I can, being present in honest ways and entrusting the rest to the Lord. As the Serenity Prayer teaches:  we have to acquire the wisdom to distinguish between what we can do and what we must surrender to God.  This text, from Matthew 11 in the Peterson reworking, guides my work today:

Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.

Next week, this faith community will help me celebrate the 30th anniversary of my ordination vows.  A colleague in New Haven, who just celebrated her 30th, too encouraged me review those vows.  It was good counsel:

+ Do you hear the word of God in the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments and accept the word of God as the rule of Christian faith and practice?

+ Do you promise to be diligent in your private prayers, the reading of scriptures as well as the public duties of your office?

+ Will you be zealous in maintaining both the truth of the gospel and the peace of the church by speaking the truth in love?

+ Will you be faithful in preaching and teaching the gospel, administering the sacraments and exercising pastoral care and leadership?

+ Will you keep silent all confidences?

+ Will you seek to share love equally with all people and minister impartially to all?

It is a humbling time - my family will gather with me for the evening marking the anniversary - and a few friends from around the country will be here, too.  As I look back over the 30 years, two things stand out for me.  First, without resting firmly in God's grace, everything else falls apart - and I mean everything.  Second, God's grace is greater than even my failures so there is is always hope.  Don't give up...