The double-standard of ministry is still vexing me after 3 years.
Double-standard. What do I mean?
I mean that as a minister, people rightfully presume that I'm pretty faithful to God. I think they suppose that I have a regular prayer life, that I take Jesus as my Lord and Savior, that I have faith and doubt in the right ways in the right proportions, that I am always allowing God to bend my life toward the ways of righteousness and justice.
And most times, I'd say all of those statements above fit me pretty well.
But the more interesting times are when those statements don't fit.
Fact is, I don't walk around doing my daily business with a God-saturated consciousness.
I strapped James into the Bjorn this morning at 9, walked to the dry cleaner with a handful of shirts for pressing, stopped by Jack's for a cup of coffee, and walked home. No one knew me as "the pastor." I was an unkempt 30-something dad. And I didn't think about living a "religious life" for one moment of that 25-minute excursion.
OK, so you cut me some slack. You don't presume that I'm "all-religious, all-the-time." Great. Thanks.
But if God is not something about which I'm conscious at all moments, what do I make of my own closely-held notion that believing in God is a life-or-death matter? Is my own spiritual laziness (or call it daydreaming) a kind of hypocrisy? What kind of dedication and devotion is rightfully expected from a religious leader?
These are the kind of existential crises I face as a "professional" religious person. When, if at all, do I have permission to be "normal" and "flighty" and "unfaithful?"
Since I began parish ministry three years ago, I've felt the danger in segmenting my life between my "religious" self and my "normal" self. But it's hard not to create that segmentation. The pastoral ministry is such a STRANGE and AWKWARD job to have because of all the ethical and other assumptions that people project on you. There is a strong instinct to create an "other" life that is quite distinct from these pressures. Of course, such a fragmented existence is no way to live, either.
I guess what I'm still searching for internally is a kind of integrated pastoral existence. I need permission to believe strongly and passionately... but I also need permission to have times when I flake out and am rude and course... just normal. And I need to know that my behaviors--whether stellar or wanting--don't affect people's perceptions about the God in which we all claim to live, move, and have our being.
I need permission to be both inspiring and lost. Can a religious leader afford to be both?
God, I hope so. I am. I figure we're in between God and the world, and those times we need to be thinking about God are what we call prayer, and those things that we are thinking about the world are for ordinary life. Whales are air-breathing mammals, and they need to come up to breathe, and loll around, but they feed, travel, make love, and give birth underwater.
ReplyDeleteThose church-growth pastors who only think about growing their churches drive me nuts. They can't talk about opera, or baseball, or trees, or birds, or flowers or Indian food, or Gerwurtztraminer wine. As God said to Moses, why do you keep talking to me? Get busy.
I hope so too. Because aren't we all sometimes lost and sometimes closer to God? As a non-professional religious person I need to believe that we are all equal in our search for closeness to God, professional or not. And we are all human, as God created us. I don't expect to be perfect anymore, which has lowered the levels of stress and insecurity in my life and allowed me to live more fully. And I don't expect my religious leaders to be perfect either. I am fully aware that they are not God. I see them more as tools, resources, people with knowledge I can call on. And I'm glad they're there to point me in the right direction when I start to wander.
ReplyDeleteI expect my religious leaders to have moments of temptation and doubt just as our Lord did. Did not Jesus ask God to "take this cup away from me" in the garden?Was it not our Lord Christ who lost his temper and threw tables at people in the temple? I believe these moments happened and showed us that Christ was human, and got upset, and inbetween praying and moments of the divine, he picked his nose, and went to the bathroom, and told jokes with his friends, and had a good time. I don't believe people expect religious leaders to be perfect, just honest. I think the recent "scandals" with Ted Haggard and such come from dishonesty. Plus it makes me feel a hell of a lot better to have a minister who feels like being rude sometimes, because I do most of the time ;-).
ReplyDeleteIt remeinds me that no one is perfect. That is comforting. Sure we all strive to be like Christ, but no one is Jesus, but Jesus, so we all need to chill out.