II Corinthians 4:1-12

it’s not about us

April 20, 2008 The Installation of LeAnn Hodges

Since it is by God’s mercy that we are engaged in this ministry, we do not lose heart. Of all that will be said today, this is most important. What not despair? What not lose heart? Lord knows there are days when that seems the most sane thing to do. But, since it is by God’s mercy that we are engaged in this ministry, we do not lose heart. Everything rests on God’s mercy. Don’t forget it.

There are many ways to describe the pastoral ministry. Some are helpful, some not so helpful. One of them says being a pastor is like being a dog at a whistler’s convention. Is that helpful or not? Pastors do bear a striking resemble to dogs. Don’t take that the wrong way; after all dogs are man’s best friend. I think Pavlov could have used us in his famous experiment. On Sunday morning, having offered what seems like our very selves in sermon, we stand in line panting, eyes wide, hearts beating with expectation, not quite on our haunches but still waiting for some response. “Nice sermon” (good dog), “feeling a bit off today are you, pastor?” (bad dog), “wonderful sermon” (good dog). And so on and so on. We nod obediently, tails wagging, or drop our eyes with resignation, knowing there will be another day.

Then there is the racing to and fro responding to every whistle that you hear. Cell phone, home phone, office phone, email, iTouch, iPhone – connected all the time to every whistle coming your way, we race around tails wagging, tongues dragging, responding to the siren sound of whistles coming from every direction, everyone of which is, of course, extraordinarily important. At the end of the day, not sure we have heard the whistle that really count, we drop exhausted, dog tired. Only unlike dogs, we don’t sleep very well because the whistles invade our dreams.

It’s true. Pastors have nightmares like everyone else. Ours, like yours, peculiar to our practice. You know, the one where you realize with horror that you are standing unclothed in the pulpit before your entire congregation, only they don’t notice because as you look upon them they are sprawled all over the pews, sound asleep. Or the one where the middle page of your three page sermon is gone and your mind is suddenly blank. Or the one where you to arrive at the funeral two hours late and the widow is staring at you ... from the pulpit. She is not whistling, she is weeping. I wonder if dogs have such dreams?

For Presbyterian pastors, there is a whole genre of session nightmares, not to mention Presbytery meetings. Some of them are hilarious. Some of them are so close to reality that it’s hard to tell which is which. These are not so hilarious. One pastor told me she nearly threw in the towel after spending four hour with her elders discussing the color of the carpet, and only fifteen minutes in prayer. She described it as a nightmare.

Did you know that the drop out rate for newly ordained pastors in their first five years is nearing fifty percent? Why? Too many whistles, they say. Too many nightmares that resemble reality.

You know what? I doubt any of them, or any of us, would get much sympathy from Saint Paul. Why?

Well, having been gripped by God not of his own choosing, to offer a truth not of his own making, Paul knew this one thing well: it’s not about us. Everything rests on God’s mercy.

After all, Paul didn’t just have petty annoyances. The things that drives pastors crazy now, seem mild by comparison. We have the banal world of the North American Church culture lurching uncertainly into the emergent future. On the other hand, Paul and his companions, were afflicted, perplexed, persecuted, struck down and facing death every day for the sake of the gospel. Yet, they carried on, not letting affliction crush them or perplexity drive them to despair or persecution bring them to forsake their faith for some other, easier way. In fact, Paul considered all these challenges to be very way that the death and resurrection of Jesus work in us, to the benefit of those we serve.

So I doubt he would have much sympathy with pastors who throw in the towel because they can’t handle all the whistles coming their way. In the first place, he might wonder how it is that pastors got themselves in the position of responding to all those whistles like Pavlovian dogs, while losing the capacity to distinguish, from all the rest, the one Voice that matters the most. Rather than responding equally to every whistle, he might suggest we learn to listen more carefully for the voice of the Good Shepherd whose gospel we are called to announce. For if you respond to all the whistles in the world and gain the success that comes with it, but fail to respond to the one Voice that matters most, everything is in vain.

Everything in pastoral ministry rests upon the mercy of God. Nothing else. Knowing that it does not rest upon you – your wisdom, your charisma, your charm, your intelligence or anything else – but only upon God’s mercy, you are free to offer the gospel without gimmicks. You are free to be ordinary human being; an humble, earthen vessel whom God has graciously called to announce the gospel of Jesus Christ. You are free to live without illusions of power, other than the power of God at work within your ordinary self. Because you are free to be God’s earthen vessel, you can renounce the strategies of contemporary pastoral tricks designed in desperation to win over people with a mix of sentimental self-help that bares no resemblance to the gospel.

There is a multi-million dollar industry pumping out tracts encouraging pastors to engage in clever – Paul calls it cunning – strategies that may well draw crowds, especially young people in their twenties and thirties, the holy grail of churches desperately seeking success at any cost. That, of course, is only another version chasing after whistles. If that is the measure of success, then how you get there doesn’t really matter. At the end of the day the one under the bright lights has only one name, your own.

That’s the problem with all these cunning strategies. They train us to forget that it is not about us at all.

Barbara Brown Taylor discovered this the hard way. In fact, her memoir Leaving Church, is a testimony to what happens when pastors listen to every whistle especially the ones that tell you how great you are. Slowly, under the burden of her own success, and the adulation of the church, she forgot the simple truth of being an earthen vessel, a clay pot, a human being blessed with a calling to announce the gospel. Forgetting that, a million whistles brought a deafening silence to the one Voice that she so much deeply to hear and to follow with all her heart. Broken, she left.

Don’t go there, says Saint Paul. You are nothing more and nothing less than a ordinary clay pot, a human being who has been given this extraordinary power not of your own making.

Stand in the open.

Speak truthfully without guile or gimmick.

Everything rests upon the mercy of God.

Therefore we do not lose heart. Alleluia.

Ascription of Praise

Now to the One who by the power at work within us is able to do far more abundantly than all we can ask or imagine, to God be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever.

Amen.