The Internet Monk Archives

The Pastor: Tasks, Titles, and Texts

As a part of my studies toward ordination, I have been reading Gordon W. Lathrop’s fine meditation on the ministerial life: The Pastor: A Spirituality. Lathrop states that he hopes his book will provide “a moment of deliberate delight in the central matters of Christian ministry.” Indeed, I have found it to be so.

For the next couple of weeks, I will offer a few posts reflecting on The Pastor so that we might discuss the fundamentals of this vocation and my concerns that we have abandoned basic and sound perspectives about pastoral ministry from Scripture and tradition, replacing them with inadequate, culture-bound substitutes.

In the introduction to The Pastor, Gordon Lathrop discusses the pastor’s tasks, the pastor’s titles, and the texts that form his or her spirituality among the congregation.

The Pastor’s Tasks

And the wealthy among us help the needy; and we always keep together; and for all things wherewith we are supplied, we bless the Maker of all through His Son Jesus Christ, and through the Holy Ghost. And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits; then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things. Then we all rise together and pray, and, as we before said, when our prayer is ended, bread and wine and water are brought, and the president in like manner offers prayers and thanksgivings, according to his ability, and the people assent, saying Amen; and there is a distribution to each, and a participation of that over which thanks have been given, and to those who are absent a portion is sent by the deacons. And they who are well to do, and willing, give what each thinks fit; and what is collected is deposited with the president, who succours the orphans and widows and those who, through sickness or any other cause, are in want, and those who are in bonds and the strangers sojourning among us, and in a word takes care of all who are in need.

– Justin Martyr, First Apology 67

The traditional tasks of a pastor in a congregation are given in this passage from Justin Martyr. Summarizing Justin’s description of what the “presider” (“president” in the above translation) does when the congregation gathers each Sunday for worship, Gordon Lathrop says, “the ‘presider’ preaches a biblical sermon, gives thanks at the table as well as possible, and sees to it that there is a collection for the poor.”

Lathrop also notes that, outside the gathering, these same central symbols serve to order pastors’ lives “between Sundays.” As representatives of the assembly, they carry the words and promises of the Bible to the people of the community through instruction, counseling, and prayer. They administer the sacraments through giving communion to those who cannot attend the assembly and by pronouncing words of baptismal absolution to those who confess their sins. They also bring gifts of money, food, or necessities from the church to those who lack them.

Therefore, whether with the church gathered or as a representative of the church scattered, the pastor’s ministry involves these three tasks:

Speaking God’s Word
Administering God’s Sacraments
Distributing God’s Gifts

Particularly striking to me is the emphasis on collecting gifts for the poor and the pastor’s role in distributing those gifts. Justin Martyr describes a congregation who understands that those with means are responsible to take care of the poor. On Sundays, its members who are able and willing to give contribute to a collection specifically for that purpose. This is not compulsory or forced, but “they who are well to do, and willing, give what each thinks fit.” The pastor is designated to oversee this collection, making sure it is gathered and then given to any in need.

I’m sad to confess how foreign this sounds to me, even after decades of ministry. Rarely have I heard congregational worship, bringing our offerings, caring for the poor, Christian love for one another, and the pastor’s daily work brought together like this and commended as a habitual pattern. Justin Martyr’s description and Lathrop’s appeal to it reflect a church experience that I have rarely witnessed in our culture, especially in the evangelical and Protestant churches of which I’ve been a part.

I have seen it in other places where folks who have few worldly possessions gather for worship. For example, at a small mission church in a ramshackle village in northeast Brazil, I observed a large basket on the altar, where each Sunday congregants brought food, clothes, and other items for “the poor” (!) each week. At the same church, a bulletin board displayed pictures of a half dozen missionaries the congregation sacrificed to support through regular financial gifts. These people who had next to nothing grasped the generosity that flows from hearts set free by grace.

At least in what I’ve seen, this is much rarer in our more affluent setting, though, of course, ours is not the first culture in which the Church has enriched itself at the expense of its mission to embody Good News for the poor. Nevertheless, Justin Martyr’s description of the pastor’s duty — along with that of the entire congregation — needs to be reemphasized more than ever in our day.

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The Homily

“I set my people free. I will come to Mount Zion.
I will come to those in Jacob’s family who turn away from their sins,”
announces the Lord. (Isaiah 59:20, NIRV)

Then Zacharias, his father, filled with the Holy Spirit and speaking like a prophet, said, “Blessings on the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has turned his face towards his people and has set them free!” (Luke 1:68, Phillips)

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. (Galatians 5:1. NIV)

In May, 2011, I traveled to Ohio for a reunion of the high school radio program I was part of as a student, then as a teacher. One of my classmates from, well, many years ago—we’ll call him “T”—told me what about where his career had taken him. T was always out front when it came to computers and technology. Now, he was using it in a very, er, unique way.

“I work for a security agency,” said T.

“The NSA, right?” I asked.

He just smiled. “My job is to monitor phone records and emails for terrorist activities.” He went on to talk about the frightening things they came across in their surveillance. So when it become public that the NSA was spying on, well, everyone in the world, I wasn’t surprised.

Lately, however, I’ve been wondering if giving up our freedom and privacy is worth whatever gains the NSA says they are making. What if we were to shut down all of the domestic spying the NSA performs in order to regain our freedom? Yes, perhaps we would be opening ourselves to acts of terror. No one ever said freedom comes without a price.

But this is not a discussion of the political ramifications of domestic spying. It is about our spiritual freedom.

Continue reading “The Homily”

Saturday Ramblings 11.2.13

Greetings, my sugar-amped iMonks. As you sneak another Snickers bar from your kids’ trick-or-treat bag, why don’t we discuss the sin of gluttony? Or the greater sin of you not sending me a big bag of Snickers. (Jeff Dunn, Tulsa, Oklahoma) Wait! Belay that bag of Snickers. I am trying to lose weight. And I’ve heard I will soon be able to get a KitKat bar on my cell phone. How great is that? So as you dig for that toothbrush, and look sheepishly into your children’s angelic faces, shall we ramble?

Ramblings is made up of the leftovers from the previous week, and so we have a couple of tricks yet to play on you. Here is one about how you, too, can have your very own “hell house.” Don’t forget the add-on modules. Mother’s womb abortion? Gay wedding? Yep, nothing says “you, too, can become a Christian” like showing the horrors of a gay wedding.

And then there are others who don’t like the way Halloween is marketed—those who say they are “real witches.” Sigh …

Each year I get more and more fed up with evangelicals trying to demonize Halloween (pun definitely intended). So here is a story to wash your brain out with. If you don’t read anything else this week, read this. Could you have done what these two men did?

Congrats, I suppose, to the Boston Red Sox for winning the World Series. I love baseball, and was rooting for a seven game series (the BoSox won in six), but I’m a National League guy. Still, it was some really good baseball. And then remember: Spring Training is only four months away.

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The Feast of All Saints

We’ve finally arrived at the end of October when Hallowe’en is upon us, though it seems to have morphed into a month-long festival – the same way that Christmas gets earlier and earlier in the year, now Hallowe’en seems to be the next candidate for increasing commercialization.

Leaving all that behind, thankfully, with the attendant fuss over “pagan practices” from both Christians and Neo-Pagans who really should know better (Hallowe’en in its American incarnation, which has been exported globally to places that never observed it before and to the originating lands of the entire thing, is a completely different beast to its origins as either a pre-Christian festival of the British Isles or the incorporation of it into the Christian liturgical calendar).

Which brings us nicely to the day that is the really important one of the Hallowe’en season – not the Eve or Vigil of the feast itself on the last day of October, but the Feast and Holy Day of Obligation that it prepares us for on 1^st November: the Feast of All Hallows, or All Saints. Speaking for the Roman Catholic tradition (I’m not going to address the practices of other Western Christian denominations and I will leave our Orthodox brothers and sisters to talk about the feasts of their own tradition), it is a Holy Day of Obligation and a Feast.

Here comes the “As you know, Bob” bit.

As you know, Bob, a Holy Day of Obligation is a day on which we are bound to attend Mass and to refrain from servile works. In other words, a day like Sunday. Not every national church celebrates the same Holy Days; for example, in Ireland 17^th March (you may have heard of that date somewhere or other) is a holy day of obligation but not elsewhere, and in the United States, the feast of Corpus Christi is not observed. The conference of bishops in a country can suppress some of the holy days of obligation or transfer them to a Sunday, if given the permission of the Vatican to do so. Observing Holy Days of Obligation on the nearest Sunday is becoming increasingly common nowadays because people can’t take time off from work to attend Mass (and avoid servile labour) and with the general decline in Mass-going or observance of their faith by many lukewarm, fallen-away, as good as lapsed, or ‘cultural’ Catholics, as well as the ordinary lumpen mass of the rest of us.

Continue reading “The Feast of All Saints”

Randy Thompson on Halloween

Note from CM: I received this email from our faithful reader Randy Thompson and thought it was worth passing along to you. Tokah said it best in the comments today: arguments over Halloween are silly.

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I suspect you’re sick to death of crackpot articles on Halloween, but I couldn’t resist passing this one on, courtesy of the good people at Charisma (and to be fair, the Charisma editors have posted another article on the same subject with a different point of view): Why Celebrating Halloween Is Dangerous.

There is one genuinely interesting comment in it that speaks volumes. She raises the question, “Doesn’t God have more power than the devil?” And then answers it: “Yes, but He has given that power to us. If we do not walk in it we become his prey.”

Yikes! What a scary world it is if you believe that God has abdicated his sovereignty to folks like me (and her). This is Pentecostal atheism. God is an absentee creator and works only through his proxies. Having read the novel “Dracula” last summer, her thought world is oddly similar to the one in the novel. There is a God, but fighting Count Dracula is all up to you, and knowing the right symbols to use against him (crucifixes and garlic come to mind). I prefer living in a world where God truly is in control of things, even though I have to accept that with blind faith at times. Whatever darkness is out there, and it’s out there, I choose to believe that this is God’s Earth and I’m His creation and that I look to Him, His Son, and His Kingdom coming and yet to come.

Also, her etymology of the word “holiday” is interesting. She’s probably right about it coming from “holy day,” but she’s clueless about words changing their meaning and usage over time. So, Labor Day, George Washington’s Birthday, and Labor Day are “holy days”? I think not. Interesting question: If she’s right, what demon lies behind Washington’s Birthday? Or Memorial Day? Or, for that matter, Thanksgiving?

(Sorry, couldn’t resist.)

It’s too bad so many Christians don’t get history. Things change. Old time pagan rites and rituals lose their spiritual significance as people stop believing in them and become simple (folk) customs and cultural habits (despite wiccan attempts to resurrect old time paganism). In other words, it’s just plain crazy to think candy takes on some sort of demonic-sacramental quality in autumn.

Happy Halloween.
Randy

Riding the Right Wave?

Richard Land, who for 25 years served the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, became president of Southern Evangelical Seminary (SES) in Charlotte, N.C. in July.

In a recent article, Land notes that apologetics has been the special focus of the school, and he believes a renewed emphasis upon that discipline in the future will be key to the church’s success in evangelism: “I fervently believe apologetics is the way we will spell Christian evangelism, missions, and discipleship in the 21st century,” he wrote.

With approval he cites Dr. Elmer Towns, who wrote in an email to Land, “The next great trend in the evangelical church is ‘apologetic evangelism’, those who can go and give a defense of the faith while they present the Gospel. That means you are on the cutting edge of the next trend in Christianity.”

Is apologetics the “next great trend”?

Is this the wave the Church needs to get on and ride into the future?

I have my doubts.

Continue reading “Riding the Right Wave?”

Michael Spencer’s Favorite Halloween Article

Note from CM: This was Michael Spencer’s favorite article on Halloween. Thanks to James B. Jordan for giving us permission to reprint it as we continue our tradition of featuring an annual piece about this holiday.

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Concerning Halloween
by James B. Jordan

It has become routine in October for some Christian schools to send out letters warning parents about the evils of Halloween, and it has become equally routine for me to be asked questions about this matter.

“Halloween” is simply a contraction for All Hallows’ Eve. The word “hallow” means “saint,” in that “hallow” is just an alternative form of the word “holy” (“hallowed be Thy name”). All Saints’ Day is November 1. It is the celebration of the victory of the saints in union with Christ. The observance of various celebrations of All Saints arose in the late 300s, and these were united and fixed on November 1 in the late 700s. The origin of All Saints Day and of All Saints Eve in Mediterranean Christianity had nothing to do with Celtic Druidism or the Church’s fight against Druidism (assuming there ever even was any such thing as Druidism, which is actually a myth concocted in the 19th century by neo-pagans.)

In the First Covenant, the war between God’s people and God’s enemies was fought on the human level against Egyptians, Assyrians, etc. With the coming of the New Covenant, however, we are told that our primary battle is against principalities and powers, against fallen angels who bind the hearts and minds of men in ignorance and fear. We are assured that through faith, prayer, and obedience, the saints will be victorious in our battle against these demonic forces. The Spirit assures us: “The God of peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly” (Romans 16:20).

The Festival of All Saints reminds us that though Jesus has finished His work, we have not finished ours. He has struck the decisive blow, but we have the privilege of working in the mopping up operation. Thus, century by century the Christian faith has rolled back the demonic realm of ignorance, fear, and superstition. Though things look bad in the Western world today, this work continues to make progress in Asia and Africa and Latin America.

The Biblical day begins in the preceding evening, and thus in the Church calendar, the eve of a day is the actual beginning of the festive day. Christmas Eve is most familiar to us, but there is also the Vigil of Holy Saturday that precedes Easter Morn. Similarly, All Saints’ Eve precedes All Saints’ Day.

The concept, as dramatized in Christian custom, is quite simple: On October 31, the demonic realm tries one last time to achieve victory, but is banished by the joy of the Kingdom.

What is the means by which the demonic realm is vanquished? In a word: mockery. Satan’s great sin (and our great sin) is pride. Thus, to drive Satan from us we ridicule him. This is why the custom arose of portraying Satan in a ridiculous red suit with horns and a tail. Nobody thinks the devil really looks like this; the Bible teaches that he is the fallen Arch-Cherub. Rather, the idea is to ridicule him because he has lost the battle with Jesus and he no longer has power over us.

(The tradition of mocking Satan and defeating him through joy and laughter plays a large role in Ray Bradbury’s classic novel, Something Wicked This Way Comes, which is a Halloween novel.)

Continue reading “Michael Spencer’s Favorite Halloween Article”

“To go through life guessing wrong”

While reading Thomas Merton yesterday on the subject of vocation (No Man Is an Island), I came across this stunning passage:

Our vocation is not a sphinx’s riddle, which we must solve in one guess or else perish. Some people find, in the end, that they have made many wrong guesses and that their paradoxical vocation is to go through life guessing wrong. It takes them a long time to find out that they are happier that way.

What a generous and liberating thought!

Having spent so many years hearing teaching that warned Christians not to “miss God’s will” for their lives, usually accompanied by some vague but dire warning of the consequences, how I wish this grace-filled perspective had somehow broken through to people bearing the heavy burden laid on them.

I never really bought into that theology and joined the frantic search for “God’s will.”

However, I have often mulled over my doubts in retrospect.

Why did I not listen to those who advised me about a different course of education?

Why did I not see the value of learning about different religious traditions when I was younger so that I might have been ordained to serve in a denomination early in my ministry?

Etc.

We all have the opportunity to look back and see various roads not taken. We sometimes dwell on them and nurse regrets. This is foolish. We did not know then what we know now. We did not necessarily have the capacity to choose differently, given our maturity and circumstances at the time. Of course there were moments when we might have have gone in other directions. But it is likely that we see even those occasions more clearly now.

It is also foolish to spend our time rehearsing the ways we might have missed because it keeps us from tracing the strange, labyrinthine path we actually took and what that has meant for us and others.

In the end, perhaps it is better that we sat around the table with our friends working on the puzzle than that we were skilled enough to put it all together.

To go through life guessing wrong.

To be happier that way.

And to see it as a gift from God.

Thank you, Brother Merton.

In Preparation for Halloween…

On Thursday, we will post our annual classic Michael Spencer Halloween rant. In preparation for that, let’s look and see what some folks are doing to mark the occasion this year.

Burning Bad Bibles
From The Telegraph, by Tom Chivers

Marc Grizzard, of Amazing Grace Baptist Church in Canton, North Carolina, says that the first King James translation of the Bible is the only true declaration of God’s word, and that all others are “satanic”.

Pastor Grizzard and 14 other members of the church plan to burn copies of the other “perversions” of Scripture on Halloween, 31 October.

The New Revised Version Bible, the American Standard Version Bible, and even the New King James Version are all pronounced to be works of the Devil by Pastor Grizzard and his followers.

Pastor Grizzard said: “I believe the King James version is God’s preserved, inspired, inerrant, infallible word of God… for English-speaking people.

“We are burning books that we believe to be Satanic.”

In addition to the devilish Bible versions, the article quotes the pastor as saying that books by such heretics as Billy Graham, Rick Warren, and Mother Theresa will also be incinerated.

Perhaps we could take up a collection of books to send Pastor Grizzard. Let’s see, what would make the list of “books to be burned” at iMonk?

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An Atheist’s Hell House
from Laughing in Purgatory blog

This atheist blogger has five great rooms in his Hell House, guaranteed to scare the loose change out of your pockets.

The Oprah Winfrey Room. With guest Dr. Oz. Visitors exit through Oprah’s gaping mouth.
The Pastor John Hagee Room. A journey through the small, narrow maze of Pastor Hagee’s mind.
The Justice Scalia and the Devil Room. A view of the world through a Supreme Court Justice’s eyes. Scary.
The Secularism Is the New Terrorism Room. Where secular laws prevent the pious from persecuting sinners.
The Chris Christie Jesus Doesn’t Want My Gay Kid to Get Married Room. Notice: this room needs to be updated now that Gov. Christie has changed his approach.

Pretty funny stuff, though I can’t imagine anything much more frightening than a tour of John Hagee’s mind.

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Halloween Theological Statement of the Year
from Matthew Paul Turner’s blog

It’s the “cutting off the top” part that I don’t like.

Wilderness Update: Time to Get Real

This discovery of Christ is never genuine if it is nothing but a flight from ourselves. On the contrary, it cannot be an escape. It must be a fulfillment. I cannot discover God in myself and myself in Him unless I have the courage to face myself exactly as I am, with all my limitations, and to accept others as they are, with all their limitations. The religious answer is not religious if it is not fully real. Evasion is the answer of superstition.

– Thomas Merton
No Man Is an Island

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Wilderness Update: October 29, 2013

On November 16, I will meet with my candidacy committee for my final approval interview. This will culminate my preparation process for ordination in the ELCA. If approved, I am cleared to take the next step in ministry. I would be eligible to consider a call from a congregation. But I also want to talk to the committee to get their wisdom on whether I should consider staying in chaplaincy work with hospice. This could lead to requesting a special ordination for that ministry, or to some combination of that with congregational work.

When people ask me what I want, I have to confess I don’t really know. I tell them I am in the best of all possible places. I love what I do and would be perfectly happy staying in my current role. I also love the church and would be happy to return to congregational ministry. If a way could be found to combine the two that was workable, it would satisfy me. The problem with being in this place where any choice is acceptable is that it makes the actual choosing difficult.

I tell this to inquirers because these are the things I tell myself. Of course, in doing so I am making a huge assumption that I am telling myself the truth.

Telling ourselves the truth may well be the hardest thing.

This is why we cannot be saved alone, but only in relationship with others. As Merton puts it, I cannot find myself in myself alone, I must find myself in and through others, which ultimately means finding myself in Christ. What matters, Paul said, is faith working through love.

Discovering ourselves always involves losing ourselves. I die, and a new “me” rises. For most of us, that happens not in solitude, but when a sister or brother listens and speaks with us. Solitude is indeed a part of the process — an essential part — but only so that we may reflect upon what life fully engaged in community and with the world is saying to us.

This is why I myself must be part of a denomination, a faith community, in conversation with mentors and other pastors and a candidacy committee. It is why my denomination required me to take a year of studying, serving, and conversing with seminary students and professors, pastors and congregations, and leaders in the denomination. You have been a part of the process too, as we’ve interacted about various matters here on Internet Monk. Now it is all completed, and it is time to process all that and prepare for a final interview.

A few weeks of waiting, a short time of wondering, and it will be over. And then a new beginning, a plain path will emerge. The goal, wherever this all leads, is that I will gain a better grasp on reality and be better equipped to help others get that too.

Time to get real.