Relocating To Elfland

“For conservatives and progressives alike, Christianity far too comfortably legitimates the dominant political ideologies and far too uncritically justifies the prevailing macroeconomic structures and practices of our time. What is wrong with their critique is that it doesn’t go far enough, for the moral life and everyday social practices of the church are also far too entwined with the prevailing normative assumptions of American culture. Courtship and marriage, the formation and education of children, the mutual relationships and obligations between the individual and community, vocation, leadership, consumption, leisure, “retirement” and the use of time in the final chapters of life – on these and other matters, Christianity has uncritically assimilated to the dominant ways of life in a manner dubious at the least. Even more, these assimilations arguably compromise the fundamental integrity of its witness to the world.” (James Davison Hunter, To Change the World, pp. 184–85)

“When I look upon the tombs of the great, every emotion of envy dies in me; when I read the epitaphs of the beautiful, every inordinate desire goes out; when I meet with the grief of parents upon a tombstone, my heart melts with compassion; when I see the tomb of the parents themselves, I consider the vanity of grieving for those whom we must quickly follow; when I see kings lying by those who deposed them, when I consider rival wits placed side by side, or the holy men that divided the world with their contests and disputes, I reflect with sorrow and astonishment on the little competitions, factions, and debates of mankind. When I read the several dates of the tombs, of some that died yesterday, and some six hundred years ago, I consider that great day when we shall all of us be contemporaries, and make our appearance together.” (Joseph Addison, “Westminster Abbey”)

Here are several Cranmer collects for the late weeks of the Trinity season, prior to the final two Lord’s Days of the Christian year:

“Almighty and merciful God, of thy bountiful goodness, keep us from all things that may hurt us; that we, being ready both in body and soul, may with free hearts accomplish those things that thou wouldest have done; through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

“Grant we beseech thee, merciful Lord, to thy faithful people pardon and peace, that they may be cleansed from all their sins, and serve thee with a quiet mind. Through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

“Lord we beseech thee to keep thy household the church in continual godliness; that through thy protection it may be free from all adversities, and devoutly given to serve thee in good works, to the glory of thy name; through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

“God, our refuge and strength, which art the author of all godliness, be ready to hear the devout prayers of thy church; and grant that those things which we ask faithfully we may obtain effectually; through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

“Ye have heard, my brethren, . . . how that the publicans and sinners drew near unto our Redeemer, and how that He received them, not only to converse, but also to eat with Him. And when the Pharisees and Scribes saw it, they murmured. From this learn ye, that true righteousness is merciful, and false righteousness is contemptuous, albeit that the righteous also oft-times feel moved with just indignation at sinners. But it is one thing to feel thus indignant through pride, and another to feel so through love of law. The righteous [in] their hearts . . . prefer before themselves them whom they are correcting; they hold as better than themselves them whom they judge. And thus doing, they watch by carefulness over them, which are committed unto their charge, and, by lowly-mindedness, over themselves. On the other hand, they whose exaltation cometh of a false righteousness, look down upon their neighbour, but are softened by no mercy toward his misery, and are all the more sinful, because they perceive not that they themselves are sinners. Of such were those Pharisees who judged the Lord because He received sinners, and, in the dryness of their own heart, rebuked the very Fountain of mercy.” (Gregory the Great, 34th Homily on the Gospels)

“I should like to encourage Your Grace, who are a young man, always to be joyful, to engage in riding and hunting, and to seek the company of others who may be able to rejoice with Your Grace in a godly and honorable way. For solitude and inwardness are poisonous and deadly to all people, and especially to a young man. Accordingly, God has commanded us to be joyful in his presence; he does not desire a gloomy sacrifice. . . . No one realizes how much harm it does a young person to avoid pleasure and cultivate solitude and sadness. Your grace has Master Nicholas Hausman and many others near at hand. Be merry with them; for gladness and good cheer, when decent and proper, are the best medicine for a young person – indeed, for all people. I myself, who have spent a good part of my life in sorrow and gloom, now seek and find joy wherever I can. Praise God, we now have sufficient understanding of the Word of God to be able to rejoice with a good conscience and to use God’s gifts with thanksgiving, for he created them for this purpose and is pleased when we use them. . . . It is my opinion that Your Grace is reluctant to be merry, as if this were sinful. This has often been my case, and sometimes it still is. To be sure, to have pleasure in sins is of the devil, but participation in proper and honorable pleasures with good and God-fearing people is pleasing to God, even if one may at times carry playfulness too far. Be merry, then, both inwardly in Christ himself and outwardly in his gifts and the good things of life. He will have it so. It is for this that he is with us. It is for this that he provides his gifts – that we may use them and be glad, and that we may praise, love, and thank him forever and ever.” (Martin Luther to Prince Joachim of Anhalt, 1534)

“O God, for as much as without thee, we are not able to please thee; Grant that the working of thy mercy may in all things direct and rule our hearts; through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

For sheer headiness, it would seem hard to surpass Paul’s statement concerning the ministry of young Timothy: “Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers” (1 Tim 5:18). These are God’s words, and we shouldn’t immediately jump to qualify them. Ministers save people. Under God, they do.

I would like to draw attention, though, to the first part of Paul’s statement: “Keep close watch on yourself.” If a minister doesn’t do this, he’s not going to save anyone; and I’d like to suggest that a grave danger lurks in the life of a minister precisely because he is trying to save others. There’s something wonderful, of course, about being used by God to pour out His grace, truth, wisdom, and love to His people and the world; but a minister who fails to keep watch over his heart in this matter can fall prey to a poison so subtle that it remains largely imperceptible until its deadly work is already done.

As C. S. Lewis pointed out in The Four Loves, we humans need to be (and to feel) needed. This is not sinful, per se: it’s a good thing to be needed (take parenting, for example), and the pleasure we feel in being needed (holding an infant, for instance, or lifting a load from a neighbor’s back) is perfectly legitimate. God made us to love others, to meet their needs, and we can and should feel His own joy in doing so.

But there’s a dark side, thanks to sin. Pastors are not immune from the deep insecurities, fears, and longings that beset other mortals; and whereas others may drown these things in distracting pleasures, or mask them behind professionalism or machismo or other forms of self-protective detachment, a pastor can hide behind . . . well, ministry. Love. Giving care and compassion and counsel. And this can be quite addictive. One can reach a place of justifying one’s own existence – deriving a sense of personal value and purpose – from the fact that one is saving others. This is a problem on many levels, but maybe we need to think through the psychology of it a little more.

There is a huge difference between a relationship in which the other person acutely needs me and a relationship in which the other person doesn’t. In the first case, I don’t have to face much in the way of insecurity: I am needed. It’s gratifying. It gives me a sense of strength and value. But in a relationship where I’m not acutely needed, I face a fearful question: will the other person choose to relate to me simply because he or she wants to, because he or she sees who I am (not just what I have to offer) and is either genuinely attracted or (which is perhaps even more comforting) glad to love me in spite of myself? This, in a word, is vulnerability.

A minister can shield himself from such vulnerability by crowding his life with relationships in which, in one form or another, he is constantly needed. Which becomes a self-feeding problem, because eventually he has no life apart from the ministry. When he looks in the mirror, he sees nothing that could attract anyone “just because,” and it’s a terrifying prospect to show himself to others apart from a ministry context. What if they see what he sees: that if he stops offering what he has to offer, there isn’t much of a life or a person left? He has become his ministry; if a person doesn’t need ministry, what else is there to be attracted to? So he goes on hiding behind ministry. He has one secure reason to exist, one sure basis for personal value: he’s saving people.

Of course, the way to deal with this is not to stop ministering! It is not to stop caring and giving oneself for the good of others. It is, rather, to keep watch on oneself and, by the grace of God, to open oneself to all the vulnerability and hurt that can come in a different sort of relationship: the sort in which one’s only basis for acceptance is the love of God in the heart of the other. It is to invite and explore relationships in a non-ministry context, where the basis for the relating is not acute need, but sincere desire. It should go without saying that human relationships don’t neatly fit into compartments of “need” and “desire”; but still, I hope what I am trying to get at is clear.

One avenue to this other sort of relating is for a pastor to do things simply because he desires to do so. There’s a time to go play a round of golf “just because”; there’s a time to go hiking in the woods “just because”; there’s a time to play a board game for no other reason than that it’s fun. These are activities in which the pastor is seen as a mere man; and these are contexts in which it is fairly easy for others to engage him as such. Maybe he will turn out to be a loser, and no one will want to come back for more – but that’s a risk we all have to take in this world, and it has so much to do with this thing we call grace. We are utterly vulnerable before the grace of God – we have no control over whether He will extend it to us. It’s no different in our human relationships. The one who will not embrace this truth will dwell in the prison house of his own self-protection. And it is hellishly dark and cold inside.

Amazing how beautifully this collect relates to the message I’m preaching this morning from Nehemiah 4!

“Lord we beseech thee, grant thy people grace to avoid the infections of the Devil, and with pure heart and mind to follow thee the only God; through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

“Politics has become so central in our time that institutions, groups, and issues are now defined relative to the state, its laws and procedures. Institutions such as popular and higher education, philanthropy, science, the arts, and even the family understand their identity and function according to what the state does or does not permit. Groups (women, minorities, gays, Christians, etc.) have validity not only but increasingly through the rights conferred by the state. Issues gain legitimacy only when recognized by law and public policy. It is only logical, then, that problems affecting the society are seen increasingly, if not primarily through the prism of the state; that is, in terms of how law, policy, and politics can solve them.” (James Davison Hunter, To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World, p. 103)

“Lord we pray thee that thy grace may always prevent and follow us, and make us continually to be given to all good works through Jesus Christ our Lord.”