Today's Chesterton: So Much for Naive Christian Clergy

"Has it never struck you that a man who does next to nothing but hear men's real sins is not likely to be wholly unaware of human evil?

Chesterton, G. K. (Gilbert Keith) (2011-03-30). The Innocence of Father Brown (p. 15).  . Kindle Edition. 

The question is posed by Chesterton's fictional Father Brown, whose straightforward understanding of the depravity of the human heart and his nearly prescient observational skills allow him to solve crimes.

In some ways, no group of people is more likely to view the actions and motives of people with less naivete than Christian clergy.

Why is that?

First, because the Bible teaches us, as it does to all Christians, that human beings are born in sin. (Explaining why God had to become a human being, albeit one without sins, offer Himself in sacrifice for our sin so that all who turn from the sin and trust in Christ to forgive their sin with His grace gain forgiveness and new life with God.)

Second, we clergy, by doing our daily work in the light of the Bible's testimony about God and humanity, become witnesses to the full range of sin's effects and sin's manifestations in human beings. They come in the form of the person in the mirror who so often disappoints us, in the parishioner or local community member not associated with your church who figures their secret is safe with you, and even in the Christian completely oblivious to his own shocking sin and of his need of the grace of Christ.

That's why I find Chesterton's fictional detective Father Brown so plausible. Though society deems we clergy types as naive--and we may be deliberately so at times--remember that Christians have been told by Jesus to be as wise as serpents and as innocent as doves. Father Brown clearly takes Jesus' words seriously.

By the way, the abrupt and simple ways in which Chesterton's stories end, without fanfare, is fun.

'On Leaving'

As regular readers of this blog know, after seventeen years in my former parish, I recently accepted the call from the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, to be their pastor. I wrote a series of posts, Hello, Goodbye, detailing my reflections on leaving one parish and heading to a new one.

It turns out that while my wife and I were prayerfully wrestling with the decision to make this transition, two blogging pastors I respect were going through the same process.

One was Pastor Mark Roberts, who went from a southern California congregation to a place called the Laity Lodge in Texas, moved shortly before we went from Cincinnati to Logan. Mark wrote about his move here.

Recently, Pastor Craig Williams has left a congregation he started nineteen years ago. He's written about the change here.

Craig was supportive and encouraging to me as I made my move. He will be in my prayers now.

Craig is one of the most thoughtful and interesting bloggers around.

Hello, Goodbye: What If I'm Wrong?

In the previous two posts in this series, I talked about the indications we had that our impending move from Friendship Lutheran Church in Amelia, Ohio to Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, was God's will for our lives.

But what if I'm wrong?

I'm reminded of a story I've told many times. It seems that a farmer excitedly ran into the office of his pastor one day. "Pastor! Pastor!" he said, "I know what God wants me to do with my life!" He explained that he'd been out in his field when he noticed a strange cloud formation. The clouds seemed to form the letters, "GPC." The farmer said he'd wondered about the meaning of this sign, when it dawned on him. "It can only mean one thing, Pastor: GO PREACH CHRIST!" The pastor knew this farmer. He was a great guy committed to Christ. But none of his gifts seemed appropriate to pastoring. "Are you sure," the pastor asked, "the letters don't stand for, GO PLANT CORN?"

Christians undoubtedly misinterpret God's specific intentions for their lives all the time. But that doesn't mean that they have to retrace their steps or rue their choices.

Regular readers of this blog know that one of my favorite books of recent years is The Will of God as a Way of Life by pastor, historian, and author Gerald L. Sittser. As a young man in college, Sittser was certain that God had called him to be a doctor. He was sure this was God’s plan for his life. But while in college, he got turned on by theology and ministry. A new certainty supplanted the old one. Now, he was sure God was calling him to be a pastor.

This is what Sittser did and to the extent that such things can be measured, he was a successful pastor.

After several years though, he felt that God was calling him to yet another profession. He was sure that he needed to go to graduate school, earning advanced degrees in History so that he could teach at the college level. This he did. Again, he was successful.

As he looked back over his life at that juncture, Sittser was sure that God had called him to everything he had done, including his marriage to Linda and having their beautiful children. Friends told them they had the perfect life. They were convinced that in it all, they could see the sovereign hand of God.

But then, tragedy struck. One day when his mother was visiting Gerald and his family, a drunk driver struck the vehicle in which they all were riding. His wife, his mother, and one of his children were killed. Was this the will of a sovereign God for a family that had always sought to do God’s will?

Some Christians, particularly those whose lives have never been touched by tragedy or those who have never helped a friend through a tragedy, might answer with a breezy facility, “Of course.”

But such thoughtless responses hardly do credit to God, to those whose lives have been snuffed out, or to the ones left behind.

After these multiple tragedies, Sittser still believed in the goodness of God. The willingness of God to share in our sufferings on a cross and the tears cried by Jesus over His dead friend Lazarus are two clear exhibits of evidence of that.

Sittser still believed in the power of God. Jesus’ resurrection and His continuing ability to change people’s lives for the better are evidence of that.

But he also believed that he needed to look exactly at what the will of God means.

All of his life, Sittser had assumed that the will of God was about the future. If things he thought were God’s will turned out okay, he assumed this to be God’s affirmation of his having made the right guess about God’s will for his life. I suspect that most Christians adhere to a similar view. It’s certainly the view I held until a few years ago.

But as Sittser looked at the Bible’s understanding of the will of God, particularly as evidenced in the writings of Paul in the New Testament, he made a startling discovery. The phrase was never used of the future, only of the present.

In other words, the will of God is not some mystery shrouding our futures which we must, through agonizing prayer and discernment, seek out.

Instead, the will of God is about how we live in the present moment. And how we are to live in the present moment is crystal clear. As Sittser writes:

...the New Testament offers no hint that Paul agonized about the will of God as it pertained to the future. He gave himself to the present because he was eager to use what little time he had to do what he already knew God wanted him to do.

If we sense any agony in the heroes of Scripture, it is not in discovering the will of God but in doing it....

The only time we have to know and do God’s will is the present moment.

So, what exactly is the will of God for our lives in the present moments in which each of us live our lives? Even a perfunctory reading of the Bible will give us the answer or answers to that question. It would include these imperatives from Jesus:

“I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in Me, even though they die, will live and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die...” [John 11:25-26]

...”’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind’...’You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” [Matthew 22:37-40]

“This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you...” [John 15:12]

“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” [Matthew 28:19-20]

“Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation.” [Mark 16:15]

“...strive first for the kingdom of God and His righteousness...” [Matthew 6:33]

All these passages make clear what God’s will is and for any given moment of our lives. We're to love God and love our neighbor. We're to make God's Kingdom our highest priority. We're to serve our neighbor is Christs Name. Most importantly, we're to turn from sin and trust that even when we fail to do all those other things, Christ has died and risen for sinners so that we need never be afraid of today or tomorrow. God will be with us and we will be with God forever.

If we haven't dialed into God's specific will for our lives, that's okay. The Bible says that God remembers that we are dust, that is, mortal and imperfect. Paraphrasing it, we could say that God remembers that we can be hard of hearing when it comes to discerning what God wants for us.

It's under these circumstances that Martin Luther said believers should "sin boldly." That means that after we've read God's Word, prayed, and talked it over with respected Christian friends, we may still not be clear on what God's will may be. But if our intent is to love God and love neighbor, we can't go wrong.

Even when we go where God sends us, it's no guarantee that we'll be "successful." God, as he saying attributed to Mother Teresa puts it, doens't call us to be successful, just faithful. But wherever we go, if we constantly submit to God, we can do the will of God, loving God, loving neighbor.

I may not know what I'm doing in going to Saint Matthew. But if I'll surrender each moment to Him, God will know exactly what to do with my time at this wonderful congregation.

[Note: My blogging friend, Mark D. Roberts, has been writing a series of blog articles about his departure from a church after serving as pastor for sixteen years. Mark, I notice, has been addressing the question of the will of God in recent posts. I deliberately avoided reading these pieces by Mark so that I can see how his reflections compare to my own. I suggest that you do what I'm going to do now, read Mark's posts on this topic.]

Hello, Goodbye: How Do You Know?, Part 2

In yesterday's installment of this series, I began to deal with the question of how I knew it was God's will for me to move from the congregation I've pastored for the past seventeen years onto Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio. I made the point that at one level, I don't know if it agrees with the will of God. That's where faith, trust in God, comes in.

I went on to say that one important indicator that this move may be God's will for our household right now is that, as is often true of God's calls on our lives, it takes me from a place where I've been comfortable.

But I think that there have been plenty of other indicators that this is what God wants.

• There's the belief that began forming in my wife and me several years ago, after we'd prayed, discussed, and reflected, that it might be best for Friendship to have a new leader to take the congregation to the next level.
• There's the way in which the green lights for going to Logan flashed after Friendship's financial condition improved, I would say miraculously, this summer. That meant that I could leave Friendship without a sense of guilt or regret.
• There's the sense of both comfort and challenge that Ann and I had when we met with the people from the Call Committee at Saint Matthew. Comfort with their faith, sincerity, and good humor. Challenge in that we would be going to a congregational setting that we hadn't had the primary hand in constructing. That appealed to us.
• There's also the sense that I had grown in ways that might be useful at Saint Matthew.
  

More convincing to me than the impressions, thoughts, reflections, and feelings that Ann and I experienced as we contemplated saying, "Goodbye" to Friendship and saying, "Hello" to Saint Matthew, though, was the reaction of Saint Matthew's Call Committee.

Among the many solid teachings of the Lutheran movement, I think, is their insistence on the dual nature of any call. It's not enough for a man or a woman to declare that they've received a call to ministry. Jimmy Ray Bob may believe that he has a call to start a congregation. But unless others in the Church universal, led by the Holy Spirit, have reached the same conclusion, Jimmy Ray has no business becoming a pastor. And that's true whether Jimmy Ray has a doctorate in Theology or sells cumquats at the local produce stand.

The church, be it an individual congregation, a church-related organization, a synod, or a seminary, must sense that the candidate for call is the right person for it. Jesus Christ has made us part of a Body called the Church, each of us having our part to play and each accountable to one another.

The early church recognized this from the beginning. The New Testament book of Acts recounts the early history of the Church. In chapter 6, there's an account of the first church fight. The apostles, the rulers of the Church appointed by Jesus, could, I guess, have simply appointed people to make sure the distributions among the church's widows were done equitably. Instead, they got the rest of the Church involved in the process, an indication of the importance Christians have always attached to mutual accountability and the belief that the call has a dual nature. (Read Acts 6 here.)

From the moment I interviewed at Saint Matthew, honestly to my surprise, the Call Committee and eventually, the overwhelming majority of the congregation, clearly wanted me to be there. I don't believe that had anything to do with my virtues or qualifications. Instead, I believe that the Holy Spirit was sending the same signals to the congregation that He was sending to Ann and me. It comforts and encourages me to consider that this impression about God's will wasn't just Ann's and my impression.

But you know what? We could be wrong. And that's okay. I'll have more to say about that in the next installment.

Hello, Goodbye: Why I Will Wear 'Clergy Attire' at Saint Matthew

Here's the bottom line from yesterday's post in this series: It doesn't matter what pastors and priests wear. Except when it does.

Hang in there with me on this. Every Christian is called to be an ambassador for Christ, charged with making disciples. Like the apostle Paul, told by King Agrippa, before whom he stood imprisoned, in chains, that he was mad to think that he could call the king to faith in Christ in a short time, the attitude of Christians should be that, in Christian love, we want all people to know the joy and liberation of life with Jesus Christ!

Christians are people with a message that can change people's lives forever. We must never confuse our message with the packages in which they're contained.

Whether the package in which the Gospel is presented is a cathedral with an enormous pipe organ and vested choirs, a storefront church in the inner city, or a suburban congregation housed in a plain building where worship is led by a praise band and a preacher in "casual Friday" attire doesn't matter so long as the message conveys the life-changing Good News of Jesus.

Christians devoted to Christ and His mission should, like Paul, be willing to become "all things to all people":

For though I am free with respect to all, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I might win more of them. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though I myself am not under the law) so that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law) so that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, so that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, so that I may share in its blessings. (1 Corinthians 9:19-23)

What the pastor or priest wears when she or he leads worship should be dictated not by what he or she likes, but by what best facilitates the spread of the Gospel in the church and community in which they serve.

That's why as I become pastor of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, I'll be wearing an alb, cincture, stole, cross, and clerical collar to lead worship.

One reason for this is that for me to appear in anything else would be disrespectful to the customs of the church community there. This is their way of doing things. It's a way with which I'm personally comfortable as well. It's also likely the best way for me to reach most of the people who are apt to worship with us at Saint Matthew. If I were to appear to lead worship or preach in tennis shoes and jeans would put up unnecessary walls between the Gospel of Jesus and the people to whom I want to give its hope and sustenance. Such incongruity would be as jarring to people in that community as incense and a thurifer would be for worship at Friendship, the congregation I've served for the past seventeen years.

Now, during the interview process, the Saint Matthew Call Committee and I discussed building off of an alternative service my predecessor initiated there. It was established with the hope of attracting the spiritually-disconnected to Christ and to Saint Matthew. We talked about how that service might look a little different and how I might even look different for this service. I was impressed that these committed Lutheran Christians were willing to discuss with such passion and concern what it may take to reach out to others in this way.

They understand that it doesn't matter what pastors and priests wear. Except when it does. When it does is when it helps facilitate the mission of Jesus' church. At Saint Matthew, that means I'll be wearing traditional clergy attire again. I'm happy to do it and will do so with the prayer of a good Lutheran in my heart, "to God alone be the glory."

Hello, Goodybe: Whatever Will I Wear?

As I've prepared to take on my new call as pastor of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, I've also been saying goodbye to the people of Friendship Lutheran Church, Amelia, Ohio. I've been the pastor of Friendship for seventeen years. Part of that process of transition has involved publishing old pictures on the Friendship news blog. Included are the three below, taken at Friendship's first worship service on May 19, 1991:

[Click on image to enlarge.]

As you can see, in these snapshots from my younger, thinner, and bearded days, I was wearing what has become standard attire for Lutheran clergy leading worship. Seeing them led one Friendship member to ask when, exactly, I stopped wearing this attire during worship at Friendship and whether I would resume doing so at Saint Matthew. The short answers to those two questions are: Early in Friendship's life and yes.

But the questions might warrant a lengthier examination, beginning with describing just what "standard attire for Lutheran clergy leading worship" is and what it's all about. Tomorrow, hopefully, I'll talk about why I stopped wearing this attire over the past seventeen years and why I'll take it back up again once I'm in Logan.

The bottom picture of the three seen above shows me in...

• A white robe, which is called an alb, from the Latin alba, for white.
• What my one-time seminary advisor, the eminent theologian Hans Schwarz, called the rope, tied around my middle, is called a cincture.
• A red cloth draped over my shoulders, an example of what's called a stole.
• Beneath those articles of clothing, I was also wearing what's called a clerical collar for my dress shirt.

In seminary worship classes, we were taught the meaning of each of these pieces of clothing.

The alb is meant, broadly, to represent the purity of God. In ancient times, clergy went clothe-less beneath these garments, an apparent repudiation of their reliance on anything but God. They may also have had in mind Saint Paul's call for Christians to "put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and [to] make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires" (Romans 13:14). These ancient clergy also wore the alb shoeless. I don't know anyone who follows these precedents today. It wouldn't be such a hot idea. After all, we clergy have enough reputation problems these days; we don't need to add to them by going around in our altogethers under our albs!

The alb may also allude to the vision of believers in heaven given by the risen and ascended Jesus to John. John wrote down this vision in the book of Revelation. You can see that here. The problem with that symbolism is that all who have followed Jesus are in white in John's vision, not just those who've filled the pastoral or priestly roles.










The cincture, according to some sources has only a practical use: keeping flowing robes from tripping up clergy. But I seem to recall some more pious purpose attributed to it, though I can't recall what it was.









The stole, worn over the shoulders of clergy members, is supposed to refer to the special burden of leadership--to lead the church diligently--and alludes to Christ's words in Matthew 11:29-30:

"Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

But, of course, this call is issued not just to clergy, but to all who believe in Jesus Christ.

Stoles are usually colored according to the season of the Church Year or, as in the case of the pictures of me above, according to the particular occasion. Friendship happened to begin its life on Pentecost Sunday, when the assigned color is red.

Stoles can be multicolored, though, and often, as is the case of the one pictured to the left, they're adorned with various symbols of the faith or with the season with which they're associated. The stoles I own were woven by a nun who was a fine artist, a participant in the Greater Columbus Arts Council's Artists in the Schools program, which my wife administered in the early-1980s.


Ask most clergy who wear clerical collars and they'll tell you that they symbolize their office. The shirts, they'll say, are signs of Christ and the Church having set them apart to fulfill a certain function.

And I'm sure that they've become that for many people. When clergy walk into a hospital room or a nursing home, the personnel in those places will generally know what the clergy person's function is and what they're doing there. (Although, in an age of terrorism and various predatory behaviors, it's always advisable for such facilities to require clergy to carry some form of identity or to register as a visitor as well.)

Years ago, I was angered by a pastor's wife who told me why her husband routinely wore his clergy collar. "Restaurants always let us get tables quickly when Bob wears his shirt," she told me, giggling. But this is the opposite of what the collar is meant to represent in today's Church. Clergy aren't supposed to be privileged characters, only Christians who fill a particular function.

The office of pastor is a calling and a privilege. But its function is to be a servant of the servants, someone who encourages and helps others in the Church to do all that God has called His people to do. If Jesus bent down to clean the filthy feet of His disciples, who am I to use Jesus and my office in His Church as a pretext for getting faster service at a restaurant? Jesus promises all believers that "the last will be first, and the first will be last" anyway. So, there's no need for pushing ahead. We're called to a different way of life!

The story behind the widespread adoption of the clerical collar as the uniform of pastors and priests is pretty humdrum. It was only after the fact of its use that the explanations mentioned above came to be used. When much of the Christian Church came to be centered in Rome, the Roman (Catholic) Church adopted the organizational scheme of the Roman Empire. Since the Bible never outlines a specific mode of organization, the bishop at Rome had to adopt some way of organizing and administering the far-flung church and adopting the system of an empire that had been so successful for so long made sense.

The uniform of the local bureaucrats for Rome's empire was the clerical collar. They were clerical workers. So, as the local administrators of Word and Sacrament, parish priests began wearing the same attire. When the Roman Empire died, the bureaucrats disappeared. But by that time, their uniform had been adopted by the priests.

This is one more example of how through the centuries, the Church has adopted and adapted customs and even holidays already extant in their cultures and "Christianized" them. Some people point to the recasting of the Roman holiday of Saturnalia as Christmas as though it somehow takes away from Christmas or the celebration of Christ's birth. No, it was a convenient leap from celebrating a holiday about light to remembering the light of the world who came into our lives in Jesus Christ.

Soon: Why I stopped wearing this attire at Friendship and why I will resume doing so at Saint Matthew.

Amazing Ministry

Here is the story of a pastor from our county who's an Army chaplain in Iraq. Amazing!