Gratitude and Vision

Each year we clergy file a “Rostered Leader Report” with the synod office. My mind swarmed with various ideas this year as I tried to answer, with some reasonable depth, the questions contained there: “as you reflect on the last year, what were the most significant developments, events, or accomplishments in your life and ministry?” Surprisingly, I found that I had space for only 125 words or less. How do you summarize the delicate and budding relationship between two churches, two denominations in that space?

As a systematic theologian, brevity has never been one of my strong suits. My mind races through words, the appropriate choice of adjectives and the like. Two words that leapt to my mind as I filled out the report was gratitude and vision. 

The joy I have found in answering a call to ministry has been the profound simplicity of being with people in all their glory and their brokenness. This is a facet I missed in academia as students tried mightily to grasp the profound truths of Christianity in their studies so that they might be "certain" of something. In this environment, for the most part, Christianity remained in our heads, far away from our hearts. 

There is nothing special about this revelation. We often miss the depths of discipleship as it unfolds in front of us in simple things like shared meals, conversations, or a ride to work.  Last night I was able to glimpse the glory of discipleship in its simplicity: a great potluck meal, fellowship, and then the people of God enjoying the gifts of God in each other and in worship.

What I struggle with in answering questions about being a minister in the community is somehow defining what it means to be a Christian in our contemporary society. In reading Douglas John Hall’s article in the Christian Century “Against Religion: The Case for Faith” I was reminded of this symbolic struggle when I read his words:

In every religion, there are vulnerable points—ideas, attitudes or emphases which, under certain historical conditions, are bound to become flash points of conflict. 

What I wanted to convey in those 125 words or less in my report but couldn’t is something more along these lines: How do we affirm our call as the priesthood of all believers, a personal and socially accountable witness, without succumbing to the bureaucracy and our own desperate want for certitude? In what way is God doing a "new thing" and in what ways are we resisting?

I began then a long series of conversations with myself (systematic theologians are notorious for this introverted activity). In what ways have I already failed in my present call to embody the life that God has given us in all of its grand simplicity? How have we, corporately, failed to discern the workings of the Spirit in such a way that we are not self-deluded, stuck in a leadership mode grounded in mere survival or an unhealthy navel-gazing orientation? How are we living into our potential and launching out into the radical, self-emptying call of the life of faith?

The critique of our society is that the church is seen as a purveyor of goods and services and our members are constantly shopping and ‘trading up’ for another church that can better meet their needs. How can we avoid this? What would our synods and churches look like if we were willing to subordinate everything for just one missional reality: the goal of being and forming Christ-like people, people who live in the way of love, the way of peacemaking, the way of the kingdom of God, the way of Jesus, the way of the Spirit? 

I suppose the answers to these questions will help to determine the way in which we carve out the answer to the second question in the Rostered Leader Report: “as you look forward to this year, what will be the special emphases of your ministry?” The short answer: people. The long answer: to embrace the anxiety and the courage of leaving behind the fixed foundations to live into a mystical embodiment and engagement with faith every day; a faith that is good works and good works that are faith in action; a faith that gives witness to the truth of God’s promise to Abraham: I will bless you. 

A prayer from Walter Brueggemann:

The witnesses tell of your boundless generosity,

and their telling is compelling to us:

You give your word to call the worlds into being;

You give your sovereign rule to emancipate the slaves

and the oppressed;

You give your commanding fidelity to form your own people;

You give your life for the life of the world...

broken bread that feeds,

poured out wine that binds and heals.

You give...we receive...and are thankful.

We begin this day in gratitude,

thank that is a match for your self-giving,

gratitude in gifts offered,

gratitude in tales told,

gratitude in lives lived.

Gratitude willed, but not so readily lived,

held back by old wounds turned to powerful resentment,

retarded by early fears become vague anxiety,

restrained by self-sufficiency in a can-do arrogance,

blocked by amnesia unable to recall gifts any longer.

Do this yet.  Create innocent space for us this day

for the gratitude we intend.

In thankfulness,

we will give,

we will tell,

we will live,

your gift through us to gift the world.

Amen.