Long-term Ministry

Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked,

Or take the path that sinners tread, or sit in the seat of scoffers;

But their delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law they meditate day and night.

They are like trees planted by streams of water,

Which yield their fruit in its season, and their leaves do not wither.

In all that they do, they prosper.

 

The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away.

Therefore the wicked will not stand in judgment,

Nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;

For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.

- Psalm 1, NRSV

I've been a local church pastor for 22 years with three different churches.  About two-thirds of that time has been spent with the same congregation.  The more deeply my roots reach into the same soil, the more reflective I am about the meaning of faith, the practice of community, and the gifts (and challenges) of longevity.

Long-term pastorates are now generally defined as pastorates that last more than seven years.  Is it only coincidence that age-appropriate dog-food follows the same chronology?  My dog, who was in our family for nearly 16 years before he died recently, was categorized by Purina and Iams as a "senior dog" when he turned seven.  That means he was old for over half his life.  When I am feeling tired, uncreative, and generally washed-up, I see my ministry that way, too – "old," in the sense of being worn-out, uninteresting, and slow.  Too many sermons feel like they have a Frankenstein quality to them – bits and pieces of older sermons sewn together in the hopes that they will achieve some sort of organic consistency. 

But I don't always feel over-the-hill.  Sometimes, I feel contentment, a peaceful wisdom that is simply not possible until one has stayed put long enough to simulate the "trees planted by streams of water" in Psalm 1.  I love this psalm.  I suspect it is placed first in the book of Psalms because of its naïve simplicity – the easy conviction that the difference between the righteous and wicked is clear to all, and both groups always get what they deserve.  If you read the psalms in succession, you'll notice that this stark moral simplicity gives way to questions of unfairness and injustice, a sense of God's abandonment, even a clear-eyed recognition that the wicked generally do better in this world than the righteous.  But then, by the end of the psalms, all that questioning, complaining and pleading are softened by the recognition that the world is much bigger than our personal lives.  The bigger picture, the "God's-eye" view of creation, yields unmitigated, almost mindless praise for all God has done and is doing.

The Psalms don’t exactly make a circle.  It isn't as though you wind up back at the simple moral view of Psalm 1, where the righteous ones bear fruit and the wicked blow away like chaff in the wind.  The praise in Psalm 150 is so effusive because it knows the experience of bitterness, sickness, defeat, and injustice.  It is a praise that lies underneath all the heavy burdens that have been acknowledged in previous psalms of lament.  It is a joy that embraces lamentation, but also overwhelms it with the celebration of God's power.  So Psalm 150 is not a return to the innocence of Psalm 1.

On the other hand, Psalm 1 reads differently in light of the other 149 – especially the description of the trees planted by streams of water.  The fruit of wisdom, patience, longsuffering, and steadfast commitment result from staying planted and stretching one's roots deep into rich, life-soaked soil.

Re-inventing my ministry gets harder every time I recognize the need for it.  The "bag of tricks" I collected in seminary got used up a long time ago.  The capacity for novelty wore off several years back.  But pastoral ministry is not about maintaining novelty or "freshness."  Henri Nouwen reminded us back in the 1970's that the way to stay engaged in ministry is by giving up the illusions of busyness, usefulness, and indispensability, and embracing prayer and solitude.  We are in ministry, he wrote in The Living Reminder, "even when we are with God and God alone." 

It is in the intimacy with God that we develop a greater intimacy with people and it is in the silence and solitude of prayer that we indeed can touch the heart of human suffering to which we want to minister (p. 51).

And earlier in the same book:

Over the years we have developed the idea that being present to people in all their needs is our greatest and primary vocation.  The Bible does not seem to support this.  Jesus' primary concern was to be obedient to his Father, to live constantly in his presence (pp. 30-31). 

I first read this words when I was just starting out in ministry.  They impressed me, but I was too enamored with my own enthusiasm and creativity to have a clue what they meant.  Now, in mid-life, when I have finally, mercifully, reached the bottom of my own well, I am learning how to be present to God instead of present to everybody else.  My task is not to re-invent my ministry, but to acknowledge that the accumulated wisdom of my years of ministry is God's gift, not the result of any clever effort on my part.  And, even more importantly, God's capacity to give is endless.  My well once seemed deep enough to sustain my whole life.  In truth, it is but a shallow bucket next to the living water that springs forth from the bottomless well of God's grace (John 4:10-15).  It is precisely in giving up my claims to legitimacy that I am free to minister out of God's presence – instead of my own.

Copyright 2010 by J. Mark Lawson

 

Comments

[shelley pantoliano]

Thanks for suggesting that I read this - it is actually quite comforting - to know that I am not responsible for being a bottomless well but that God is the one who keeps the living waters overflowing, refreshing and renewing us in our struggles to be the faithful.