Being a Pastor Is a Joy!

Lots of posts by pastors and other church workers have been about the negative side of being called to serve the Church. I have read lots about pastors not being appreciated; not being paid enough, being run out of town by hard headed church members. Recently Jared Moore had a Blog post called, “Ministry Isn’t for Wimps”. He talks about how the blessings of ministry outweigh the realities in his post, but how difficult it is to be a pastor. He went on to list difficult things about being a pastor. I would never call into question anyone's experience. I know that being a pastor has difficult moments. However, I wanted to offer the blessings of being a pastor. My experience of being a pastor has been overwhelming positive. Sure, I have moments that have been difficult, but not many. I have served in a small congregation on Long Island for six years. Those were rich years filled with great ministry. I have been serving for the last four years at a small congregation in Concord, New Hampshire. Again, my life has been richly blessed at this congregation. Here are some reasons why being a pastor is such a great calling.

Every day is an adventure: There are some tasks that need to be done. (i.e. Writing sermons, setting budgets, council meetings, worship planning.) However, every day I have something new to tackle, some new wrinkle that I never thought I would have to confront. I love that feeling when I wake up that today anything can happen. People will walk off the street come to the church looking for something and I have the opportunity to be part of their lives for that time. A parishioner will call to ask something of me. I will get to testify at a hearing against the death penalty, or for food stamps. I will get to plan an interfaith worship service about AIDS. These are all different things that make this a very interesting and exciting calling.

I get to be there at the most precious moments of people’s lives: I am there when people are first born, when they first receive communion, when they are learning about faith, when they get married, when they are sick, and when they die. People come to me when things in life fall apart. I always feel that is such a great honor. To have people trust you with their most vulnerable and a broken self is really a sacred and holy thing.

Every week I get to make a speech: I love preaching. I love writing sermons. I love thinking about the people in the pew and what message they might need to hear this week. I love reading the Bible and figuring out how to make these old stories of God’s love come alive and give life to people today.

I love that I am part of the community: At both places I served I felt/feel that I am more than the pastor of the Church. I am also the pastor of a community. I have always felt that people who are not members of our congregation still feel they are able to come to me with issues they face. I have always believed that people serving in public office like having the moral voice of the Church as part of the discussion. I have always lived next door to the Churches I have served and feel like this has only been a blessing to me and my family. It has made me more than a pastor of x church, but a full blown participant in the life of the community I serve.

Lots of time my job is fun: A couple of years ago during the advent season I had a couple of weekends of doing some really great things. I went with our youth group into New York City to see a play and have dinner in china town. I went with the seniors of our congregation to a holiday luncheon. I took a bus ride to Pennsylvania to see a nativity play with people from the congregation. I got paid for doing these things! I get to go to synod assemblies and bishop convocations were I get to be with my colleagues and parishioners in a fun way. My wife will often accuse me of not working because I am having too much fun.

I get to serve others in need: I could do this without being a pastor. However, my job involves serving other people and this is a joy. Sometimes it is heartbreaking because you can’t live someones life for them, but lots of time I get to see miracles happen right in front of me. Someone who was struggling with drugs or alcohol get sober. Someone who was homeless get a job, car, and a house. A family ripped apart by infidelity finds a way to forgiveness. Someone give a moving eulogy for someone they love. I always feel that it is a privilege to serve others.

People thank me often: Lots of people go to work and never get a thank you for doing those jobs. People all the time are telling me how thankful that they are for me as their pastor. Even something little like visiting someone in the hospital is an occasion for people to say how grateful they are that I showed up and prayed with them. Through the years I have gotten hundreds of thank you cards from parishioners, people in the community, and others who thanked me for merely doing what I am called to do. I don’t know many other professions were that happens.

            Every job has things that are hard about it. Pastors are no different, but there are so many blessings to being a pastor. In the ten plus years that I have served as being a pastor I feel every day that it is an honor and privilege to serve in this way. It is not for everyone, but if you are called it is a great profession.

The Jesus Equation

This morning we are going to be talking about the death penalty.

I want to make a few disclaimers at the begging of my sermon.

This is an issue that I know has people on both sides.

I would guess that if I were to do a poll that half of us would be for it, and the other half would be against it.

I am taking a chance this morning that we as a community can handle difficult issues together.

That even when we disagree we can talk to each other about our views.

There is an old saying that pastors are like whale they don’t get harpooned until they start spouting off.

But I am going to take that chance that I might get harpooned this morning I will be spouting off.

And I am not asking this morning that you agree with me.

But I am asking that you be willing to enter into a dialogue.

I never see it as my job to tell you what to believe, or how to think.

Rather my job is to raise questions about what it means to be a person of faith.

To help us to see God at work in our lives, and to help us discern how we live as people of faith.

My sermon this morning is offered in that same spirit, to encourage you to think about this issue not from a political or a philosophical point of view, but from a spiritual point of view.

I trust you all to be able to hear my sermon in that light.

Ever since I was a kid, and I started to think about such things, I was against the death penalty.

To me it does not make sense to kill someone so we can prove that killing is wrong.

I never really thought about it in spiritual terms.

But the more I study the issue, the more I pray about it, I realize that there are many spiritual dimensions to it.

Those are the things I want to talk about this morning.

This morning is Christ the King Sunday.

It is a day when we consider what it means when we say that rules our lives?

What does it mean that we praise a king, who did not win a military victory, but was killed on a cross?

What does the cross mean for us as believing Christians who follow Jesus’ example?

Not too long ago I was talking to a friend who has had a fairly tough time lately.

He lost a lot of things in his life.

Most of it was his fault.

He lost his family and friends because he was an alcoholic.

During that time in his life he had an affair.

He got a rather difficult divorce.

His kids no longer talk to him.

I asked him if he thought that there were simply things that can’t be fixed.

That sometimes there are wrongs that cannot be undone.

He said, “No”.

I asked him why.

“Because I have to believe, and have hope, that I can get back all the things I have lost in my life.”

As people of faith this I think is an essential part of what it means to be a spiritual person.

We have hope that no situation is completely hopeless or lost.

We believe that every day and every moment there is a chance of redemption, of grace, of forgiveness.

Lots of times when we talk about the death penalty we talk about the worst cases.

We talk about people whose acts are reprehensible, makes our stomachs turn, and who do just plain evil things.

Can God work with such a person?

Let us go back to Jesus hanging on a cross.

In Luke’s Gospel Jesus says something really remarkable.

After having been tried in a sham of a trial,

being whipped,

having to carry his own cross beam,

being nailed down with his hands and feet,

while being mocked and spit on, Jesus says, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.”

We can skip over this moment if we want, we can rationalize it away, but I think this is really extraordinary.

Because Jesus could have said something like, “Father, just wait until I get to heaven with you then we are going to really get revenge on these evil people.”

The death penalty is about revenge.

It is about us making ourselves feel better because, “they got what was coming to them.”

Perhaps Jesus words can be a guide for us.

That forgiveness is better.

Not just for the one who did the horrible thing, but for us as well.

Our spiritual selves are better when we can find our way to compassion and forgiveness.

Hatred, spiritually speaking, only eats at our souls.

Another significant thing happens on the cross.

Jesus is not alone in being crucified.

He is there with two other criminals.

Jesus while dying decides to have a Jesus moment.

He talks to them.

He offers them a hope of redemption.

Sure one of them doesn’t seem to want it, or need it, but it is there as an option.

We say those same words as the criminal.

Jesus remember me.

I am wondering if the criminals of our day know that Jesus does remember them.

Do they know that even when we sin, when we do evil things that Jesus remembers us and calls us by name?

Do we know the power that comes with us calling on the name of Jesus?

Using Jesus name does something significant in our lives.

It is a redeeming act of forgiveness, hope, and redemption.

Also, for me, I am always aware that it was the state sanctioned death penalty that killed Jesus.

No way to get around it.

The Romans killed Jesus, and it was perfectly legal.

Now Jesus was innocent we know that.

But this is exactly one of the issues is what happens when we kill innocent people in a vain attempt to get rid of the evil.

Jesus in another parable warns us against trying to get rid of evil.

Instead Jesus tells us to let the good and bad grow together, and let God sort out the rest.

Spiritually, from a perspective of faith, although we can judge good and bad behavior, we can’t say who is good and who is evil.

That is only up to God.

Perhaps I should make one other disclaimer is that I am not advocating for letting people get away with murder.

When people do evil things then we have to judge them and they have to pay for those crimes.

But death is final.

It gives no room for redemption, for God to work forgiveness in us with us.

It gives no room for miracles.

So the question that we are left with is what will be in our hearts?

What will be left…revenge, hatred?

Will we find hope and the possibility of redemption?

Will we allow for the criminal to be in paradise with us?

Will we allow God to work in the lives of people who do evil?

This morning I am not pointing to any of my clever arguments.

I am pointing to our Lord and savior, ruler of our lives, who hangs on a cross and pleads for God to forgive those around him.

I am pointing us to Jesus as an example of what is possible with God.

Like I said at the beginning this is not to say that you have to come to the same conclusions I do.

All I am asking is that we put Jesus into the equation when we ask such questions just like we should with everything in our life.

Because when Jesus is our guide and is example, then Jesus is truly the ruler of our lives.

Amen

Breaking Down Our Temples

Jesus is in Jerusalem at the Temple.

Some people, Luke doesn’t tell us who they are, start talking about what a great mighty thing this temple is.

I have seen only recreated pictures of this temple, because it no longer exists, it was destroyed by the Romans before Luke would start writing his Gospel.

But it was magnificent.

Built by Herod the great it was huge and ornate.

It was a marvel.

If it still existed today I think we would still say what a magnificent building it was.

And the people thought it was a testament to God’s power and might.

It was a testament to religion and how it made us feel safe and secure.

And here is Jesus tearing it down.

Here he is saying that the temple wasn’t that great, saying that it wouldn’t last forever.

It must have been a shock to the people.

No one could have imagined that this strong, fortified, beautiful structure would ever fall.

One of the tricks to preaching is to find connections to the world of the text and us here this morning.

It would seem that we wouldn’t really have any connection to a structure that was destroyed a long time ago.

We have all moved on from that temple.

But I was thinking this week about the structures we build up to protect ourselves, walls we build to remain safe and secure.

We build up all kinds of defenses don’t we?

Sometimes out of mere survival.

We know that things are uncertain, but we don’t want to face those things so we create things that are there to protect us.

We might build up lots of money in a bank account and believe that will keep us safe and secure.

We might build the “perfect family” and think that will help us get through life.

We might create a church with rituals and traditions that make us feel that the world around us doesn’t change.

We might create a fake outside facade of toughness or beauty so that people cannot see what lies beneath.

 Whatever it is we all build walls that are there to keep people out, to make sure that no one knows what is lurking inside of us.

But we also do it to make sure that life is secure.

And then well here comes Jesus to unsettle us this morning, and Jesus starts to talk about the uncertainty of everything.

You think that this temple is great and grand, a monument to God, well that will go away too.

And not only that we won’t know when it will all fall down.

We won’t know when the walls will fall.

That is our experience sometimes isn’t it.

We just don’t know when the next thing will hit.

We don’t know when there will be calamity.

When will our family betray us?

When will we lose all our money?

When will we suddenly find out that we, or someone we love, has an illness that will take their life?

We don’t know when the next war will be or when the next natural disaster will strike?

We don’t know when the structures will fail, when the walls will fall and we are left without our defenses.

Perhaps during these times we look for saviors.

We look for people that have answers, because life seems too uncertain.

We look for someone to make sense out of the chaos.

And that is why Jesus tells us not to follow the people who tell us that they can fix everything or they have some great answer.

Our Gospel for this morning is about the end of all things the time when this world will be transformed into God’s world.

Lots of times we here in these messages warnings about getting our life in order, or behaving for when God returns.

But I don’t here that in Jesus message.

What I hear is a call to have faith during such times.

Not faith in leaders or our own schemes to keep things from falling apart, not in the structures we have built to feel secure, but faith in God.

Jesus tells the crowd; don’t worry when these fall apart.

Don’t prepare for that day with words of defense.

Don’t prepare your testimony, instead live for today.

Live in faith today.

Put down your defenses, tear down your walls, and be present fully today for the world and those around you.

I was watching something this week, I think it was the American Experience documentary about JFK, and someone said that people are more motivated by negative emotions than positive.

So politicians and preachers pry on our fears in order to motivate us to do things.

Sometimes religion has used the negative side to motivate us.

Our fears have been used against us, and we have been told that this thing or that thing is to blame for why life is the way it is.

The Christian message has been portrayed as you better believe the right thing or you will fall into the pits of hell.

I think that Jesus message is much different than this.

Jesus tells us that we cannot build a wall that keeps us safe.

That our behavior however good will not save us.

Jesus tells us that we cannot construct a way to keep away the evil of the world, the unpredictability of it all.

All that is left is to have faith in God.

What is left is not a negative but a positive.

We can live each day in faith.

We can wake up each morning and ask God to be with us as we go out into what is an unpredictable world.

I know that many of you have had these moments when everything just seems to be coming apart.

That it seems that all you have built your life on was a lie, or wasn’t good enough.

Moments when it just seems like the sky is falling, that things are out of place, that we have lost our balance.

I have had some of those moments too.

The day I found out that my Dad died was one of those moments for me.

It was a normal day.

I was getting ready to go on a field trip with the kids from our Congregations summer camp.

I was on the bus taking attendance.

I was living my life, doing what I would normally do.

And then I got a phone call that just made it seem like the world was ending.

In some ways it was for me.

That is the way things happen out of the blue.

There is no warning.

And there is no protection against it.

There is no defense, because the walls are coming down.

Jesus tells us this morning that this is life filled with wars, earthquakes, famines, plagues, betrayal of family, death and destruction.

But that we should not prepare our defenses in advance.

Instead we should live in faith.

We should have faith that Jesus will come to us in those times.

Jesus will give us the “words and wisdom” to stand and witness.

So as we go back into our lives.

We go without a defense, but instead with God, and in God we know we will have the endurance to withstand all these things and witness to God’s saving power.

Amen