are its demands, how seemingly small are our resources, how indifferent if not hostile the culture appears to be, how frustrating the church and its governing bodies and congregations often prove to be, and how weary any pastor can become. This book is not a recruiting tool for seminaries.
But neither is it a cry of despair or a rant at the impossible nature of the job. Curiously the book inspires. So many of the reasons that are given for calling it quits are exactly what reveal this impossible work to be a gift. It is when ministry turns into a project that we are tempted to “call it quits.” It is when ministry becomes a career that we burn out. It is when the impossible nature of ministry is forgotten or reduced to something that can be managed that it ceases to be a joy.
I know that ministry is hard. But it is not heavy. It becomes heavy only when we make it so, only when it becomes about our strategies for success, or more likely, our explanations for failures. No, this yoke is light. Hard but light. We are playing with house money. That is what ministry really is.
In trying to frame a response to Willimon’s book, I kept thinking of Luther’s hymn, “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.” We think of that hymn, rightly, as a great Reformation text and we sing it lustily at the end of October, celebrating its triumphal notes. Its lyrics constitute one of the best and most succinct statements of the Christus Victor theory of the Atonement. But the lyrics also have a great deal to say to those who are foolish enough or daring enough to take up the work of ministry. “Did we in our own strength confide, Our striving would be losing.” What makes ministry possible, not to put too fine a point on it, is the fact that “the right man is on our side, the man of God’s own choosing.” Luther knows that the most implacable foes of ministry are not the relentless demands of the work or the paucity of resources but the “principalities and powers” that are capable of making us despair of God’s work in the world, giving into the temptation to believe our self-doubts and manifold failures to be more powerful than God’s grace. Behind such despair, of course, is an even larger pride, and behind that, an even more massive amount of self-absorption from which only God can deliver us.
“Dost ask who that [Deliverer] may be? Christ Jesus, it is he; Lord Sabaoth his name, From age to age the same.” And, oh yes, lest we forget, “He must win the battle.” This “little word” is stronger than all the things that “threaten to undo us.”
So, knowing all of the reasons not to enter into this work becomes an occasion for laughter. Who did we think we were kidding? Did we think it was our virtues, our charming personalities, our expertise that was at stake here? Did we think this “career” would allow us to finish on top? Like who? The disciples? The prophets? Jesus? No, the only reason to go into this work is for the joy of it all, the dumb, stupid joy of it all, the joy that knows that in proclaiming the word, entering into the hearts of fellow pilgrims, pulling out of the treasure of the gospel what is new and old, we have been given a surpassingly marvelous gift, and are engaging mysteries beyond our capacity to state or comprehend.
Yes, the work is hard, very hard. But it is not heavy.
26. Schmemann, The Journals, 129.
27. Ibid., 137.
28. Ibid., 193.
29. Barth, Dogmatics in Outline, 123.
30. Schmemann, The Journals, 193.
31. Barth, Church Dogmatics III/4, 68.
32. Weil, Waiting for God, 61.
33. Brown, Introduction to Hope Against Hope, xxii.
34. Barth, Church Dogmatics IV/1, 234.
35. Cf. Auden, The Dyer’s Hand, 177.
36. Schmemann, The Journals, 291.
37. Pearson, The Smith of Smiths, 230.
Chapter 5: Reading for Ministry
October 15, 2002
In his book, Pastor: The Theology and Practice of Ordained Ministry, Will Willimon reflects at length on one of the great readers of the faith, Augustine.
One reason Augustine makes for such good reading in this century is that he had a life-long fear that we might be alone in the world. Our age is widely noted as a time of widespread alienation and loneliness. Fear of isolation, of loneliness, permeates much of Augustine’s account of his life. Are we here by ourselves? Is there anyone else out there or in here, or are we left to our own devices? “Was I anywhere? Was I anybody?” he asks. Without the means to make connection with others, we are others even to ourselves. C.S. Lewis says, We read to know that we are not alone.”38
Words are the means toward community, communion.
The Confessions begins with “I, I,” and ends with “You, You.” All of our little words gesture toward the Word . . . . [Augustine’s] life in Christ really begins by being confronted by the Word, “Take up and read, (tolle, lege) . . . . His is a journey through words to the Word . . . . His life culminates in, of all endeavors, biblical exegesis. The goal of life is the interpretation and performance of Scripture. All of our words are meant to find rest in the Word . . . . Augustine’s testimony is an invitation to risk vocation, to go on the journey he has made, to venture forth with the expectation of discovering (or being discovered by) a new world, of learning to read as a primary way to God.39
Willimon thinks that it was Ambrose who taught Augustine how to read scripture “and thus, how to read the world.” I don’t know if that is right or not, but I do know that learning how to read scripture teaches us how to re-describe our world, that is, to describe it not just as the scene of getting and spending or self-realization, but as the scene of God’s life-giving and person-making forgiveness and grace.
The word that is spoken to us invites us not only to hear but to read.
February 23, 2005
In the most recent edition of The Christian Century, the editors have asked various luminaries to reflect upon the teachers they had in seminary who changed their lives. I was particularly struck by Will Willimon’s memory of being at Yale in the late 1960’s, and his remembering of Paul Holmer, a Lutheran theologian. Those days were turbulent times. One night the students gathered to hear Holmer and
our great hero, William Sloane Coffin [a Presbyterian minister, and at the time, Chaplain to the University, whose most recent book, Credo, is currently a bestseller.] debate the role of the pastor. I don’t know why someone invited Holmer to such a debate; like Soren Kierkegaard [whose work constituted part of Holmer’s own field of interest], he was generally contemptuous of clergy. Coffin opened with an exciting exposition of the pastor as agent of social change. ‘Because you visit and work with people in a variety of settings, you can organize them to work for justice. You will have important people in your churches—bankers,
