I live in Florida. As a result, I live with bugs. Actually, I try to live without them as much as possible. We put a screen enclosure around our swimming pool. So do most Floridians who own pools. It keeps the bugs out. Also the snakes, except I found a snake in my pool a couple of months ago. I have not been back in the pool since then. Some day I'll get the nerve to jump in the pool again, but not before I check for creatures that do not belong in the water. I also pay a company $27.00 a month to spray insecticide around the perimeter of my house. If I did not pay for this service, I would be overrun by six, and eight, and one hundred legged creatures. At least, that's what the bug company tells me. They tell me I will find bugs under my pillow, if I do not give "the bug guys and gals" the twenty-seven bucks on the first of each month. Since I see similar "bug" trucks all over my neighborhood, I assume the bug company is telling the truth. Either that or my neighbors are as gullible as I.
The "Bug"
I have been living with another kind of "bug" as well. Not the six, or eight, or one hundred legged variety. No, this is more of an internal bug. As I approach the age of fifty (I still have a year and a half to go) I find myself becoming a little "antsy." I find myself thinking about what it might be like to leave the pastorate and go to work in "the real world." Other than a part-time catering job in college, I have never worked in the real world. I've always worked in overtly Christian organizations -- the YMCA and the church. As a result, I wonder if I'm missing out on the action.
I think of a comment by a Yale professor a number of years ago. He made the remark after reading Coach McCracken's obituary in the New York Times. The obituary told how McCracken was a part of football lore. Apparently, McCracken had heard that his Lafayette football team had been scouted five weeks in a row by Penn State University. Fearing that Penn State knew all their signals, he instructed his players to do what had never been done in a football game. He told his players not to signal their plays at the line of scrimmage, but rather to go back behind the line, huddle together, and in secret, tell one another the next play. In other words, Coach McCracken invented the football huddle.
In response to this obituary, the Yale professor said, "Many congregations look like a football huddle: you know that a very important conversation is going on, but all you ever see are the behinds."
Holy Huddles
I share those sentiments. Many times as a pastor I feel like I'm in a "holy huddle" with my backside to the action. As someone said about the Apostle Paul, "Wherever Paul went there was a riot. Wherever I go, they serve tea." Do not misunderstand me. The clergy have a vital role to play. We clergy types are "to equip the saints for the work of ministry." We train the troops for action, but that's the problem, at least in this stage of my life. I want to get on the front line rather than being behind the line.
What's keeping me from doing it? What's keeping me from leaving pastoral ministry and doing something different when I turn fifty? Materialism. I like the way I am financially compensated. Responsibility. I have an obligation to the congregation I serve. There is such a thing as the joy of self-denial. A "me-generation" person like myself needs to learn more about putting other's needs before mine. Just because it "feels good" does not mean I need to do it. Fear. I wonder if I could survive in "the real world." Could I survive in a workplace that was not overtly Christian? And most of all I stay due to a sense of call. I feel passionate about the Church. I'm writing a dissertation on "one another" passages in the Bible and church renewal. I would miss being on the inside.
Yet, the bug persists and who knows where it will lead. I only know I have great respect for those who put their faith to work in the world -- not just in the church -- but in the world. I think about an optometrist in my Friday noon men's group. He's also a member of our community's Rotary Club. The club happened to be all male. He was uncomfortable with that so he proposed a woman attorney for membership. The officers of the club turned down her request for membership, on the grounds she was female. Bob did not stop. He proposed her again. They rejected her application a second time. Eventually, the situation hit the newspapers. Bob was threatened by other club members. They told him if he persisted, they would ruin him in the community. They would tell people not to frequent his business. Bob persisted. Under threat of litigation brought about by the state Attorney General, the club finally relented. The woman was admitted and a third of the membership resigned from the Maitland Rotary Club. As a result of one person putting his faith to work in the world, the Maitland Rotary Club no longer practices sexism. At least, it does not practice it overtly.
All of us could point to countless others who put their faith to work in the world combating racism, sexism, elitism and materialism. Borrowing Jesus' words, they have become "salt" and "light" in places of decay and darkness. Robert Bellah in an interview with Psychology Today said, "We should not underestimate the significance of the small group of people who have a new vision of a just and gentle world. The quality of a new culture may be changed when two percent of its people have a new vision." In the words of Mother Teresa, "We may not be able to feed the multitudes, but we can feed one."
I tip my hat to all who live out the biblical truth that "faith without works
is dead." And maybe I'm doing more than I think.
Questions for Your Group
1. Share something that "bugged" or frustrated you last week. What put a smile on your face?
2. Draw a line. At one end put "holy huddle" and at the other end put "the
front line." Reflecting on the line where would you place yourself? Mostly
in the huddle? Mostly on the front line? Comfortably or uncomfortably in
the middle? How does it feel to be in that place at this time?