Early in Dostoevsky’s novel, The Brothers Karamazov, a wealthy woman asks Staretz Zosima how she can really know that God exists. The elderly monk tells her that no explanation or argument can achieve this, only the practice of ‘active love’. |
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The woman then confesses that sometimes she dreams about a life of service to others – she thinks perhaps she will become a sister of mercy, live in holy poverty, and serve the poor in the humblest way. But then it crosses her mind how ungrateful some of the people she would serve are likely to be. They would possibly complain that the soup she served wasn’t hot enough, or that the bread wasn’t fresh enough, or the bed was too hard. She confesses that she couldn’t bear such ingratitude – and so her dreams about serving others vanish and once again she finds herself wondering if there really is a God. To this the Staretz responds, ‘Love in practice is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams’. And don’t we all to some extent know the experience of the wealthy woman, and the truth of Staretz Zosima’s words: ‘Love in practice is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams’? A devout and generous priest whose Rectory looked over a race course would come home on a Sunday evening, go up to his sitting room on the first floor, open the windows and shout – ‘You bloody people, I bloody hate you’! He would go to bed, get up the next morning, say his prayers and get on with ‘love in practice’.
What models of ministry are required?
My remarks are addressed to all who are ordained to the priesthood, stipendiary and self supporting ministers, as well as those who might be so ordained. However, I am addressing in particular today those who are stipendiaries, not least because they will be most affected by the processes of re-shaping the church.
I asked in our last session to what are we addicted as ministers in the church? How are we addicted to the models that have shaped us? How is that addiction disabling the building of God’s kingdom? Lest I should be misunderstood, I do not ask this critically or judgmentally. But it would be ostrich like in the extreme if we failed to critique both the models of ministry and ourselves as servants of it. Equally, I do not want to assume that your addictions are mine.
Let me remind you that Jesus did not primarily invite us to become ‘better people’ but rather that we seek to ‘change historical direction’. To do this Jesus gathered a community to model the kingdom, in time that community became known as ‘church’. It is certainly true that if church had not emerged from the Jesus community, it would need to be invented. Peter Maurin who worked with Dorothy Day in the early days of the Catholic Worker, and who was very much a margins man, nevertheless commented: ‘The task of the church is to create a society in which it is easier for people to be good’. I believe that is a very good definition of the church.
Such an outlook has implications for all in the church; for its leaders that in them the marks of goodness may be observed, and to some extent be exemplary; for all Christian disciples that the grace of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, self control, may be demonstrated. For all there is the requirement to recognise as scripture reminds us that only God is ultimately ‘good’.
Making it easier for people to be good
Being good in the sight of God is to recognise one’s sinfulness; to acknowledge the grace of God in redeeming humanity through the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ; and to obey the law of love, seeking justice and peace for all through the inspiration and power of the Holy Spirit. If the purpose of being good – is to create a new sort of society – one in which love, justice and peace prevail, then how the followers of Jesus both sustain and are sustained in that vision becomes vital.
Most clergy have not been trained to carry out Peter Maurin’s perception of the church. Most have been trained to conform and maintain the institution of the church. By and large leadership is not encouraged in the church – and people are largely not prepared for it. Leadership requires a measure of self assertion, innovation and decisiveness together with a willingness to take risks. People who conform tend to score less highly in areas of leadership, and more in the areas of authoritarianism. [1]
Today too, we may observe that traditional ascribed respect – to doctor, policeman, priest – has disappeared. Status has to be achieved on the basis of what people can do. Respect can no longer be demanded, it has to be earned. Many clergy find this difficult and resort to authoritarian behaviour to compensate.
As a bishop I face daily a litany of stories from clergy about their health, their tiredness, their emotional state. I occasionally find myself asking, of myself as much as others; does priestly life attract people who suffer from adjustment problems in life? Or is there something about the structures and processes of formation that induce such problems in the clergy? I don’t know the answer, but I think we may look at some pointers.
When I was about to train to be a priest someone asked me – ‘What’s in it for you’? I remember being offended at the time – a sure sign that a sore place had been touched – and responding that it was a vocation, a calling, a laying down of my life. But was it? Was the prospect of ordination, the potential status, the opportunity to be set apart somehow however subtly, actually to be ‘set above’? Whatever was true then, now I would have to say that ordained ministry searches out and exposes without fail our deepest flaws and our darkest motives; and we can become blind to the impact we are having, and deaf to our people’s cries to be loved.
None of us likes having a sore place touched, but sometimes it is necessary for our healing. So in making an inventory of change: What is in it for you? How have you fared in the testing fire that has sorted the dross from the gold? With whom have you done it? How objective have you allowed yourself to be?
When I was a parish priest I found it the loneliest and most isolated job in the world. The expectations of the parishioners were typical – we want our minister to be charismatic in the pulpit, affable at social events, decisive and efficient at the council meeting, and wise when we are in crisis. The congregation held unrealistic expectations, and I feared losing control. A kind of infantile dependency grew up and mutual trust was difficult to establish because there was an inevitable lack of both transparency and shared responsibility. Familiar?
Community
Few of us want to be authoritarian for we know in inner ourselves how resistant we are to accepting direction from anyone. Most clergy are introverts and being out front is hugely taxing. Dependency is deeply draining. Being a public person and being misunderstood is trying, and self-justification is wearisome. Dealing with our demons in the soul’s dark night without comfort and sustenance, disturbs and debilitates.
So how do we change all that? In a word ‘community’. Unlike Greta Garbo we should not be alone. I am not offering here some narrow definition of community. I do not have a prescribed model in my head. I am not necessarily talking of a single mode of expression, rather I am talking of the principle of ‘no one alone’.
What will that look like? I want to talk about ‘no one alone’ first of all in terms of our personal needs. Dare I begin by stating the obvious? That private prayer in the intimacy of relationship with God is integral to not being alone. For those looking for a more dramatic announcement, this may seem something of an anti-climax; but there is a dearth of commitment to what the old divines used to call ‘devotion’.
Private prayer – conversation with God is essential to those of us who are entrusted with the care of souls. For it is in private prayer that we are exposed to our commitment to personal moral integrity. There is no greater danger to the church today than from priests who do not pay attention to their own personal moral integrity. We are all weak because we all sin; all of us are vulnerable to our deepest most hidden sinfulness being exposed. The care of souls gives us extraordinary intimacy with others. In that intimacy we have access to other’s vulnerability, but at the same time it exposes both our own psychological, emotional and spiritual strengths and inadequacies. It is the place where we discover our deepest fear – ‘now I am going to be found out’. It is the place where we have most need of grace.
Soul friend
Thus, while private prayer and a commitment to personal moral integrity is something we work out with God in the secret place – not alone – nevertheless it is an experience that we need to ‘earth’. Some people have a spiritual director, others a confessor, still others a mentor, or soul friend. No one should be alone here. Each should see it as their responsibility to find someone who will be for them a counsellor of the heart; given access to the places where we would rather not go, for the sake of both our soul, and the souls of God’s people. I hope in whatever form we review our ministry annually, each one will be able to say, in whatever language is appropriate: I have a soul friend.
At different points in its history the church is required to make what might be called a paradigm shift in its leadership. Bishop Ken encouraged the renewal in his day of church, clergy and people, by paying particular attention to education. I believe we are living in similar times where the future of the church is under question. My perception of the task is the re-making of church as community, for community. The challenge is how do we do this? My proposal is a School of Formation.
School of Formation
St Luke in the Acts of the Apostles speaks of the impact of the early church leadership like this: ‘They met constantly to hear the apostles teach, to break bread and to pray’. As I look at the challenges that face us for the future, I cannot see anyway that I, or any of us here can meet them without what might be described as a disciplined programme of ongoing formation. I use the word ‘formation’ rather than training. I do so simply because we are in a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. Relationships are formed and made. We are not ‘trained’ Pavlov like in to the likeness of Christ; but ultimately ‘formed’ into Christ’s likeness as a child is formed in human likeness in the womb.
‘No one alone’ will, should prompt us all to want to become participants in a School of Formation and Ministry Development. Here we will focus on the scripture, ‘the apostles teaching’. Here too we will develop our spirituality, our commitment to serve the community, to mission. We will find confidence to ‘change historical direction’; learn how to be converted to a faith that changes not only individuals, but structures, powers and principalities. To re-quote Augustus Boal – we will become ‘spectators’ struggling free from our addictions. Yes, and we’ll break bread and pray.
Some of what we do in the School of Formation we will do because of our particular role as priests in the church of God; but mostly we will do it with others of the community of the baptised. Such a school will make provision for Readers, and other authorised lay ministries to be formed alongside and with us. We will need to let go something of our addiction to exclusivity. A good place to begin thinking about this is in our chapters.
In the Green Paper the proposals for the formation of Local Ministry Groups offer a range of options for ministry in parishes. Part of ‘no one alone’ will be a growing commitment to build ministry teams working across a range of disciplines from pastoral care to preaching, from bible study to social justice. Learning how to dialogue and make community with the enquiring and questioning as much as sustaining the life of the traditionally faithful. (Since the Green paper was written I have found myself wanting to use the term ‘ministering communities’ rather than ‘ministry teams’).
Episkope - oversight
For some within the church, particularly stipendiary clergy this will be to undertake the role of episkope over-sight. Gifts of leadership will be required here, along with community building and conflict resolution skills. Oversight does not equal ‘lording it over’. This is not a power trip. It is rather a growing more deeply into the vocation of both episkope and priesthood. The School of Formation will seek to provide an environment for forming the skills needed for this vocation.
I would remind some of you of the words I gave during my initial visit to you when describing what it means to be holy, I quoted William Stringfellow:
‘Being holy does not mean being perfect but being whole. It does not mean being exceptionally religious… it means being liberated from religiosity and pietism of any sort; it does not mean being morally better, it means being exemplary; it does not mean being godly, but rather truly human’.
It is in our parishes that we are called to practice and nurture this holiness. And what is true for us about ‘no one alone’, is true for all our people too. As we develop ministry teams (or ministering communities) in our Local Ministry Groups, we will need to pay attention to the same needs in our people as we find in ourselves. Ministry teams will need to go beyond the preparation of acts of worship, or the discussion of pastoral concerns and mission opportunities. Hence the sense, that the term ‘community’ is better than ‘team’. The burden of facilitating such, however, need not fall on the stipendiary. Part of the gift of such a church is that it calls out gifts and ministries previously hidden.
If community is a way to be together, then how it is experienced in our congregations is of significance. In his book Congregation, James Hopewell records how he changed the culture in his churches by making time for people to tell their stories to each other; the story of their life, their faith, their hope and fears. Each was given the opportunity to pitch it at the level where they felt safe. For many the journey took as long as a year, but it became a transforming experience.
The times are urgent, yet there is no race here. To build the coming church, we need a commitment to work together, pray together, minister together, laugh together, cry together, open up the word together, seek God’s saving justice together, ‘think different’ together, for this is a Jesus society that we are seeking to build.
I know my closing story has become familiar to many, but I make no apology for using it again because its bon mot has caught people’s imagination, and expresses something of the hope of what we might become.
Dare I, dare we allow God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit to create within us a base, strong, empowering and liberating? If and when we do, we discover in the heart of the Trinity, present in Holy Communion, present in holy community – the resources to deal with our addictions, the openness to receive for the world, life, breath and love, and the truest sense of our being, - called together and sent back.
Bishop Peter
Wells - September 2004
FOOTNOTES
[1] Brighnam John, Social Psychology New York: Harper Collins
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