Dolphins & Sharks

“Look, over there, there are dolphins in the water!”

Somebody shouted this to me as I began a several-mile run along a beach during a vacation. This stranger was absolutely right. Three dolphins playfully leapt up out of the water and, in tandem, we raced down the South Carolina shoreline for almost an hour. And most of that hour I reflected on that moment when the gracious abandon of a stranger, who might not otherwise have greeted me, alerted me to one of God’s wonders.

Running for me is a time to meditate. Like a Buddhist walking meditation, its rhythm gives me peace and a place for thought. And what I thought was that this stranger had played the preacher—that this is the purpose of any exhortation—to awaken us to such wonders.  Because I believe each one of us may serve as a minister, it occurred to me that this is our role, to shout,

“Look, over there, there are dolphins in the water!”

There’s something about the shore that gives us permission to talk to strangers. I think it’s the elation, even the ecstasy, that we experience in nature—whether manifest in shores or dolphins. It awakens the child in us that freely enters the commonwealth of God.

The stranger speaking to me about the dolphin was purely gratuitous, an occasion of grace. He had nothing to gain by it other than the thrill of sharing the experience. But I proclaimed his gospel to all I passed in my run along the beach,

 “Look, over there, there are dolphins in the water!”

The next day, our last full day along the shore, it rained. And instead of wading into the Atlantic, I waded into all those e-mails I had avoided all week. It was sobering, to get back to business. There’s nothing natural about sitting in front of a laptop, reading a screen and plucking keys on a keyboard.

And I had another thought. Earlier in the week on the beach we had met a couple who alerted us to a shark in the water. It occurred to me that our job as “ministers” (remember, all of us) is not only to point out the dolphins, but warn others about the sharks.

Many of us got too many sharks growing up in our churches and too few dolphins. Like the preacher in the novel and movie Pollyanna, egged on by Pollyanna’s stern and bitter aunt, we heard preachers who focused on the curses found in scriptures rather than its blessings. Pollyanna, the orphan of missionary parents, who herself had every right to be bitter, pointed out to this preacher that there are many more blessings than curses in the Bible, many more dolphins than sharks.

Progressive Christians recognize the sharks infesting the waters of our faith tradition: biblical literalism, fundamentalism, prejudice, exclusion, patriarchy, condemnation, and so on. It’s important that we warn others to stay out of these waters. But it’s equally vital—or all the more vital—that we point out the dolphins of our faith tradition: grace, mercy, justice, compassion, inclusion, blessing, wonder, storytelling, and spiritual truth.

“Look, there are dolphins in the baptismal water!”

 

This week marks the tenth anniversary of beginning my blog with this post from February 16, 2011.

There’s been nearly half-a-million visitors, not including an average of five-hundred free weekly subscribers.

Tax-deductible donations may be made safely in Chris Glaser’s name to the LGBTQ Religious Archives Network. Personal gifts may be made safely by clicking here.  Thank you!

Copyright © 2011 by Chris R. Glaser. Permission granted for non-profit use with attribution of author and blogsite. Other rights reserved. 

 

Henri Nouwen and Fun

"Quick, Chris! Take a picture!"

For my European readers, an international conference on Henri Nouwen will be held in his home country of The Netherlands, November 28-30, 2016. Details may be found at: https://www.drietour.nl/georganiseerde-reizen/europa/nederland/conferentie-henri-nouwen

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Henri Nouwen often reads sad, lonely, and anguished. But that belies the fact that, in real life, he was also a lot of fun.

When I tell personal stories about him or show videotapes of his presentations, participants in my Nouwen seminars and retreats are delighted to be in touch with his playful side. Even his most heartfelt presentations were filled with humor and buoyancy, as he danced around, arms waving and hands gesturing wildly, eyes protruding and neck stretching to make a point, straining with every fiber of his being to reach an audience with spiritually profound insights.

When I first studied with him at Yale Divinity School in 1973, he arranged a Jesuit-turned-clown to serve as an artist-in-residence for two weeks. The mime interrupted our class one session, and Henri grinned, amused like a kid and puzzled, “Oh, so you’d like to take over the lecture?” The mime took Henri’s place at the lectern, and without saying a word, imitated his body language and gestures and facial expressions with such accuracy and detail that we laughed aloud and had fun at Henri’s expense.

In his book, Clowning in Rome, Henri described spiritual leaders as the bumbling, stumbling clowns of the circus, hoping to teach others by our own awkward fumbling in the spiritual life. We are not the “virtuosi” he wrote, not the masters of the trapeze or the lion tamers or the skilled riders of horses, zebras, and elephants.

“They are like us,” we say of circus clowns as we witness their very human antics.

Henri felt that ministers (by which he meant every Christian) serve best when we offer our vulnerabilities, our own woundedness, to others, as in another early work in which he depicts the minister as The Wounded Healer.

I describe Henri’s books as a series of “wounds with a view,” sometimes raw expositions of his own pain, challenges, loneliness, and yearning for the spiritual life. That’s why he touches his readers so deeply.

And that’s why he was drawn to the poor and marginalized of the world, whether those living in poverty in Latin America, people with disabilities of the L’Arche community, individuals living with HIV/AIDS, or spiritually impoverished seminarians and churchgoers. All of these had something to teach Henri—and us—about the spiritual life. Each group also had something to teach Henri about play and simple pleasures.

The spiritual mentor who once wrote of ministers as clowns rather than virtuosi came full circle toward the end of his life when he met and travelled briefly with The Flying Rodleighs, trapeze artists in a European circus. In the video, Angels over the Net, Henri is clearly having fun gazing in wonder as they perform double and triple jumps high above their net. He himself skips toward the circus with a child with Down syndrome, and together they playfully bounce on the circus net.

When he tried to explain his newfound wish to be a trapeze artist, his Dutch accent and his earlier extended stays at a Trappist monastery prompted hearers to think he wanted to become a Trappist rather than a trapeze performer!

Though Henri taught at Notre Dame, Yale, and Harvard, he found his final home with people with developmental disabilities, who had little idea of his accomplishments but who loved him just for being with them.  They brought out his playful side, the fun of living in the moment.

And for Henri, living in the moment was touching eternal life here and now.

Click here for all posts that reference Henri Nouwen and scroll down.

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Copyright © 2016 by Chris R. Glaser. Permission granted for non-profit use with attribution of author and blogsite. Other rights reserved.  

What to Expect of a Pastor

This is as much about what NOT to expect from a spiritual guide or pastor as it is about what to expect.

We can expect pastors to be compassionate. Compassion manifests itself in a variety of ways. Maybe they take great care to get to know everyone—which, incidentally, most pastors say takes two to five years. Maybe they administer well and fairly. Maybe they spend a lot of time on lesson plans, meeting agendas, worship liturgies, or constructing a sermon.

Maybe a pastor emphasizes the “passion” of compassion, and can set a fire under your pew to help those in need and to work for peace, justice, and equality. Maybe a pastor manifests the “suffering with” that compassion literally means in pastoral care and counseling and spiritual direction.

The pastor may be gentle, someone you want to talk to, or the pastor may be charismatic, someone you want to listen to. The pastor may be introverted, more of a contemplative, someone who needs more time alone.  Or the pastor may be extroverted, wanting constantly to be among you. Compassion comes in many forms, and the majority of pastors would not be in their profession if deep down they were not compassionate.

Pastors may not have time to memorize a sermon, given other pressing responsibilities. They may not be natural speakers. We are spoiled by politicians and megachurch preachers who have the benefits of teleprompters speaking to us as if they are not reading what they are saying. Or we’re impressed by speakers who have the advantage of saying the same thing over and over again to different audiences. And some of us have been spoiled by senior pastors of large churches whose only job all week is to write and practice their sermons, while associate pastors do the day-to-day “hands on” ministry.

We can’t expect pastors to be like the pastor of our church in which we grew up; in some cases, we may hope they aren’t! We can’t expect a pastor to be a parental figure for us: he is not our father, she is not our mother. Though we can expect a pastor to be friendly and a kind of friend to all, and we might be blessed with a pastor as a personal friend, we cannot expect this. True friendship is a gracious gift, not something we can write into a job description.

The pastoral relationship is a professional relationship. You might be friends with your doctor or therapist or lawyer, but you would not expect this when engaging them to do their work. Indeed, close friendship might even interfere with the professional distance required to be effective, being of real help. Think of the things you withhold from a spouse or a friend. Think of the ways we avoid challenging a spouse or friend.

We can’t expect the pastor to be psychic, always knowing when we need to talk. As our own best ministers, each of us must take responsibility to ask to talk with the pastor when her or his ear is needed. Some I have served have gone through tough times only to tell me later they didn’t want to bother me because I was so busy. Now this may be Southern for “mind your own business,” but sometimes I felt I was attending to lesser issues rather than vital issues.

A church member once laughed when she confessed that she was an adult before she realized that pastors got paid. Some of us have the feeling that pastors should do what they do for the mere love of it. This is where the distinction between ministers and pastors is helpful. All of us as Christian ministers are called to do what we do for the mere love of it, not for the reward of heaven or human praise, but because we can derive satisfaction by doing what is right, just, and charitable. Part of our own ministry must be to support pastors adequately so they may devote their time to shepherding our congregation.

We can expect a pastor to need our support. The best support a pastor could have is regular attendance at worship and any classes and special programs she or he devises.

Offer a pastor one-on-one positive and critical feedback, in person and in private, just as the biblical injunction suggests, rather than presenting it to anyone else through gossip or in meetings. Rage or blaming or innuendo works about the same with a pastor as it does with a spouse or a friend.

Have regard for her or his personal life, not expecting pastors to attend every event, not using their partner or child or friends as a means of communication or manipulation. All of this is a two-way street: you can expect a pastor to behave like a professional, offering one-on-one feedback in private when allowed, avoiding rage or blame or innuendo, addressing but not creating conflict through e-mail, not using partners or children or friends as a means of communication or manipulation.

Trust pastors to be professionals. If you can’t get them on the phone, or if you find them running a personal errand, trust that they have arranged their schedule in such a way to fulfill their professional responsibilities. Pastors I know work well over a 40-hour week, and even when not formally at work, they are constantly thinking about what could be done to improve the life of the congregation. That’s what pastors do.

Expect all church leaders to be professional, even as volunteers. Sometimes we excuse unprofessional behavior with the caveat, “Why, they’re only volunteers.” Expect church leadership to observe and preserve professional boundaries. Expect them not to be abusive verbally, emotionally, sexually, or spiritually. Expect them to live a life with as much integrity as possible. Expect them to confront anything that might interfere with their professionalism, even as volunteers, such as addictions, control issues, or problematic partner or child. Expect them to follow professional protocols, procedures, and decorum.

But then expect the same thing of yourself. Do not be seductive and abusive with your leaders. Have as much integrity as possible. Confront your addictions, control issues, or problematic partner or child. Behave professionally in your process and behavior.

And above all, don’t expect the pastor or any church leader to be any more perfect than you are! In the spiritual life, I believe, the goal is integrity, not perfection. Mistakes are made by all of us, thus forgiveness is foundational for a spiritual community. Perfection suggests that we may finally “arrive”—a source of false pride—while integrity is a lifelong spiritual progress of integrating our beliefs, words, actions, feelings, and wisdom. Think of it as juggling; you may drop a ball, but you pick it up and start juggling again. None of us are perfect jugglers, but we are steadfast jugglers or we give up all together.

Last week’s blogpost served as prelude to today’s post. Check it out if you missed it:

God Is Our Shepherd.

Please support this blog ministry by clicking here. Thank you!

Progressive Christian Reflections is entirely supported by readers’ donations. It is an authorized Emerging Ministry of Metropolitan Community Churches, a denomination welcoming seekers as well as believers.

Copyright © 2014 by Chris R. Glaser. Permission granted for non-profit use with attribution of author and blogsite. Other rights reserved. 

God Is Our Shepherd

I will be speaking Oct. 7 on the Prince Frederick (2:30 p.m.) and La Plata (6 p.m.) campuses of the College of Southern Maryland on the “Intersection of Faith and Sexuality” related to Coming Out Day. The events are free.

Pay no attention to the man or woman behind the curtain, behind the pulpit, or behind this blog!

Our first love, our first allegiance, our first lover, our first faithful relationship, is with God. No one will care for us as God does. No one loved us before we were born as God has. Few will love us forever as God will. “Till death do us part” we say in marriage, but even death does not separate us from God’s love.  I believe the scriptures witness over and over again that God is our Shepherd in life and in death and always.

Our faith in this God is not and should not be dependent on any leader, writer, or congregation. We have to work our own programs, as they say in 12-step groups. And, as Jesus said about the Sabbath, the day of rest and reflection on spiritual matters, the Sabbath is made for us, not us for the Sabbath.

All Christians are ministers. I believe we are all called to extend the right hand of fellowship to one another in a myriad of ways. Nothing will tightly bind us together like sharing our selves. It’s risky, it’s vulnerable, we might disagree, but God is everyone’s Shepherd.

There are over five hundred references to sheep in the Bible. The references in Jewish scriptures are usually literal, while the references in Christian scriptures are usually metaphorical.

Lest we think the metaphorical reference to us as the sheep of God’s pasture in Psalm 23 is a pejorative image, one of docility, it’s important to know that sheep, like us, are highly gregarious. Because they look for adventure, much as we do, they are easily lost. Just as we know truth when we hear it, sheep know the voice of the one to whom they belong, and the shepherd of biblical times typically knew each sheep by name.

But sheep are unaggressive and defenseless, and thus dependent on good shepherds whose staffs guide them to quenching waters and nourishing pastures, those whose rods ward off predators: wolves and poachers—thus, in Psalm 23, the Shepherd God’s rod and staff comfort the psalmist, offering protection and guidance. Note that the rod was not there to be used on the sheep—only on predators.

The ideal religious leader has been patterned after God as Shepherd. Not just in Jewish  and Christian cultures, but others as well. God through the prophet Jeremiah despairs at the bad religious leaders of Judah, “the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture.” Jeremiah also speaks of religious leaders whose ungodliness has allowed the people to enter “pastures of the wilderness [that] are dried up.” He decries those who comfort rather than challenge those unwilling to make the personal transformations needed to be right with God and with one another.

I believe all ministers—which again, means all Christians—are called to confront our addictions, our rage, our bitterness, our self-absorption, our passive-aggressive behaviors, our manipulativeness, our materialism, our control issues, our violence (in whatever shape it takes), and our inattention and even apathy toward all things spiritual.

Each of us knows what we need to change within ourselves to make our spiritual communities work. When a congregation finds itself in a dry patch, Jeremiah’s  “pastures of the wilderness [that] are dried up,” it is not necessarily the fault of pastors, past, present, or future. It is because we have not taken our own ministries seriously.

Thus we may all, with Jesus, see the great crowds of those with needs, and have “compassion for them, because they [are] like sheep without a shepherd.” Having described Jesus’ compassion in this way, the Gospel of Mark says, “Jesus began to teach them many things.”

Some ministers have a vocation, a “still, small voice” calling them into pastoral leadership. Pastors are different from other ministers in job description but not in kind. They are given the leadership role of a flock, a congregation. “Pastor” comes from the Latin word for “shepherd.” When we hire them, we covenant to respect their training, their experience, their guidance, and their leadership.

Toward the end of the film version of L. Frank Baum’s wonderful children’s story, The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy and her friends, the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Lion, with Toto’s help, all discover the man behind the curtain manipulating images in an attempt to pretend he is a Great Wizard. This is a huge disappointment for Dorothy trying to get home, the Scarecrow wanting wisdom, the Tin Man wishing for compassion, and the Lion hoping for courage. When Dorothy’s dog, Toto, pulls the curtain back, they see the Wizard for who he is.

“Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain,” the would-be Wizard says in his artificially amplified voice. When they realize they have been duped, Dorothy says to the so-called Wizard of Oz, “You are a very bad man!” The would-be Wizard corrects her, saying, “No, I am a very good man. It’s just that I’m a very bad wizard.” Then he shows each of them that what they are looking for already resides within them, even the ability to find home.

Spiritual leaders are usually good people. But they are not wizards who can necessarily give us wisdom, compassion, and courage, or get us home.* At best they can help us find our own wisdom, compassion, and courage, and help us find our own way home. And all interim** and imperfect shepherds can only point to the One who is our permanent and perfect Shepherd.

God is our Shepherd.

This post serves as prelude to next week’s post, “What to Expect of a Pastor,” which is as much about what not to expect!

*I first used this metaphor in a sermon for my seminary community in the 70's.

**Having served as interim pastor of three congregations in transition, I have come to realize that all spiritual leadership is “interim,” that is, temporary.

Please support this blog ministry by clicking here. Thank you!

Progressive Christian Reflections is entirely supported by readers’ donations. It is an authorized Emerging Ministry of Metropolitan Community Churches, a denomination welcoming seekers as well as believers.

Copyright © 2014 by Chris R. Glaser. Permission granted for non-profit use with attribution of author and blogsite. Other rights reserved. 

Where Your Treasure Is

“Master, you are wonderful! You have renounced riches and comforts to seek God and teach us wisdom!”

“You are reversing the case!” The saint’s face held a mild rebuke. “I have left a few paltry rupees, a few petty pleasures, for a cosmic empire of endless bliss. How then have I denied myself anything? I know the joy of sharing the treasure. Is that a sacrifice? The shortsighted worldly folk are verily the real renunciants! They relinquish an unparalleled divine possession for a poor handful of earthly toys! … The world is full of uneasy believers in an outward security.”

I chuckled over this paradoxical view of renunciation—one that puts the cap of Croesus on any saintly beggar, whilst transforming all proud millionaires into unconscious martyrs.

Paramahansa Yogananda tells this story about Bhaduri Mahasaya in his Autobiography of a Yogi (1946) that I am presently reading. In a previous post I referred to Yogananda as founder of the Self Realization Fellowship whose grounds in southern California I frequented in college. While the supernatural experiences of Eastern tradition reported in this book are hard for this Westerner to believe, the philosophy is persuasive and powerful.

While I have not attained the saint’s dispassion toward rupees and “earthly toys,” many if not most of my colleagues in ministry will identify with the saint’s preference for the spiritual life. To whatever degree we have “gone without,” given the culture’s greater monetary valuing of other professions, we have realized our greater dependency on spiritual treasure—the satisfaction of pastoral care, of preaching and writing, of attending to matters of the heart and soul rather than simply to matter and materialism.

A church member once told me that she was well into adulthood before she understood that ministers were paid! And I’ve met people who think spiritual leaders should do what they do for the sheer joy of it, unlike other vocations.

“Worldly people do not like the candor that shatters their delusions,” Bhaduri Mahasaya explained to Yogananda. The gurus Yogananda writes about receive rupees in their slippers from followers. And though I am not a guru, I am grateful that a few of my readers have put rupees in my slippers!

When I was ordained by MCC in 2005 after a professional lifetime denied ordination by the Presbyterian Church simply because I’m gay, I chose for the Gospel lesson Jesus’ words on God’s Providence from the Sermon on the Mount, which reads in part, “Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly [Creator] feeds them.” It is the scripture that gets me through the tough times when I do not rise to the level of a saint’s disposition!

Progressive Christian Reflections is an authorized Emerging Ministry of MCC. Donations are possible by mail or credit card. Thank you!

Related posts:

I Wanted to Be Famous

Has Been

Our Own Fiscal Cliffs

Copyright © 2013 by Chris R. Glaser. Permission granted for non-profit use with attribution of author and blogsite. Other rights reserved. Check out past posts in the right rail on the blogsite. Consider using a post or quotes in your congregation’s or group’s newsletter, including the blog address: http://chrisglaser.blogspot.com. 

Wounded Healers

Copyright © 2012 by Chris R. Glaser. All rights reserved. Permission granted for use in gatherings with attribution of author and blog site.

A month or so ago on the internet, I happened onto a recent review of my first book, Uncommon Calling: A Gay Christian’s Struggle to Serve the Church. While giving credit to my activism of forty years, the review took me to task for being “self-obsessed” and, while insisting homophobic people change their ways, failing to confess things I needed to change in myself other than my shame and lack of pride.

I understand that people do not read as carefully as they used to, but the book listing under the genre “biography” as well as the subtitle should warn readers that the book is intended to be autobiographical. I completed it 25 years ago this summer, and it came as a result of being asked to tell my story so many times that I thought I’d save everyone’s time and trouble by telling it in print.

It appeared at a time in the LGBT movement when many of us thought personal narrative was the best way to overcome heterosexism. And I was persuaded by Carl Roger’s dictum that "what is most personal is most universal," as practiced by my spiritual mentor Henri J. M. Nouwen. Nouwen believed the minister (every Christian) was, according to a rabbinic story, the wounded healer who unbinds and binds her or his wounds one at a time, so as to be ready to help others unbind and bind theirs. It could be said that each of his books on the spiritual life revealed some personal wound being dressed and addressed in the hopes of helping others with similar wounds. 

Henri once wrote that the “J. M.” in the middle of his name could stand for “Just Me.” He believed that the minister (again, every Christian) was called to live a life offered to others. The autobiography or memoir is said to have first appeared in The Confessions of Saint Augustine, and spiritual autobiography has long had a place as a means of doing theology. I lead workshops and retreats on spiritual autobiographical writing, encouraging participants to tell their stories.

But I also wanted to tell the story of one denomination (the Presbyterians) struggling with the issue of openly gay and lesbian Christians in their pews and pulpits. Recently preparing my letters from Henri for donation to his archives, I ran across his advice on an earlier version of the manuscript that I focus on myself rather than the church—that that’s what readers would want. I chose to tell both stories, because for me, I was only an example of what LGBT people were experiencing in every denomination. I dedicated the book “To gays and lesbians who struggle to keep faith,” by which I meant religious faith as well as faith in ourselves. The most frequent response I’ve gotten to the book is, “You told my story,” which is exactly why I wrote it.

As to the dismissive tone in the review about my need for conversion from shame to appropriate pride: most LGBT Christians of the era and even today will tell you that this was the most important transformation we had to make. “Out of the Closets and Into the Kingdom” was my final paper for professor Letty Russell’s Liberation Theology course.  It meant giving up self-denigrating, LGBT-denigrating, even suicidal behaviors to embrace who we are as beloved children of God, citizens of God’s commonwealth.

Throughout the book, I explain that homophobia is something we all are working on, gay and straight alike. And when I talk about the need for the church to change, I tried to put it in “we” language, as I am part of that church and its needed reformation. That I didn’t feel the need to use the book as a private little confessional was to save the reader from “too much information,” as well as to reinforce the purpose of the book: to gain acceptance for LGBT people who should not be rejected because we also sin. Toward the end of the book, I wrote, “How can I reject the church for a lack of integrity when I also struggle to more fully realize this goal? … I’ve abandoned perfection as a spiritually desirable goal. How can I then require perfection of the church?”

I am not providing the link to the review because I understand that snarky commentary is used to draw people to blogs. I notice this when I post something edgy on this blog, and I try to avoid playing to this. The comments on the review reinforced this notion—an internet lynch mob was forming, as one wrote that I must be a young person, part of the “me” generation, and another, noticing my longevity in the movement, said I was probably one of those self-absorbed boomers of the 60s. Perhaps that’s most disturbing of all, that people who have not read the book or any of my work feel entitled to form an opinion about it.

Nouwen, whose reputation grew from his early book, The Wounded Healer, came toward the end of his life to understand how people can hook us in our wounds, as he describes in The Inner Voice of Love: “People will constantly try to hook your wounded self. They will point out your needs, your character defects, your limitations and sins. That is how they attempt to dismiss what God, through you, is saying to them.”

Consider me hooked. But don’t dismiss what we might learn from all this.

+++

Chris will be leading a seminar, Henri Nouwen: The Wounded Healer, February 28-March 3, 2013 for the Spiritual Formation Program of Columbia Theological Seminary in Atlanta, Georgia. The public is welcome!

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Shoveling Manure

Copyright © 2011 by Chris R. Glaser. All rights reserved.

Jesus described a fig tree that had borne no fruit for three years, and the owner wants it cut down. “Why should it be wasting the soil?” the owner questions the gardener. But the gardener patiently replies, “Let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.”

The subtext is what will happen to a spiritual community that does not produce fruit. Yet Jesus offered hope for its redemption. The owner is ready to cut the tree down, but the gardener says, let me put a little more manure on it and give it another year. This is a story about being given another chance, another opportunity—in this case, to bear fruit.

I love the relationship of manure to fruit in this story. Too many Christians have a high propensity for manure and a great tolerance of manure. We prefer to speak of bearing fruit, but it’s important to remember the manure we plow through just to be in church on Sunday mornings.

There is a Buddhist story of a monk who went from monastery to monastery, trying to find the right one for him. He would spend six months at one, then pick up his bag and leave. He spent three months at another, then pack his bag and leave. A year at still another, then pick up his bag and leave. Observing this over time, one monk said to another, “His bag long ago got dipped in manure and he carries it wherever he goes, thinking the smell of manure is coming from the monastery he’s visiting rather than from his own baggage!”

Many of us are carrying religious baggage that long ago got dipped in manure, and we smell it whenever we even think of church. If we don’t give up altogether, this is what makes us hungry for progressive theology and thirsty for an inclusive spiritual community. The manure from our past bears fruit in those of us who have had it with bad theology and damning rhetoric. We still get a whiff of it from time to time, sometimes in a scripture or a hymn or a sermon, sometimes in a conversation or an e-mail or a meeting, but we try to counter it with the aromas of opening blossoms and ripening fruit.

Speaking to a conference of clergy, William Sloane Coffin said that ministers are like manure—effective when spread out in the field, but when heaped together, a little overwhelming. All Christians are ministers, and heaped together, we can be a little overwhelming!

But if we indeed remember and act as if each of us is a minister—that is, a prophetic voice, a pastoral ear, a “wounded healer,” and a priestly actor, we will reach those who need to know about this thing we call progressive Christianity. Encouraging us is this parable of the fig tree, this parable of another chance, this parable of redemption, this parable of using the manure we’ve been given to bear fruit.