When Pastors Have Bad Dreams

Okay, so you may suggest I see a therapist rather than share this with you, but there’s something universal in the bad dream I had last night.

Pastors have all kinds of bad dreams: expected to preach when not prepared, missing your sermon as you walk to the pulpit, finding yourself naked in the pulpit, looking out at the congregation at 11 a.m. Sunday morning and seeing no one there, etc.

One of my preaching professors, Bill Muehl, once realized as he was about to preach in chapel at a girls’ school that the sermon he brought was the one he gave the same group the year before. Only it wasn’t a dream, it actually happened to him, and he had to use another sermon from memory, which he used as a “teaching moment” to advise his students to always have a back-up in memory. (I don’t re-use a sermon myself—I get bored with it!)

My most terrifying and recurring dream came to me when I served as an interim pastor: driving a dangerously slick winding road downhill in a thunderstorm at night with no headlights, no brakes, and/or no steering wheel!

Pastors also have good dreams: having just the right insights to offer in a sermon or talk, enjoying a committee’s embrace of your wisdom, seeing the sanctuary filled for Sunday morning service.

My dream last night was more of a nightmare.

I dreamed that there were a mere dozen in worship that morning, and one regular had brought someone new whom others did not like. There was fussing, even as I privately fussed with getting things ready for service.

It ended in a big squabble and as everyone was exiting before worship began, unhappy and disgusted with one another and with me, I suggested that the new person should be made to feel welcome. A friend in the congregation retaliated, saying that I myself had once said something derogatory about a visitor, which I denied, even if it may have been possible.

I awoke from the dream in the middle of the night feeling like a failure as a pastor. I became depressed, and had difficulties returning to sleep. Maybe I’d been a failure my whole life!

Pastors do make mistakes and pastors do fail. Sometimes it’s just not a good match. Sometimes either the parishioners or the pastor or church staff think they know better how to run the church.

Pastor or not, any of us can either unintentionally internalize a congregation’s dysfunction and/or become part of its dysfunctional family system. A congregation I know broke from another because of a dispute, but, when considering reunification decades later, the resentments of the congregation that had split had been passed on to new members not part of the original disagreement.

I witnessed that on a denominational scale when the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. (the “northern stream”) and the Presbyterian Church, U.S. (the “southern stream”) considered reunion a century after Presbyterians had been divided by the Civil War and the abolition of slavery.

My dream did have a sort of happy ending, however, even though the first part kept me awake wondering about past failures.

After everyone left, as I was putting everything back in place in the sanctuary, an old, grey-haired, heavy-set black man came in with his young son or grandson, hoping I would talk with him. He was thankfully oblivious to what had just happened with the congregation, but I was haunted by my old fear, “what-would-he-think-if-he-knew-I’m-gay?” Nonetheless, I was ready to help, and they were ready to talk.

This ending came to reassure me, and I hope I’m not just rationalizing. For everyone I may have failed, there were always more opportunities for ministry.

I daresay many a minister—ordained or lay—may take comfort in that realization.

A reading for Advent: Put Yourself in the Nativity Story

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Copyright © 2015 by Chris R. Glaser. Permission granted for non-profit use with attribution of author and blogsite. Other rights reserved.  

Open Your Refrigerator

During last week’s Beecher lectures at Yale Divinity School,  Anna Carter Florence illustrated what congregations expect of preachers with an unforgettable metaphor, that of teenagers opening the refrigerator, looking at the foodstuffs therein, and complaining “There’s nothing to eat.” Translation: “I need you to prepare me something to eat!”

The Columbia Theological Seminary professor compared this to our expectation that preachers will prepare something to satisfy our spiritual hunger. And both parents and preachers try to fulfill the demands of such expectations, sometimes simply because we can or should, given our expertise and duty, but sometimes also because we feel needed and even powerful. But, just as parents need to equip kids with cooking skills so they can leave the nest, so pastors do best to equip parishioners with spiritual skills.

Anna suggested that right in front of those sitting in the pews are mini refrigerators—Bibles, hymnals, prayer books—waiting to be opened in their pew racks. And, I would add, many of us have books at home, blogs on the internet, blank journals for our own musings, spiritual guides and soul friends, retreat opportunities, and those Celtic “thin places” in nature waiting to be “opened,”  if only we opened our minds and hearts and schedules to their spiritual possibilities.

Anna’s metaphor captured one regret I have about church—that many prefer worship “to do it all for them” rather than embracing their own spiritual adventure. Please don’t misunderstand me: attending worship is a valuable spiritual discipline, but so much more is possible. That’s why I liked Anna’s other metaphor, that of a repertory church whose members actually engage with scripture. As she led us in various exercises to accomplish just that, I experienced what Presbyterian pastor Rick Spalding alluded to in the Q&A that followed: the disciples on the road to Emmaus reflecting on Jesus’ scriptural interpretation, “Did not our hearts burn within us as the scriptures were opened to us?”

I thought of another kitchen metaphor from professor Henri Nouwen’s days at YDS, the opening of his Road to Daybreak when a member of the L’Arche community prepared him dinner in his own home, using fine linens, china, crystal, candles, food and wine. “Where did you get all this?” Henri asked her. “In your own kitchen and cupboards,” came her reply, “You obviously don’t use them too often!”  Suddenly Henri’s eyes were opened to new spiritual possibilities from his own cupboards!

In the story of Martha and Mary offering hospitality to Jesus, Mary is upheld by Jesus himself as choosing “the better portion,” listening at his feet, while Martha is portrayed as distracted, busying herself preparing food in the kitchen. Thus Mary became a symbol for contemplation. But now I wonder if Martha might equally be a role model for many of us, who need to do our own work in our own kitchens, independent of our spiritual gurus.

Copyright © 2012 by Chris R. Glaser. All rights reserved. Permission granted for non-profit use with attribution of author and blogsite. Suggested uses: personal devotions, contemporary readings in worship, conversation starters in classes.  Please click here to learn more about this ministry and/or make a donation!

Watch the You Tube video of the panel Chris Glaser moderated last week at Yale Divinity School, “Religion in the Public Square.”