Mohammad's Child

Photo by Andrea Bruce for the New York Times

On the cover of the February 9, 2012 New York Times I saw a familiar tableau, three robed figures with covered heads gazing at an infant in a manger beneath rough-hewn wooden beams. The darkness out of which the lighted figures emerged made me think, “Oh, a Nativity by Rembrandt. I wonder how many millions Sotheby’s auctioned this for? Will it go to a museum or a billionaire?”

But, as I looked closely and read the caption, I realized this moving portrait was a photograph by Andrea Bruce of a three-month old child who died of the cold at a refugee camp in Kabul, Afghanistan. The story by Rod Noland inside the paper gave context to this tragedy, deepening its pathos. “He was crying all night of the cold,” Sayid Mohammad explained of the eighth of his nine children to die, six of disease back home and now, two from the cold at the Nasaji Bagrami Camp, where a total of sixteen children 5 years of age or younger had died of the cold so far.

In a headline just below this “nativity,” “a wealthy backer” is betting on a presidential hopeful, pictured with pastors praying for the candidate, heads bowed with a laying on of hands.

But my eyes are drawn to the trinity of women above, contemplating the dead child whose unseeing face looks upward at them, one grandmotherly figure with a slight fond smile (or grimace?), the central somber mother, Lailuma Mohammad, and a younger woman, kneeling with her face slightly turned away, forehead cradled in hand in grief, perhaps his 10-year-old sister who, earlier that day, had foraged some paper and plastic to burn to keep him warm. 

It was not a nativity by Rembrandt, after all. Not the Christ child, but Mohammad’s child. And no less sacred.

I posted this on February 22, 2012 and thought new blog followers might like to read it. Have a meaningful Advent and Christmas!

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Copyright © 2012 by Chris R. Glaser. Permission granted for non-profit use with attribution of author and blogsite. Other rights reserved. 

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.  

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.

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