I can remember sitting at the McDonalds at the Bone Student Center at Illinois State University. It was the summer before my freshman year, and I was there for summer registration. During a break we stopped for lunch and the conversation unfolded as my mother questioned as to why I was going to major in History and not History Education. It was suggested that I add the Education endorsement, "because the ministry may not work out."
For the two years prior, I had pursued the ministry for my future. It was my focus, my desire, my passion as I had visioned it. But while I had to reach an obstacle (and I don't consider this an obstacle), from that conversation forward the ministry became less a divine calling as events and conversations revealed that ministry was not as glorified in the minds of others. I met pastors who felt that I should not go into ministry because I was too young. I heard the criticism of the church and clergy by those in my dorm. I heard a campus minister talk about retiring as soon as possible. I heard of scandalous pastors and their zipper problems, money problems, control problems, and struggles with their uncertainty of their sexuality that left churches upset. I heard the stories of clergy from other denominations who had "issues" with children well before the media outcry earlier this decade and the abuse that ensued in other traditions. I served as a youth minister in two different churches with pastors who would not accept responsibility for their own actions.
I can remember lonely rides down the puke filled elevators at Watterson Towers on Sunday mornings and wondering what people were going to think of me as a pastor and whether I should even pursue ministry. As time unfolded, the perceptions of others and anti-clergy feelings became my perceptions and feelings as well. Until I reached a point of breaking down and I found myself kneeling at a cross at East Bay Camp seeking answers and direction as I was only a few months away from graduating from ISU and preparing for seminary.
I was reminded of those anti-clergy feelings again recently as I sat and listened to another clergy who spoke ill of me several years ago go on his verbal tirade about how if one pastor was speaking poorly of another pastor then there was reason to press charges (not legal, but in our church law). I wanted to stand up and confront. I wanted to unleash my own verbal tirade and start a discussion on hypocrisy. I left the meeting and stewed for several days, made comments on my Facebook about biting my tongue. And my anger brought me back into that place of feeling anti-clergy. "What is wrong with you people," I kept asking.
But as the weekend came, I looked in the mirror. I always thought that being ordained never meant being "set apart" as I was told several years ago, but my understanding was to be "set within." To walk alongside, to be one of the people in my congregation and not some glorified punk on a pedestal. Just as I am one of the people, I will get angry and jealous, and be hypocritical. While I pointed my fingers, so there were others pointed at me for my mistakes. If I were to consider such humility in 1997 to kneel at a cross seeking direction, then perhaps 12 1/2 years later, I need to return to that place as well. To be reminded that we all kneel at the cross and ask not only for our sin to be taken from us ... but to also place some of that emotion upon the cross asking God to release me from these feelings that hold me. My confrontation, or desire for revenge, takes God's providence away from God ... is that what I want?
I am glad I am here today ... proud to be in my 13th year of ministry and living among the people of Faith UMC.
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