Thoughts from the Grinch

I was part of a clegy support group a few years ago, and we were meeting at the beginning of December. As is the habit of minsters during Advent, we were grumbling about how many activities we had added on to our schedules, how much pressure we felt during the “holiday” season, and how little of it had to do with what we considered ministry. At some point I said, apparently with some energy, “Don’t you just hate December?” And they all leaned away from me with shocked expressions. Finally someone said “No-o-o” rather slowly and we went on to another topic. It’s just Richard, he’s a little weird sometimes.

So I shut up about it. And I have to admit it’s gotten better for me. But I refuse to believe that I am the only person in the world who endures rather than enjoys December. We’re all apt to complain about “materialism” when we talk about Christmas as it’s usually celebrated, but it’s more than that—it’s that everything seems to go out of focus. Even when we are at our most generous it seems to have more to do with the season as popularly conceived than with the birth of Christ.

What I’ve come to rely on is the Advent texts. Preaching, not to put too fine a point on it, keeps me sane. The readings for the four Sundays before Christmas, whatever they do for the congregation, sharpen my own focus, especially as they have very little to do with shepherds and mangers and wise men and more to do with judgment and grace.

The other spiritual discipline I observe during Advent is to read W.H. Auden’s Christmas Oratorio, For the Time Being. It’s a long, difficult poem, not for everyone, but it always speaks to me.

On a lighter note, I have a Grinch tie for every Sunday this month. It’s a reminder to me that what the Grinch objected to was the “noise, noise, noise NOISE” (I can relate) but also that the Grinch’s heart was two sizes too small. I get it. I really do.

Calvin on the Spirit's Help

26. And likewise the Spirit, etc. That the faithful may not make this objection — that they are so weak as not to be able to bear so many and so heavy burdens, he brings before them the aid of the Spirit, which is abundantly sufficient to overcome all difficulties. There is then no reason for any one to complain, that the bearing of the cross is beyond their own strength, since we are sustained by a celestial power. And there is great force in the Greek word [sunantilambanetai,translated as "helps"], which means that the Spirit takes on himself a part of the burden, by which our weakness is oppressed; so that he not only helps and succours us, but lifts us up; as though he went under the burden with us. The word infirmities, being in the plural number, is expressive of extremity. For as experience shows, that except we are supported by God’s hands, we are soon overwhelmed by innumerable evils, Paul reminds us, that though we are in every respect weak, and various infirmities threaten our fall, there is yet sufficient protection in God’s Spirit to preserve us from falling, and to keep us from being overwhelmed by any mass of evils. At the same time these supplies of the Spirt more clearly prove to us, that it is by God’s appointment that we strive, by groanings and sighings, for our redemption. - John Calvin, commenting on Romans 8:26

Time Management

What I remember about my first few years in ministry is not being too busy; it’s not being busy enough. I had just come out of a highly-structured environment—seminary—and gone into a rural area to serve two small churches where the only regular structure of my week consisted of two worship services. I had to figure out how to plan my weeks, and I didn’t do a very good job of it. I did a lot of studying, because I enjoy it and it comes naturally to me (I know, I know), but I didn’t really know how to fill up the rest of the week with useful occupation that still gave me time for my family. So I read books on pastoral ministry, talked to other pastors, blundered around a lot, and finally settled into a pattern that worked pretty well for a long time.

Several years later I took a course in time management at a community college. The course was designed for business people but I got a lot of good information out of it, and learned some skills I’m still using. Perhaps the most important piece came on the last day, as the instructor intended that it would. “There’s really no such thing as time management,” he said, “because everyone has the same amount of time—168 hours a week. What we call ‘time management’ is really self management.”

The most important element in self management, at least in my experience, is prayer. My prayer life was spotty at best, even after graduating from a seminary that stressed the spiritual disciplines. It wasn’t until I found myself preaching on prayer that I realized that if I was going to tell the congregation to pray that I had better start doing it myself. Again, I read books, talked to other people, blundered around a lot, and finally found a way of praying that works for me.

Most of us in the ministry have to manage ourselves. We get the same number of hours as everyone else. I tend to see that as a constraint, but I’m trying to learn to see it as a gift. God didn’t need to give me anything, but God gave me 168 hours a week—time to eat, time to sleep, time to work and time to play. I can control about 80% of how that time is spent (another learning from the time management class); I try to see the other 20%, not as intrusion or interruption, but as opportunity for ministry. I admit that’s not always easy, but it seems to work, most of the time.

What works for you?

Do All Dogs Go to Heaven? What Calvin Thinks

It is then indeed meet for us to consider what a dreadful curse we have deserved, since all created things in themselves blameless, both on earth and in the visible heaven, undergo punishment for our sins; for it has not happened through their own fault, that they are liable to corruption. Thus the condemnation of mankind is imprinted on the heavens, and on the earth, and on all creatures. It hence also appears to what excelling glory the sons of God shall be exalted; for all creatures shall be renewed in order to amplify it, and to render it illustrious.

But he means not that all creatures shall be partakers of the same glory with the sons of God; but that they, according to their nature, shall be participators of a better condition; for God will restore to a perfect state the world, now fallen, together with mankind. But what that perfection will be, as to beasts as well as plants and metals, it is not meet nor right in us to inquire more curiously; for the chief effect of corruption is decay. Some subtle men, but hardly sober-minded, inquire whether all kinds of animals will be immortal; but if reins be given to speculations where will they at length lead us? Let us then be content with this simple doctrine, — that such will be the constitution and the complete order of things, that nothing will be deformed or fading. - John Calvin, commenting on Romans 8:21

Quotation for Today

Matt Greaves got me started on Richard Rohr (thanks, Matt), and I found this in a book of daily readings:
If you're still breathing, there's more conversion and more life that the Lord wants to offer you. That's what John the Evangelist means when he writes, You will know that the Spirit is within you “because I live and because you will live” (John 14:19)
Why do we feel the call to this kind of charity, this kind of love? It's not a tactic or a strategy in order to get into heaven. It's simply because that's who God is: God pours forth life in our hearts and calls us to be who God is.
It's the only thing that makes sense: When you know that your parent is love, then the only thing you want to be is love. The only thing that comes logically, naturally, to you is love. Nothing else makes sense after awhile.
There is a given-ness to God. God is not withheld; God is the one who is handed over. That's what we mean when we say that God is love. But it's not like our love. When we love, we wait and see something good out there. It it's attractive enough, if it's good enough, we give ourselves to it. God simply gives. We find that kind of love very hard to understand because we're not able to love that way. - Richard Rohr, The Price of Peoplehood, reprinted in Radical Grace: Daily Meditations by Richard Rohr, p.252

Calvin's Pastoral Concern

Found this today in Calvin's Commentary on Romans. Whether you agree with his interpretation of the text or not, it shows his pastoral concern even as he's writing a commentary:

7. For he who has died, etc. This is an argument derived from what belongs to death or from its effect. For if death destroys all the actions of life, we who have died to sin ought to cease from those actions which it exercised during its life. Take justified for freed or reclaimed from bondage; for as he is freed from the bond of a charge, who is absolved by the sentence of a judge; so death, by freeing us from this life, sets us free from all its functions.
But though among men there is found no such example, there is yet no reason why you should think, that what is said here is a vain speculation, or despond in your minds, because you find not yourselves to be of the number of those who have wholly crucified the flesh; for this work of God is not completed in the day in which it is begun in us; but it gradually goes on, and by daily advances is brought by degrees to its end. So then take this as the sum of the whole, — “If thou art a Christian, there must appear in thee an evidence of a fellowship as to the death of Christ; the fruit of which is, that thy flesh is crucified together with all its lusts; but this fellowship is not to be considered as not existing, because thou findest that the relics of the flesh still live in thee; but its increase ought to be diligently labored for, until thou arrivest at the goal.” It is indeed well with us, if our flesh is continually mortified; nor is it a small attainment, when the reigning power, being taken away from it, is wielded by the Holy Spirit. - John Calvin, commenting on Romans 6:7

Calvin's Preaching

I noted here before that I try to read at least one book on preaching a year. This year I've not only viewed the Craddock preaching tapes I wrote about earlier, I've also read Calvin's Preaching by T.H.L. Parker. Although several thousand of Calvin's sermons exist in manuscript (transcribed from shorthand notes made by various listeners) not that many have been published and even fewer translated into English. Parker had the advantage of access to the manuscripts and gives us the benefit into his research into Calvin's theology of preaching, his style, and his approach to the sermon.

One thing that struck me was Parker's insistence that Calvin's preaching was primarily positive in tone. He nearly always preaches to encourage his listeners. The subjects of his sermons, Parker says,

..are things that have been said in every century; the quiet, persistent call to frame our lives according to the teaching of Holy Scripture...There is no threshing himself into a fever of impatience or frustration, no holier-than-thou rebuking of the people, no beggin them in terms of hyperbole to give some physical sign that the message has been accepted. It is simply one man, concious of his sins, aware how little progress he makes and how hard it is to be a doer of the Word, sympathetically passing on to his people (whom he knows to have the same sort of problems as himself) what God has said to them and to him. We even notice that in the examples given...there is not one direct imperative in the second person. He is content to pass on the message, to declare how unwilling "we" are to accept it and how weak "we" are in general, how slack and rebellious, and then to use the firm but gentle first person plural imperative, "let us..." (pp.118-119)

We can't preach in the 21st century the way a 16th-century preacher would preach. But we can learn from him.