Author: winncollier

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Diary of a Plain Pastor: Carried

You can’t go offering the truth to human beings as though it were a sort of insurance policy, or a dose of salts. It’s the Way and the Life. God’s truth is the Life. We only look as though we were bringing it to mankind; really it brings us, my lad.

{Diary of a Country Priest}

If I believe anything, it’s this: a pastor is not a huckster.

Hucksters harangue, they prod. They flash a grin and slap your back and tell a story or two to work their charm. But they don’t show a broken heart. They don’t sit with you in your questions, adding their questions to the mix. They don’t want any complications. They’ve got a product to unload, a point to make. They’re working the vision.

Somewhere along the way, Christianity became a brand. And we pastors became the chief peddlers. It’s a shame. Hucksterism may work to build a corporate identity, a crowd, some momentum. But it’s still a shame, a sham.

I don’t trust a pastor who’s selling something. I don’t trust a pastor who doesn’t know his own story and her own wounds. But show me a pastor who wrestles with the truth and who’s full aware that some answers are hard won, over a life of faith and sweat and laughter and tears – show me that pastor, and I’ll listen, I’ll follow. I long for a pastor who’s living the good life, honest and good.

My hope is that I might be the kind of pastor I’m looking for, the kind of pastor I’d trust. And as I see it, this begins with me owning the fact that my wisdom and leadership acumen is mildly helpful, at best. I don’t have any grace to hand out that hasn’t first been handed to me. I didn’t die on a cross or rise from the dead. I’ve got nothing to sell, nothing worth buying at least. My vocation has nothing to do with hawking Jesus-ware.

My work is to be brought along, to be carried by the Story. I’m to listen and then to retell the Story as best I know – and to never pretend that I’ve got the golden keys to either mercy or mystery. Whatever I know, whatever I’ve been given, it’s been done to me. Grace carries me here and there, and washes me up on the bank wherever, whenever, she has the urge.

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That Word

The word appeared yesterday, offering itself to me, smiling with a lingering curiosity. Would I have the courage to take it up? The word seems tame enough, unassuming; but it asks something of me that will require all my courage. The word asks me to dance when I don’t hear the music, to walk in ways that might make me the fool. The word whispers heresy: there are things worse than being wrong.

This word speaks quietly, but the echoes go on and on. I can play it safe. I can claw after illusions. I can puff up my image and play the game. I can finish each day exhausted with all the machinations. Or I can shrug my shoulders, open my clenched-fists and take a stroll.

Trust.

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Foxes and Wrong Directions

I continue to reflect on what it means to be a bumbler. Bumblers aren’t always effective. Management rolls its eyes at bumbler-types. Sometimes we plod. Sometimes we meander. And – praise be! – sometimes we have potent bursts of inspiration that come as sweet surprise. On the whole, we get done what needs done – but rarely as pretty as others who break through the finish-tape in graceful stride.

One of my favorite Wendell Berry lines (from his poem “Mad Farmer Liberation Front“) gets at this:

Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

I used to be terrified of wrong directions. Wrong answers. Wrong calculations. Wrong words. Exhausting. It tires me just to type it. Of course, there’s no inherent virtue in being wrong, but the fear of making a misstep can keep a fellow glued to his seat. And you have to get out of your seat to live. Or love.

The fox roams about, making unnecessary tracks, tracks that serve no discernable function. They simply arrive as part of the day’s journey, the day’s discovery. They are what we leave behind as we are roaming, figuring out what exactly it is we are to do and where exactly it is we are to go.

And – as Berry says – all of this is the practice (the living) of resurrection. The resurrection refashions the whole order of things and gives opportunity for every step and every sprig – even the misplaced or misdirected ones – to brim with beauty and joy.

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Diary of a Plain Pastor: Blessing

‘You’re in trouble,’ he said. ‘You must bless me.’ And he took my hand and raised it quickly to his brow. Then he was gone. There was certainly a strong wind blowing, but for the first time I saw he hadn’t straightened his tall figure: he walked bowed.

{The Diary of a Country Priest}



Each Sunday, after our church has heard the Gospel and sung our hymns and conversed around a text, after we have passed the peace with kisses, handshakes and hugs, after we have confessed ours sins and received Jesus’ forgiveness, after we have gathered as hungry people around the Table, received our fill and then prayed our prayers of thanksgiving and intercession — after all these movements telling and enacting God’s story – we prepare to leave our space where we have been together. But we are not ready to leave just yet.

We wait for a blessing.

This has come to be one of the moments I most cherish as a pastor. In this holy space, I invite the people to cup their hands, in a Hebrew posture of receiving. Then, with all the authority I can muster, I speak a word of blessing over all who are gathered, our community of sinners and saints.

A blessing is a direct word. It is spoken to a person. I grab as many eyes as I can. A blessing, done right, will not allow the pastor to live in the abstract. I pray the blessing over a mom who hasn’t had a good night’s sleep for ages. I’m blessing the dad who’s getting the screws turned on him at work. I’m blessing the student who cuts herself. I’m blessing the guy who’s slept through our entire worship, the same way he’s sleeping through his life. I’m blessing the couple about to split up and the guy who thinks God’s a bunch of hooey.

But it’s not really my blessing. I am standing there, simply offering Gospel words. I’m reminding my people who they are and how loved they are – and I’m reminding them of their God and of the true story their God is writing for them. I’m blessing my people because I believe with all my heart that God loves them – and because I love them.

Some Sundays labor on, the sermon barely registering or my emotions flat. Some days have all the life of an old, whipped hound. I wish it weren’t so, but so be it. Still, I’ve been granted the sacred opportunity to bless. I raise my hands and raise my voice. People of God, I begin. And then I tell them who they are, and as I tell them, I tell myself. God knows I need a blessing.

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May 21st: Is it Judgement Day?

A friend asked me about my thoughts on the predication of God’s return on Saturday. Here’s his email and my reply:

Winn –

I don’t know if it’s big down where you are, but this whole May 21 “Judgment Day” thing (www.familyradio.com) is getting a fair amount of coverage. It’s interesting that this specific iteration of the end times is so media heavy and coordinated. Maybe it’s just something else to talk about besides Arnold and IMF and all that garbage.

The standard Mt.24:36 retort should be enough here…and their mathematical methodologies seem to stretch things a bit…but I can’t help admitting a bit of uneasiness at this whole thing. Maybe I am just uneasy in my own walk…but still…Any reactions to this whole hullabaloo? Any good chatter in the pastorsphere about this?

with only the slightest amount of trepidation and guilt,

(name withheld)

Hey, _______,

I think it’s everywhere. We’re not the thriving metropolis of Chicago; but on Tuesdays and Fridays we get the news.

No matter how outlandish these predictions (promises, excuse me) seem and no matter how disjointed they are from what the Bible actually says, I understand the unease. I feel it a bit myself. I’ve had flashes of competing temptations: paint my chest with John 3:16 and go running through the streets – or to liquidate our retirement funds and rush the family off to Greece tomorrow, our last chance (ever) to see the Parthenon.

It’s no surprise that we are apprehensive, though – these shrill calls aim precisely at our fears. Our fears of ruin and catastrophic tumult. Most often, however, when Scripture writers spoke of the end of days, it was offered as comfort to those awaiting the redemption of things. The Peter passage (which the May 21st folks refer to regularly) is not a fearful tome but rather Peter’s encouraging word to the Church, to know that God has “not forgotten his promise.”

While God speaks straight words and (at times) firm words we’d rather not hear, God does not incite fear. God prods love. And, as I John tells us, “perfect love drives out fear.” So, if what you feel is fear, that’s not Love. That’s not God.

More importantly, God’s return is fundamentally about hope, not ruin. The “destruction” Peter refers to is not the end of things but the beginning of things, the arrival of the “new heavens and new earth.” (II Peter 3:11-13) Knowing that God is the good and just judge who will, one day, bring all things to their rightful conclusion should encourage us to think circumspectly about our life – and to live with hope, diligence and watchfulness. As Peter says, “Everything in the world is about to be wrapped up, so take nothing for granted. Stay wide-awake in prayer.” (I Peter 4:7)

This wide-awake life does not cower in fear. We walk wide-open into love and friendship. We tell the story of Good News in Jesus Christ. We make music and write poetry and build buildings and raise our children, all the things that God has always asked his image-bearers to be and do. When Martin Luther was asked what he would do today if he knew God was coming tomorrow, he answered, “I’d go plant a tree.”

So, have hope. Receive God’s love. Walk in faith. And go plant your tree.

peace, friend,
Winn

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Divine Therapy

Recently, I enjoyed a conversation between Krista Tippet (on her NPR program On Being) and Vigen Guroian, Orthodox theologian and professor at the University of Virginia. Guroian narrated the various Biblical metaphors for the work Jesus Christ did for the redemption of humanity — though Jesus’ life, cross and resurrection.

Western Christianity, Guroian said, emphasized a “judicial” forgiveness, with the emphasis on debts paid, accounts settled, etc. Eastern Christianity, on the other hand, emphasizes the “divine therapeutic” aspects to Jesus’ work on our behalf. Through Jesus, our senses are restored, our body is healed, our mind made new. Through Jesus, we are given wholeness. Then, the question becomes (and this is more my question) how does the Christian walk into, appropriate and act upon this wholeness that, quite frankly, still seems like quite the pipe dream?

While Guroian contrasts the two theologies perhaps too starkly, his point has traction. Modern Christian theology has at times been too reticent to preach the this-world, very present message of Gospel wholeness, God’s intentions (and enactment in Jesus) to heal emotions, neighborhoods, wounds, families, systems of power, histories. Forgiveness and new creation is more than forensic and future but immediate, personal, now. It is now and it is also not yet. This is the mystery. This is the faith we are invited to experience as well as the faith toward which we hope.

The image centers on the Lord’s Table, the Eucharistic moment where the mysterious Kingdom of God breaks into the now, where our senses are touched, our hunger is sated with bread and our thirst filled with wine. This moment is not only for our memory, to recount what God has done, but for our encounter, to experience in that very meal the healing and restoration, the “divine therapy” if you will, of our Redeemer. Jesus, the Son of God, surrendered all the rights and prerogatives of being King of the Universe to come and heal us. God bled, died and rose again, to restore us to our full humanity, to joy, to life. Life with God. Life with ourselves. Life with others.

The Christian Gospel does not announce a message of self-help. We’ve seen the best of what we humans can manage, and it isn’t enough. What we need is the God of the Universe to touch our sorrows and our bodies, our minds and our memories. We need God to break into our governments and our economies. We need God to restore us, or we’re doomed. Good News: God has come. In Jesus, God is here. Through the Spirit, life and healing is ours. And not just ours, but our neighbors. Friends we’ve known for decades – and friends we don’t yet know. This restoration flows to all.

In all our strivings for new things, whether lofty or mundane, we are secretly reaching out to this new and imperishable life with God. And the promise of that new life, given to us irrevocably through Christ’s resurrection, grounds our hope that rapacious time will not swallow and make waste of our best efforts. In this time of worldwide crisis, we need the energy birthed by such hope as we undertake the daunting task of mending our lives and our world. We also need assurance that, no matter what happens to us, our lives are embraced by Christ’s new and imperishable life. {Miroslav Volf}

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Diary of a Plain Pastor: Bumbler

You’re too restless. Your’e like a hornet in a bottle. But I believe you have the spirit of prayer. 

{The Diary of a Country Priest}

I wish I had a nickel for every half-baked idea, every book I intended to write, every conversation I imagined having – but forgot. My wife Miska sniggers at my forgetfulness and my mispronounced (or made-up on the spot) words (friends have dubbed them winnisms). I’m too restless. I take a number of wrong turns. If I wore a clerical collar, most days it would boast a stain of coffee or smudge of salsa.

That hornet and I share a few things. We’re both bumblers.

Of course, I long to live attentive to God; and I could use a bit more order to create space for that to happen. However, I’m coming to see God among the imperfections, not against them. When you bumble, it’s a bit easier to shed pretense, to stop masquerading as God’s power-broker. I mean, who’s kidding who, right? And the words to the bumbler’s prayer come quick and easy: God, help me.

I’m learning that prayers are better prayed from weakness than from strength. Prayers when I’m lost. Prayers when I’m confused. Prayers when I’m despondent or blue. Prayer for a friend, a parishoner, a neighbor. Prayer for my sons I love and my wife I adore – I ache for the three of them, sometimes I fear for them – but what can I do, other than my bumbling best and ask for God’s mercy.

I once heard someone ask Frederick Buechner to describe his prayer life. His one-word answer: meager. Who am I to judge another man’s self-criticism? But — I’ve read too much of the man, heard the holy tremor in his words, seen glory and imagination dance on the pages. By my lights, every syllable is prayer-soaked.

Slowly, I’m coming to believe that every syllable of my life can be prayer-soaked. I can walk, wrong turns and all, in that “spirit of prayer.” Bumble prayerfully on.

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Words. Seeds. Life.

Continuing a trail from last week, I’ve been pondering the creative power of words. Words are not merely tools, functional symbols. Rather, words are like seeds. They can burrow deep; and given the right conditions and good timing, all kinds of life and beauty can sprout.

John O’Donohue, Irish poet, philosopher and former-priest, recorded an interview with Krista Tippet a few months before his untimely death at age 52. Tucked amid the dialogue, O’Donohue asked, “When is the last time you had a great conversation? Not just two intersecting monologues, but a great conversation?”

What an important question, what a disturbing question. O’Donohue went on to describe what, for him, are signals of fertile conversation:

you overhear yourself saying things you never knew you knew


you overhear yourself receiving from somebody words that find a place within you that you thought you’d lost


you experience an inventive conversation that brought the two of you onto a different plane


the conversation continues to sing in your mind for weeks afterwards

This might not be our list, but it gets at something that happens in enlivening interchanges. Something given, something received. The heart awakens. A discovery. Friendship blossoms. We know it when we encounter it precisely because it’s so rare, a gift.

Often our words are merely a means of passing information or making a transaction rather than a conduit for sharing and receiving life. When Miska asks me about my day, she’s typically not hunting for a ramshackle list of hourly events. She’s wondering what I loved, what I hated, where I was bored – and if I caught any glimpses of God or was caught in any moments of wonder. She curious about me, and words are the raw material for the story she’s asking and the story I’ll answer.

I’ve found that you can’t make such conversation happen, but you can till the soil to be ever ready for the seeds. You can create the space. You can hope for the moments where you truly see and hear another – and are truly seen and heard by another.

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The Diary of a Plain Pastor

And mind you many a fellow who waves his arms like a furniture-remover isn’t necessarily any more awakened than the rest. On the contrary. I simply mean to say that when the Lord has drawn from me some word for the good of souls, I know, because of the pain of it. {George Bernanos, The Diary of a Country Priest}

 

Sometimes my sermons are boring. I know, sometimes I bore myself. It’s actually worse for me. If you’re listening, you have the option of nodding off, and you can even appear especially spiritual if you arrange it to appear as though you are buried intently in your Bible. Standing at the lectern, however, it is immensely hard to snatch a snooze.

Thankfully, Christian preaching is not about capturing attention or giving the congregation a good whirl. Preaching takes shape in the very human act of a Christian community gathering together to speak, receive and obey God’s words. Seldom flashy. This should be no surprise. With my sons, I suspect it will be the mundane, forgotten rhythms far more than the few high-gravity encounters that will most profoundly shape their souls. Dinner conversations, popsicles on the front deck, afternoons mindlessly tossing the ball – it’s all about the rhythm, presence, living our story. The same for a church. We gather, we speak, we listen, we strike the rhythm again and again. We are present. We live the story.

Yet none of this suggests the Bible is dull or lackluster. The Good Book burns. The Word illumines. Preachers use to speak of a “fire in the bones.” I’ve felt that fire here and there. And the priest is right, there is a pain to it. There is a pain to knowing the stories of the friends who’ve gathered, the ones who can barely drag themselves, limp with tribulation or fatigue, to this sacred space. There is a pain to knowing that a few who are listening are giving God and hope one last shot, but just barely. There is a pain when you’ve seen a hint of something beautiful – but you know you have no words and that you can’t make anyone gaze along with you and that, even if you could make them, you wouldn’t because forced love strips all the love right from the thing.

The old priest speaks of God drawing the word from him, this word good for the soul. That seems about right. When one of these fire-in-the-bones moments happen, I confess it’s usually a surprise. Typically, it accompanies a solemn holiness or a rupture of laughter or, most often, tears – but it’s always as if something’s happening to me rather than me making something happen. It’s God prodding, God pushing into my own heart, finding my disappointment or joy or sorrow (for myself or others) and then bringing that hidden place into the open.

And it’s painful. It’s painful to be reminded of your own brokenness and to glimpse the brokenness of others more clearly. This isn’t a woe-is-me pain, for sure. This is the pain each of us knows when we’ve done a good work, and we cry and laugh at the beauty before us. The farmer viewing his crop at the cool of dusk. A mother watching her son walk the aisle. A painter laying down her brush and a poet speaking syllables into life. One of the strangest truths in God’s world is this uncanny coupling of pain and beauty.

But a good portion of my art happens in the parish. I’m a pastor, the plainest sort. And today I’m listening to the old priest and finding my own tale mingled with his.

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The Last of the Last

Claude Choules died yesterday. He was 110.

If Claude’s age were not enough to give us pause, this certainly should: Claude was the last known combat veteran* from World War I. In case your history is rusty, that brutal conflict ended in 1918. Yes. 1918.

Claude entered the Queen’s navy when he was only 15. He wanted to be a bugler for the army, but they put him on the seas. In an NPR interview after his biography The Last of the Last came out (he was the oldest first-time published writer), he recounted memories of the Japanese Navy’s surrender. Catch that? Japanese Navy. Oh, by the way, he was a veteran of both World Wars. Of course, he’s the finale of that generation as well.

Not long ago, after several death left him the last man standing, an interviewer asked Claude for his thoughts. “Everything comes to those who wait and wait,” he said.

Claude said he hated war. Noble men do. And he said his family was his richest joy. The picture below was Claude at 100 kneeling beside his wife Ethel, age 97. This was in 2000 as they celebrated their 75th wedding anniversary. On these days, I pause and think about my own life, about the life I hope for my sons, about the husband I want to be, about the ideas and convictions that I hold dear.

I know there are courageous women and men in every generation (and I name a number as friends). I know that the older I get the easier it can be to see the world in jaded hues — and the more complicated the notion of bravery and ideals becomes. Still, when men like this pass, I do wonder if there are others to step into the gap.

Rest in peace, Claude.

*Florence Green, 108, is now the lone living remnant we have of the World War I veteran generation. However, Florence was never in combat. So, the combat veterans have crossed the veil. Too soon, we will say farewell to all of this era.

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