Conversion

Conversion is not joining a different group,

But seeing with the eyes of the crucified.

-Richard Rohr

On our road trip this weekend, we passed a little country church with a sign out front that asked: "Is your name written in God's book?"  Which I suppose is meant as an invitation to faith, but it seems more like a cosmic scare tactic.  I thought about it very briefly and said to Michele, "I think it must be, because that Dude won't leave me alone."

Later, at a wedding reception, I talked to one of my colleagues from my former Presbytery and we considered together the grind of ministry.  For those of you on the outside, I hope I'm not disillusioning you about what your pastor does, but this job wears on you.  You can work for years and years, with sincere concern for the spiritual health and growth of your congregation, and never see much in the way of results, because there's this thing called sin.  Most of the really good ministers I know have many days where they would rather be doing something else, anything else.  

There are times when the idea of a God who will not let you go seems ominous rather than comforting.  If we are in the yoke of pastoral ministry, and if we are human, we all have Jonah moments, when we just want to run away, and sometimes we do.  But we find that we cannot run from God, we always end up vomited back on the beach (yes, I know it's a gruesome image, that's why it's used in Jonah).

To anyone on the outside who thinks that this is an easy job, I just shake my head.  To anyone who thinks that the life of faith is a crutch or a superstitious sop for the weak minded, I say, "you have no idea what you're talking about."

The reality of this journey of faith is that once you see "with the eyes of the crucified," which is not a pleasant experience, you cannot go back to sleep.  The funny thing is that, from my perspective now, the thing that I always remember as my conversion experience, was actually a moment of profound grace and peace, but it was a definite set up.  It led me into a walk that was going to lead to the cross, and that cross is the practice of ministry.  One of my seminary Professors wrote a book called The Crucifixion of Ministry in which he talks about how you must constantly put your ministry to death, so that God's ministry can take place, it is what Jesus does, and it is the path we are to follow.

When you see your best plans fail.  When your careful sermons meet with, "Hey you kind of lost me there."  When you make agonizing changes and nobody much seems to care.  These are hard to take.

Then there are those times when you know you're over-matched and in over your head, when you're with someone who is dying, when you're holding a new baby over the baptismal font, when you're trying to find some word of hope to speak into a storming cloud of evil; that's when God shows up.

Seeing with the eyes of the crucified is to know that God understands EXACTLY what it's like to be ignored, scorned, schemed against, insulted, challenged at every turn, betrayed one friend and denied by another.  God knows what it's like to get "Hosanna" one minute and "Crucify" the next.

God knows what it's like to really, really want to take a different road, but know it's not "my will, but thy will."

I have heard similar sentiments from writers and artists; that they make art or write because they "have to."  And I know that it's fortunate that my particular calling still comes with a salary and benefits.  Because I know that seeing through the eyes of the crucified is what I'm supposed to be doing, and telling people about it is the thing I am most gifted to do.

If you pay close enough attention to a group of clergy talking you will hear, at least if they're being honest, a great deal of bellyaching.  Know that it's probably justified, but know also that, if they're being true to their calling, there really isn't much else they could actually do, because God won't leave them alone.