Killing the savior

"The Zen Master warns: “If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him!” This admonition points up that no meaning that comes from outside of ourselves is real. The Buddhahood of each of us has already been obtained. We need only recognize it."

I am not Buddhist.  But I heard this saying back when I was in seminary and I've remembered it.  I won't attempt to interpret this from a Buddhist perspective.  But it causes me to think of  my own situation and experience of being bipolar, and stimulates yet another thought.  Perhaps the opposite thought.

"If you meet a savior within yourself, kill him!"

If there is one word that best describes my manic side it would be 'savior'.  It's wrapped in a sense of a holy calling, a mission to make a difference, a conviction that "I can fix that", and a sense that many depend on my fulfilling this purpose.  If I don't do it, who will?

"Who will?"

There's an obvious answer to that.  As a person of faith I believe deeply in the one and only One who is the Savior of the World.  

Believing this leads me to the conviction that whenever that savior mentality enters my brain, I must kill it.  I relate to John the Baptist's statement, "I am not the Messiah."  That is a confession of faith in the one who is.

Christmas Eve services.  Always a highlight of the Church Year.  Typically the largest attendance, and this held true for us as well.  But there was disappointment.  I have been experimenting with using Facebook advertising to try and extend the outreach of our little congregation.  Our invitation to Christmas Eve services went out to 1241 households in the Otis Orchards area.  1241.  Our attendance was 41. That's approximately double our normal attendance, fairly typical for a Christmas Eve service, especially when we know that some of our regulars are attending elsewhere with their families and others probably stayed home because of the icy roads.  But I must confess I had hoped that my efforts at outreach would have netted a lot more.  Especially because my family alone accounted for nine of those in attendance.  I dreamed of a standing room only crowd.  

Kill the savior.

This morning I'm thinking of a strawberry patch.  The thing about strawberries is that you can plant and nourish those first starts, but it is the strawberries themselves that send out the shoots that grow the patch.  I would say that we sow the seeds, but the growth comes from God.  But even that is too much.  The seeds of faith are sown by the Holy Spirit.  Not us.

Kill the savior.

In the end, faced with the decline of the Church in our country, and the challenges of growing my own little congregation, perhaps the most faithful response is simply to recognize that the responsibility for revitalizing the Church is God's alone.  God's alone.

There is no reason to get depressed about 'our failures', cause it wasn't our responsibility in the first place.  I would like to counsel God about a reasonable direction forward, and the need for real growth in our Church and congregation, but alas, God does not need my counsel.  Whatever God is doing, God is doing.  

Kill the savior, and let the Savior live.  

The "Being" and the "Doing"

One of the hardest lessons I learned in my first parish was the difference between "being" the pastor, and "doing" pastoral ministry.  I was the first full time pastor in Thompson Falls.  They had built a parsonage for  us.  We received a joyous welcome.  And I set about my work.

I interpreted that their investments toward attaining a full time pastor were all about their desire to receive full time pastoral ministry.  And I set about trying to fulfill that goal.  My goal was to fill the church's calendar with programs and activities, and so to justify my position.

What I learned from them was that it was actually more important that I simply be seen around town, at the post office, in the grocery store, walking my dog.  As for all my  programmatic activity, it largely failed.  They were simply concerned that I would "be" their pastor.  They were not nearly so concerned about what I did.  Yes, there were moments of intense pastoral ministry.  But for the most part, I was paid to be there when needed, and the rest of the time simply to be the pastor.  

I realize now that after nearly three decades in ministry I'm in the same situation again.  The only things on our calendar are Sunday morning worship, and an adult ed class afterwards.  Aside from that, the boy scouts meet weekly, and the council meets monthly.  I do some visitation, but not a lot.  And this seems to be more my need than theirs.  We decorated the church for Christmas, and had a potluck.  We will go caroling.

But for hour after hour I sit in my office and wonder what am I doing to justify receiving a generous salary package.  The answer is, I am "being" their pastor.  Its as though they are saying to me "Do whatever you feel a need to do, that's fine with us, just be our pastor."

The manic side of me is just not content to master the art of "being".  I want a quest.  I'm a bit like a border collie in that regard.  Either give me work to do, or I'll make up my own.  

Two things I'm "doing".  First, I'm trying to see if I can get an AA meeting starting here in Otis Orchards.  There isn't one now.  The biggest challenge is where and how do you connect with people who are part of an organization that values above all else, anonymity.  Secondly, I am exploring how to use Facebook and my blogs as a means of evangelism, and an extension of my ministry here.

I've had 9,000 pageviews on this blog, and nearly 6,000 on my other blog, Wanderingsthroughtheword.com.  What amazes me is that I've had pageviews from every single continent, except Antartica.

Writing and posting is what satisfied my sense of calling while I was not in a parish.  Now, it fulfills my sense of call by giving me something to "do" in a parish whose primary need is for me to simply "be" their pastor.

That said, I find myself wrestling with the question of whether my drive to be doing something is symptomatic of my bipolar disease, or part of a genuine sense of call.  My bishop would probably say, "Well, yes, both."

I leave it at that for today, and get back to the holy work of being.