A few months after I retired, I stood by my mailbox talking with a neighbor. He’d had a problem with alcohol once but hadn’t taken a drink for years.
“When you were a minister–” he began. Then he stopped and corrected himself. “That’s not right. You’ll always be a minister. Just like I’ll always be an alcoholic.”
That’s a strange analogy, I thought. Does he think I’m struggling every day with a compulsion to preach sermons, pray at public gatherings, and attend committee meetings?
I’m not. I’ll never need to attend a Clergy Anonymous group.
I had a better analogy. I considered myself a minister the same way that I was a soldier when I was young. I wasn’t a hero, but neither did I disgrace myself. Being in the army was something I was called to do. I did it as well as I could.
But I never became a soldier. It didn’t define who I was. Soldiers were the thirty-year professionals who had no life outside the army. I was a civilian who did a soldier’s job. When the job was over, I went on to something else, not because I was less patriotic, but because that calling was completed. When I retired I thought I’d stop being a minister, just as I stopped being a soldier when the war was over.
Both pictures were partly right; and, it turns out, neither was completely accurate.
HALF AND HALF
I will always be a minister. My friends see me that way, and they expect me to remain true to the colors I wore so long. To do otherwise would reduce my life’s work to a charade, role playing with no sincerity.
I still pray with my friends and for them. If a church asks me to preach I will, even though now, other things interest me more. When the pastor who succeeded me asks, I join him at funerals. I don’t seek any of these opportunities, but if my services are needed, I won’t refuse. I’ll always be a minister.
But although I served as a minister, enjoyed it, and was proud of what I did, I never became a minister. It didn’t define who I was. If the pulpit gown was removed, there was still a person inside, which is true of all ministers. Although some are ministers, no one can be only a minister. It is not our only identity.
We are also the children of our parents and the parents of our children. We are husband or wife, citizens, someone’s neighbors. At a particular time, any one of these may define us more than does being a minister.
In some of these roles, we alone are responsible. If I failed my parents, there was no one to take my place. If I failed my children, they had no one else to turn to. My grandchildren will in time be parted from their grandfather, but I will not be replaced.
A pastor, on the other hand, is responsible for a church only for a while. When we leave, someone else stands in the pulpit and beside the hospital beds. Another minister is the beloved and trusted pastor and may do the job better than we do. We may call it “my church,” but it isn’t. We will be replaced.
It is partly true that I’ll always be a minister, as an alcoholic is always an alcoholic. It is also true that I was never only a minister, any more than I was never only a soldier.
Both images are partly true. Neither reveals everything about me.
IDENTITY SUITS
All my life I have been trying on identities like a customer trying on suits in a discount clothing store. I find one, but it doesn’t fit. I try another. Sometimes I buy a style only to decide later that it is too long or too short or the color makes me uncomfortable.
That began before I left seminary and went to my first church. I saw myself as the Chief Executive Officer of the church corporation.
I knew a smattering of Greek and less Hebrew, but the people in the church didn’t know any. I had studied theology, and I knew the words and phrases that no one except professors and recent graduates understood. Most of all, I was ordained. The church would recognize my leadership and follow me eagerly from victory to victory.
That lasted as long for me as for any other graduate–less than a week. I found that there was no doctrine of pastoral infallibility. Church boards were quite willing to hear my suggestions. They would also discuss them, alter them, and often reject them. When I called for volunteers, no one answered–or the wrong people answered. When I marched off on a crusade, the ranks behind me were often thin. Ordination did not confer respect, loyalty, or leadership. They had to be earned.
When that didn’t work, I tried being a Regular Guy. Not just any Regular Guy, but a minister who was just like everybody else. I wanted to be called by my first name. I didn’t like people calling me “Reverend.” It was bad grammar. My vocation centered on communication in the English language, and I treated grammar with respect.
That wasn’t my main objection, though. Calling me “Reverend” as though it were my name put me in a category. It made me one of the professionally religious. I wanted to be treated as a person, not a faceless member of the clergy. I didn’t want to be reduced to a professional calling, as though there were nothing to me except the ministry.
Worst of all were the people who singled me out of a group to treat me with mock respect.
“There are lies, and there are damned lies,” a speaker said to a group. Then, looking at me, “Excuse my language, Reverend,” as if his words were acceptable enough to normal people but shocking to me. I had heard worse and survived. After all, I was in the army. Even if I didn’t use profanity, I wanted to be a Regular Guy.
The trouble with being a Regular Guy is that there are times when people need a pastor who isn’t just like everybody else. The person who is dying and knows it has no time for light conversation. Those feeling that their lives are trivial or that they’re missing out on the important things won’t be helped by a minister whose life is equally shallow.
We all like Regular Guys, but we don’t expect much from them.
GOSSIP AND COMPLIMENTS
There were people who had their own ideas about who I was and offered them to me. Older people in the church where I grew up offered me a role I knew was a lie–the role of Noble Sacrifice.
“We’re so proud of you for the sacrifice you’re making,” as though I had gone to be a chaplain in a leper colony. I was an assistant minister in a university town. I was doing what I wanted to do in a place where I wanted to be.
Others wanted me to be an Example of Purity, spotless and without sin.
I’m not bothered by the fact that people hold ministers to a higher standard than other people. Most of the things forbidden for a minister are things I don’t want to do. I don’t want to swear, get drunk, make passes at women, or tell off-color jokes. I hope I would have done exactly the same if I weren’t ordained. Sometimes, though, I’m not sure I would have. Having an extra incentive was a help, and I probably needed it.
But sometimes the double standard can lead to absurdity. A minister must not only be pure, but be seen to be pure.
When I was in college I visited my pastor in his home during one spring break. I held him in great respect. I thought then and still believe that he was a saintly man, utterly incapable of hypocrisy or deception.
He seated me in the living room and then carefully drew the curtains. He went into the kitchen.
“I have something special for you,” he said. He came back bearing a tray with two glasses and a carafe.
“My wife has made some juice from the grapes on our arbor,” he announced proudly. “I think it’s the finest I’ve ever tasted.”
I looked at the closed curtains, puzzled.
“Someone might look in and think we are drinking wine,” he explained.
I felt sad that this kindly man should fear being the victim of gossip. Would anyone except a minister draw the curtains? I vowed that I never would. Let them think what they like. I would be myself, not the frightened person they wanted me to be.
If it’s wrong to accept the judgments of gossips, it’s just as risky to take your identity from the compliments of friends.
For a while I thought I was a Great Preacher. Nearly every minister I’ve ever known thought he was a Great Preacher, including some who clearly weren’t. How do we get this notion? The people in our congregations tell us our sermons are wonderful.
This is something that people say. It is meant kindly. It doesn’t mean that they heard anything you said or remembered it or that you really are a great preacher. It means that they like you and want to say something they know will please you.
I will always be grateful to the somewhat befuddled old lady who delivered me forever from my identity as a Great Preacher. I was shaking hands with the departing congregation at one of the two doors. She clasped my hand and beamed at me as she spoke.
“That was a marvelous sermon, Reverend,” she said. “I’ve never heard anything so moving and comforting. We’re all so proud of you.”
It was a wonderful compliment. There was only one thing wrong with it: I hadn’t preached that morning. Another minister had. She didn’t remember what the sermon was about. She didn’t even know who preached it. It helped me put all those compliments at the door into perspective.
IDENTITY’S DARK SIDE
There is a dark side to the minister’s search for identity.
“The dogs are snapping at my heels again,” I would say, when all the little things that had to be done were overtaking me. That was part of my identity as a Failure, someone not measuring up to the demands of ministry.
It was particularly depressing to be with other ministers, hearing them tell of one brilliant success after another. Nothing for them ever seemed to fail. I had my successes too, but there were plenty of near-misses, and some shots went way wide of the mark. At the very best, I was inconsistent. Others, I thought, were not.
That wasn’t quite true. In time I learned that although ministers aren’t untruthful about themselves, they don’t necessarily tell the whole truth. My successful colleagues were only part-time successes, just as I was. But I didn’t know that at the time.
I lost my identity as a Failure. I didn’t lose it by having a string of successes. It evaporated when a church member came in second in an election for the state legislature. He was a man who had succeeded in many things. But he spent most of his free time on the campaign for months, and now he had nothing to show for it. I expected him to be disappointed, depressed. He wasn’t.
“Well, I sure came up empty on that one,” he said, as cheerfully as though he were talking about a missed putt. “You can’t win them all. You don’t have to. I figure that if I try five things and one succeeds, that’s all I need.”
One out of five. I probably did that well. Even if it were one out of ten, that one success was a gain, and the losses could be written off. It freed me from the identity of being a Failure.
Sometimes the dark images came in pairs: one led to the other, such as my twin identities as Palsied Surgeon and Superman.
I woke up one morning and dreaded getting out of bed. All the failures that had kept me awake half the night were waiting for me. A member of the church had hanged himself in the city jail. I was his pastor, but I had been no help with the alcoholism that led him from one disaster to another.
I was out of town when he died, attending a denominational meeting. That was another calamity. Important issues had been discussed, and although I had argued for what I believed, the votes all went the other way.
There was a vacancy on the church staff, and every week the list of urgent duties that went neglected or postponed grew longer. All of these things were important, and I was doing them all badly. I felt like a brain surgeon with palsied hands, reaching out to heal but tearing and destroying the life-giving tissue. All my patients died on the operating table.
I did what I often told others to do: I looked for help. Within a few days I visited a counseling center in a major city. After batteries of tests and interviews, I sat in a small room with the psychologist.
After reviewing my test scores and interviews, the counselor leaned over and opened a drawer. He took out a crumpled piece of red cloth and spread it on his desk. It was a shirt, crimson, with a large gold S imprinted on the front–a Superman shirt. The shirt was tattered. One sleeve was pulled loose at the shoulder. A gaping hole bordered with scorch marks marred the front.
“There’s your problem,” he said. “You’ve been wearing this shirt. You’ve been battered, burned, bruised. And you know what? It’s not your shirt.”
I haven’t worn it since. I’m not Superman, and I’m not responsible for defeating every evil in the world. I’m not the palsied surgeon, either.
LAMB CHASER
I finally settled on another identity, one based on the flocks of sheep in Galilee.
I have a flock to take care of, I decided. But I’m not their Shepherd. The Twenty-third Psalm makes that clear. The Lord is their Shepherd, and mine as well. The green pastures and still waters are his to give.
I just do the running and barking, like a sheepdog. That, and watch for orders from the Shepherd.
Sometimes I get the signals wrong or go off chasing rabbits when I should be with the flock. But I keep an anxious eye on the lambs skipping and bounding near the edge of the cliff. I’ve learned that you can’t move an old ram any faster than he wants to go, and that it’s a good idea to keep an eye on his horns. Most of all I know that we’ll all make it home safely if we just stay together and follow the Master.
I guess that identity still works. Forget your alcoholics and civilian soldiers. I’m a Sheepdog. I don’t run as hard now. There are younger legs for that. But I still care about the lambs. And I watch the Shepherd. I come when I am called and go where I am sent. And I still find comfort in his rod and staff. More than ever.
Copyright 1994 Malcolm Nygren
Copyright © 1994 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
