Going Native
Stories
Contents
"Going Native" by C. David McKirachan
"Grace Abounds" by David O. Bales
"Having Compassion" by John Fitzgerald
Going Native
by C. David McKirachan
Matthew 10:24-39
A few years ago, when I’d been in my then church about 10 years, I took a continuing education course called Renewal in the Long Pastorate. Walter Wink and Roy Oswald came at the attendees from both directions, comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable. To get in you had to be in your present parish at least eight years.
Alban Institute had done a study on people in long pastorates. The average pastorate lasts around five years. They fiddled with the figures and studied pastorates that lasted beyond seven years. The presupposition was that something was wrong with the pastor or something was wrong with the parish or both. What they discovered surprised them. Long pastorates tend to be healthier in most ways. They are better for the parish, the pastor, and the pastor’s family, if they have one. They also discovered that there are a few things that a pastor has to watch out for to keep the ministry from going over to the dark side.
But all of these dangers center on a basic red flag. A pastor has to keep from going native. Channeling Robin Williams, I immediately thought of grass skirts and out rigger canoes. But they didn’t mean the South Pacific. The people who had begun to too closely resemble their congregation were flirting with stagnation. Instead of being a stranger in a strange land, they became ‘Good ol’ Pastor Obadiah.’ Their relationships with the people in the congregation became more important than their willingness to provide a prophetic witness to the people.
That kind of rattled my teeth. My ministry has lived in a relational atmosphere. I’m always thinking about creating ‘a home where no one is a stranger.’ I always worked on inclusion rather than exclusion. And a lot of times that meant stepping inside the swing.
I worked with fire departments. It always made perfect sense to me to run into a burning building. So when Joe Schmoe threatened to leave the church because of the color of the new hymnals, I put my arm around him and tried to offer someone he could trust in the middle of his difficulty. I’ve had my life threatened, gotten punched, spit on, and told that my mother should be ashamed of me. But I found if I stuck to it, I was able to provide a non-anxious presence for someone who felt like they were losing something important, to them. It didn’t always work, but some of these situations had become moments of grace that brought people closer to places of acceptance and commitment than they’d ever experienced.
But did that mean I was wearing a grass skirt? Should I be on the front lines, at the barricades? I’d gotten in a lot of trouble in my youth, gone to jail for demonstrating against racism, war, exclusion. When my sister heard I was going to seminary she wanted to know if I had a crucifixion complex? I’d made up my mind to work in the parish as a preaching pastor. I wanted to create a community, to build a community of believers. I still do.
I asked for a sit down with Oswald and laid it all out for him. His question for me was ‘What is this community based on? Why does it exist?’ He told me if it exists to affirm me, to make me successful, to let people feel good, to amplify my beliefs, to give me a bully pulpit, to affirm their lives, etc., then how does my life, my profession, my leadership contrast with any other group or service organization? Am I willing to witness to a crucified and risen Lord who was willing to confront, to provide a real option to the scramble for survival and safety and security and winning and comfort?
Then he hit me between the eyes. Are you willing to love people so much that you are willing to try, with no guarantee of success, to get them to see their own foolishness and sin and stick with them through confrontation, remorse, forgiveness, and transformation? Are you willing to love them even when they don’t love you and keep at it, constantly checking yourself, being honest with yourself rather than patting yourself on the back or protecting yourself with excuses and justifications?
I think it took me about two hours to be able to think straight. Talk about presence of the Holy Spirit. I felt like Saul. I got knocked off my donkey.
But after some initial terror, I got my deck of cards off the floor and dug into the class and realized that I was willing and I was able. And an awful lot of what I was doing was what made me a bit infamous in certain circles. But it reminded me that I didn’t need to be a hero. I had a Lord who had already done that. All I had to do was to follow him. Being faithful to him was the best way to get into trouble I knew of.
So, at dinner that night we toasted our grass skirts as we laid them down for good. We decided we’d commit ourselves to being weird, come what may.
Aloha.
C. David McKirachan is pastor of the Presbyterian Church at Shrewsbury in central New Jersey. He also teaches at Monmouth University. Two of his books, I Happened Upon a Miracle and A Year of Wonder, have been published by Westminster John Knox Press. McKirachan was raised in a pastor's home and he is the brother of a pastor, and he has discovered his name indicates that he has druid roots. Storytelling seems to be a congenital disorder. He lives with his 21-year-old son Ben and his dog Sam.
* * *
Grace Abounds
by Peter Andrew Smith
Genesis 21:8-21
Simon waved at Duncan. “I’m going to sit here on the bench with my friend Tom from work.”
Duncan waved back from the top of the slide. “Okay.”
“Is that your nephew?” Tom asked.
Simon shook his head. “No, he’s my son.”
“I didn’t know you and Margaret had a boy that young.”
“We don’t. He’s from my second marriage.”
“Oh, sorry.” Tom paused. “Are you and Margaret still married?”
“We are and actually doing okay,” Simon said. “We just have a confusing relationship history. Margaret and I divorced about a decade ago. I met Duncan’s mom and we married. Unfortunately it didn’t work out and a couple of years ago Margaret and I reconnected and after a time decided to remarry.”
“Ah.” Tom watched Duncan playing with the other children. “Do you see him much?”
Simon sighed. “Not as much as I wish.”
“You and his mother don’t get along well?”
“No, Vi and I get along great. We’re actually better as friends than we were as a married couple.” Simon shook his head. “Margaret, though, has problems with that part of my life because she’s convinced that Vi is the reason that our marriage broke down.”
“Was she?”
“No but we got together not long after the divorce was final so in Margaret’s mind...” Simon shrugged. “Margaret prefers to pretend that part of my life never happened. Bringing Duncan to the house really doesn’t go over well.”
“That must be hard.”
Simon nodded. “Yeah it is. Holidays are especially rough. He’s a great little fellow and loves to do things with me. Spending time with him at home is not really an option and going over to Vi’s to visit isn’t either since she remarried.”
“Sounds like you’re between a rock and a hard place.”
“It feels like it most days.” Simon sighed. “I love them all and try to be there for them but more often than not I feel like a failure who is never able to make anyone happy.”
“Hmm.” Tom rubbed his chin. “Did you know our oldest, Lisa, is actually from before I met Jane?”
“No, I didn’t. I just assumed she was one of your daughters.”
“She was just turning three when Jane and I met. I admit I had trouble having a child in the house even part of the time who was a reminder of Jane’s former life. Having her ex in the scene just made things that much more awkward.”
“I never would have guessed. You don’t treat her any different than Emily over there.”
“Thanks. When Jane and I were thinking of marriage I struggled with the fact she already had a child and a life before me.”
“Past relationships can make things harder for sure.”
“Yeah. I almost called it off with Jane because of Lisa but my father sat me down and told me two things. The first was for me to think about how difficult it was for Lisa to be in my house and the second was to consider how God wanted me to treat her.” Tom paused to wave at his youngest daughter who was now playing with Duncan. “It certainly helped me put things into a different perspective.”
“Margaret doesn’t want to give Duncan a chance,” Simon said. “I’ve tried to talk to her but she won’t listen.”
“It takes time. At first I used to feel angry and resentful of this child who wasn’t mine but over time I stopped seeing Lisa as an outsider and started seeing her as a child of God thrust into a situation she didn’t make. Now I think of her as my daughter and love her just like the others.”
“Well then there is hope I guess.”
“Actually if you pray about it and let God lead you there’s something better.” Tom smiled. “There’s grace.”
Simon sat back on the bench. “I’m not sure even grace can sort out the mess I’ve made in my life.”
“God can do amazing things with the messy relationships we create over the years. What’s important is to let God guide you and help you. Trust me, even though some days are strained and some conversations are hard to have, God works to bring us to a better place. A place where grace allows us to love and live together in harmony.”
Simon sat and watched the children playing for a few moments before nodding. “Thanks Tom. I will pray about it and talk to Margaret. Is it okay if I give you a call and we talk some more?”
Tom clasped him on the shoulder. “Anytime.”
Peter Andrew Smith is an ordained minister in the United Church of Canada currently serving St. James United Church in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. He is the author of All Things are Ready (CSS) a book of lectionary based communion prayers and a number of stories and articles, which can be found listed at www.peterandrewsmith.com.
*****************************************
StoryShare, June 25, 2017, issue.
Copyright 2017 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
"Going Native" by C. David McKirachan
"Grace Abounds" by David O. Bales
"Having Compassion" by John Fitzgerald
Going Native
by C. David McKirachan
Matthew 10:24-39
A few years ago, when I’d been in my then church about 10 years, I took a continuing education course called Renewal in the Long Pastorate. Walter Wink and Roy Oswald came at the attendees from both directions, comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable. To get in you had to be in your present parish at least eight years.
Alban Institute had done a study on people in long pastorates. The average pastorate lasts around five years. They fiddled with the figures and studied pastorates that lasted beyond seven years. The presupposition was that something was wrong with the pastor or something was wrong with the parish or both. What they discovered surprised them. Long pastorates tend to be healthier in most ways. They are better for the parish, the pastor, and the pastor’s family, if they have one. They also discovered that there are a few things that a pastor has to watch out for to keep the ministry from going over to the dark side.
But all of these dangers center on a basic red flag. A pastor has to keep from going native. Channeling Robin Williams, I immediately thought of grass skirts and out rigger canoes. But they didn’t mean the South Pacific. The people who had begun to too closely resemble their congregation were flirting with stagnation. Instead of being a stranger in a strange land, they became ‘Good ol’ Pastor Obadiah.’ Their relationships with the people in the congregation became more important than their willingness to provide a prophetic witness to the people.
That kind of rattled my teeth. My ministry has lived in a relational atmosphere. I’m always thinking about creating ‘a home where no one is a stranger.’ I always worked on inclusion rather than exclusion. And a lot of times that meant stepping inside the swing.
I worked with fire departments. It always made perfect sense to me to run into a burning building. So when Joe Schmoe threatened to leave the church because of the color of the new hymnals, I put my arm around him and tried to offer someone he could trust in the middle of his difficulty. I’ve had my life threatened, gotten punched, spit on, and told that my mother should be ashamed of me. But I found if I stuck to it, I was able to provide a non-anxious presence for someone who felt like they were losing something important, to them. It didn’t always work, but some of these situations had become moments of grace that brought people closer to places of acceptance and commitment than they’d ever experienced.
But did that mean I was wearing a grass skirt? Should I be on the front lines, at the barricades? I’d gotten in a lot of trouble in my youth, gone to jail for demonstrating against racism, war, exclusion. When my sister heard I was going to seminary she wanted to know if I had a crucifixion complex? I’d made up my mind to work in the parish as a preaching pastor. I wanted to create a community, to build a community of believers. I still do.
I asked for a sit down with Oswald and laid it all out for him. His question for me was ‘What is this community based on? Why does it exist?’ He told me if it exists to affirm me, to make me successful, to let people feel good, to amplify my beliefs, to give me a bully pulpit, to affirm their lives, etc., then how does my life, my profession, my leadership contrast with any other group or service organization? Am I willing to witness to a crucified and risen Lord who was willing to confront, to provide a real option to the scramble for survival and safety and security and winning and comfort?
Then he hit me between the eyes. Are you willing to love people so much that you are willing to try, with no guarantee of success, to get them to see their own foolishness and sin and stick with them through confrontation, remorse, forgiveness, and transformation? Are you willing to love them even when they don’t love you and keep at it, constantly checking yourself, being honest with yourself rather than patting yourself on the back or protecting yourself with excuses and justifications?
I think it took me about two hours to be able to think straight. Talk about presence of the Holy Spirit. I felt like Saul. I got knocked off my donkey.
But after some initial terror, I got my deck of cards off the floor and dug into the class and realized that I was willing and I was able. And an awful lot of what I was doing was what made me a bit infamous in certain circles. But it reminded me that I didn’t need to be a hero. I had a Lord who had already done that. All I had to do was to follow him. Being faithful to him was the best way to get into trouble I knew of.
So, at dinner that night we toasted our grass skirts as we laid them down for good. We decided we’d commit ourselves to being weird, come what may.
Aloha.
C. David McKirachan is pastor of the Presbyterian Church at Shrewsbury in central New Jersey. He also teaches at Monmouth University. Two of his books, I Happened Upon a Miracle and A Year of Wonder, have been published by Westminster John Knox Press. McKirachan was raised in a pastor's home and he is the brother of a pastor, and he has discovered his name indicates that he has druid roots. Storytelling seems to be a congenital disorder. He lives with his 21-year-old son Ben and his dog Sam.
* * *
Grace Abounds
by Peter Andrew Smith
Genesis 21:8-21
Simon waved at Duncan. “I’m going to sit here on the bench with my friend Tom from work.”
Duncan waved back from the top of the slide. “Okay.”
“Is that your nephew?” Tom asked.
Simon shook his head. “No, he’s my son.”
“I didn’t know you and Margaret had a boy that young.”
“We don’t. He’s from my second marriage.”
“Oh, sorry.” Tom paused. “Are you and Margaret still married?”
“We are and actually doing okay,” Simon said. “We just have a confusing relationship history. Margaret and I divorced about a decade ago. I met Duncan’s mom and we married. Unfortunately it didn’t work out and a couple of years ago Margaret and I reconnected and after a time decided to remarry.”
“Ah.” Tom watched Duncan playing with the other children. “Do you see him much?”
Simon sighed. “Not as much as I wish.”
“You and his mother don’t get along well?”
“No, Vi and I get along great. We’re actually better as friends than we were as a married couple.” Simon shook his head. “Margaret, though, has problems with that part of my life because she’s convinced that Vi is the reason that our marriage broke down.”
“Was she?”
“No but we got together not long after the divorce was final so in Margaret’s mind...” Simon shrugged. “Margaret prefers to pretend that part of my life never happened. Bringing Duncan to the house really doesn’t go over well.”
“That must be hard.”
Simon nodded. “Yeah it is. Holidays are especially rough. He’s a great little fellow and loves to do things with me. Spending time with him at home is not really an option and going over to Vi’s to visit isn’t either since she remarried.”
“Sounds like you’re between a rock and a hard place.”
“It feels like it most days.” Simon sighed. “I love them all and try to be there for them but more often than not I feel like a failure who is never able to make anyone happy.”
“Hmm.” Tom rubbed his chin. “Did you know our oldest, Lisa, is actually from before I met Jane?”
“No, I didn’t. I just assumed she was one of your daughters.”
“She was just turning three when Jane and I met. I admit I had trouble having a child in the house even part of the time who was a reminder of Jane’s former life. Having her ex in the scene just made things that much more awkward.”
“I never would have guessed. You don’t treat her any different than Emily over there.”
“Thanks. When Jane and I were thinking of marriage I struggled with the fact she already had a child and a life before me.”
“Past relationships can make things harder for sure.”
“Yeah. I almost called it off with Jane because of Lisa but my father sat me down and told me two things. The first was for me to think about how difficult it was for Lisa to be in my house and the second was to consider how God wanted me to treat her.” Tom paused to wave at his youngest daughter who was now playing with Duncan. “It certainly helped me put things into a different perspective.”
“Margaret doesn’t want to give Duncan a chance,” Simon said. “I’ve tried to talk to her but she won’t listen.”
“It takes time. At first I used to feel angry and resentful of this child who wasn’t mine but over time I stopped seeing Lisa as an outsider and started seeing her as a child of God thrust into a situation she didn’t make. Now I think of her as my daughter and love her just like the others.”
“Well then there is hope I guess.”
“Actually if you pray about it and let God lead you there’s something better.” Tom smiled. “There’s grace.”
Simon sat back on the bench. “I’m not sure even grace can sort out the mess I’ve made in my life.”
“God can do amazing things with the messy relationships we create over the years. What’s important is to let God guide you and help you. Trust me, even though some days are strained and some conversations are hard to have, God works to bring us to a better place. A place where grace allows us to love and live together in harmony.”
Simon sat and watched the children playing for a few moments before nodding. “Thanks Tom. I will pray about it and talk to Margaret. Is it okay if I give you a call and we talk some more?”
Tom clasped him on the shoulder. “Anytime.”
Peter Andrew Smith is an ordained minister in the United Church of Canada currently serving St. James United Church in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. He is the author of All Things are Ready (CSS) a book of lectionary based communion prayers and a number of stories and articles, which can be found listed at www.peterandrewsmith.com.
*****************************************
StoryShare, June 25, 2017, issue.
Copyright 2017 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
