About six years ago in my
former parish I experienced one of those unpleasant events entering clergy
lives now and then. I visited a family which had been parishioners for about 5
years, but who for a few months had been worshipping less and less. I felt
particularly awkward about such calls, because I preferred not to be
misunderstood as merely "checking up" on members. However, as pastor, I did
become concerned when in a small congregation of 135 persons, a couple, one of
whom was on the vestry, appeared to be withdrawing.
The visit was memorable.
During a four-hour fireplace luncheon, they calmly expressed their utter
dissatisfaction with me. Although they knew when they joined the parish that I
was a full-time college faculty member, limited to serving the congregation on
a part-time basis, and that I lived 21 miles from the church, they objected to
my lack of visibility in the local community's civic and charitable affairs. In
addition, they were dissatisfied with the limitations placed on my pastoral
availability, although I had always responded to every known pastoral urgency.
Moreover, they assured me that I lacked leadership qualities, because our rural
parish - three miles distant from an affluent Episcopal church - was not
growing significantly in numbers. Finally, they declared that I am a poor
example of a priest; any ordained person surrendering to a dunking in the lake
by the high school age parishioners at the annual picnic is a poor model of
holiness. When I left their home, I was dissolved. I was hurting, and I was
angry. I recalled the 55-minute trips I had made to their home at least a half
dozen times for pastoral emergencies. I remembered the extended telephone
conversation with one of their teenage sons, again in trouble, on the very day
my father had died. If there had been an 800 number for clergy abuse, I would
have used it!
Instead, I stopped by the home
of one of our volunteer, staff clergy, a psychotherapist. In an hour of
pastoral care, he helped me understand much of what had happened. He counseled
me to accept the reality that I (and all other clergy he knew) would never be
acceptable to that particular family as well as to other people like them. This
type insists that their ideas of everyone and everything be satisfied.
Their view of a priest is the movie clergymen played years ago by Barry
Fitzgerald and Bing Crosby in films such as "Going My Way." Such churchgoers
searching for their own notions of a priest are among the "wandering
Christians" - always looking for their image of clergy. Seldom finding
what they want, they drift and become increasingly cynical about the "quality
of the Church these days." They frequently leave in each abandoned congregation
the debris of their chronic fault-finding.
Consider as well individuals
who have an unreasonable idea of themselves, an impossible standard to
reach personally or vocationally. Do you know of such people who have a gnawing
dissatisfaction with themselves? Could it be that their impressions of what
they should be like are unrealistic and unattainable?
Wonder at our ideas of
the so-called mature adult and how those beliefs can confine us! During my
40’s I did something "childish" that I had wanted to do for a long time.
While waiting for luggage at LaGuardia Airport, and with permission of an
attendant, I took a brief ride on the luggage conveyor belt! I'm sure my
behavior was regarded by onlookers as eccentric at best. A friend with me
vicariously enjoyed my nonsense; the teenager with us did his best to not know
us.
Another consideration: have
you met people who are always dissatisfied with their jobs? Once they discover
what they perceive as a flaw, they may quit, always looking for their idea
of a faultless workplace, "something just right." Or, are you aware of any
men and women who will not befriend at any significant level anyone who fails
to conform to their ideas of what various relationships should be like?
They have rather rigid and alienating expectations of everyone.
A related matter: in annual
advertisements certain ideas about the Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New
Year's holidays are pictured for us. The family table is set with plenty to
eat; healthy grandparents, prosperous parents, and perfectly adjusted children
are on hand with complete joy and contentment. No one is absent, sad, or
anxious. Furthermore, they all radiate total love, and each person really wants
to be there! Such fantasies ignore the realities in which most of us live. If
these sentiments become our standards for holidays, most of us will face
disappointments, even a sense of personal failure for not measuring up to
picture-perfect celebrations.
Who decreed all these ideas
- that priests should conform to movie images of clergy? that all
congregations should grow numerically? that individuals must aspire to
unrealistic notions of themselves? that mature adults should always behave
within fixed limits? that a worthwhile job ought to meet our exact
specifications? that all worthwhile relationships must have particular
qualities? that holidays should be celebrated as if all were ideal? As well as
those before and after us, our generation has its own clouded vision with which
we idealize ourselves, our neighbors, our responsibilities, and even our
holidays.
About 2,000 years ago, a
unique King went unperceived by most men and women. Because they held to
customary ideas of kingly behavior and achievements, He was ridiculed;
He just didn't measure up. Generally, on-lookers at Jesus' Crucifixion jeered,
for this supposed Messiah - God's Chosen, a King - wouldn't try to save
himself. According to their notions, a real Messiah or king would never have
allowed himself to be in such a situation. Yet, a criminal being executed with
Jesus somehow perceived Him as One on the way to His throne.
Today, the Feast of Christ the
King, the Last Sunday after Pentecost, marks the conclusion of the Church's
liturgical year. The three Readings progressed from Jeremiah's prediction of a
righteous king, to the vision of the kingly Christ in Colossians, to Luke's
account of the crucified King perceived through the eyes of faith.
Next Sunday we observe the new
liturgical year, the First Sunday of Advent, a season of expectation and
preparation. May I be so bold as to suggest that among our preparations for
Christmas, we reflect with care on those ideas that unnecessarily limit
and imprison us? May I suggest especially that we examine our often flawed
images of the holiday season? May I further propose that we review our
perceptions of the sentimentalized "Baby Jesus," such that we come to
acknowledge again the New Testament Christ, with heartfelt faith, as no less
than God's reconciling King of kings and Lord of lords now enthroned at the
right hand of the Father?