A lot of anxiety out there regarding moral issues.
So, to you dear colleagues, a reminder.
It is our job to provide considered, learned moral guidance on important issues.
Yes, you’ll be better liked if you keep your head down and are careful not to express any potentially offensive opinion.
But that’s neither your job nor your calling.
Yes, some people might leave the congregation if you point out that the purpose of the Church is to engage people in the work of getting over ourselves, growing spiritually, changing and being agents of change in the world.
So let them leave. That’s okay. It is not your job to soft-pedal the mission of the church so that it remains perpetually palatable to those who are frightened of self-transformation. To be the church requires courage. It takes courage to lead with integrity.
It’s your job.
It is your job to hold hands, to care for, to listen, to support, to administer, to pray, to represent the congregation in the wider community, to write, to make coffee, to bless babies and couples, and to bury the dead.
It is also your job — our job — to study, think, stay in conversation with the best and most honored thinkers in our traditions past and present — to analyze, discern and consider ethical issues and to speak to what is right and wrong.
No one likes to hear that something is wrong unless it’s something they already felt or knew was wrong. That’s human nature.
But it is not our job to name only those mistakes, sins and failures that are easy to identify as wrong and for which, in identifying, we are sure to win nods of approval and praise from our congregations.
We’re not called to do that but something much harder requiring large doses of self-differentiation.
I saw a pastor admonish her congregation via a Facebook post last week and it was an amazingly beautifully done piece of pastoral ministry. She clearly explained the ethical violation, she held it up against the values of the Church and her local congregation, and she offered a corrective. She was clear, she was loving, and she was authoritative rather than authoritarian. I am sure that her strong, wise, calm voice offended some. But for those who know that that is their pastor’s job, I imagine that her involvement was welcome, appreciated and a relief.
It’s our job.
Love casts out fear.
Goals of job security and popularity are never as powerful as love.
Go be beautiful. Mwah!
Funny you should say that. I got word that there’s been (one or two people) rumbling that I don’t preach enough hell-fire and brimstone (not really in keeping with our denominational theology BTW). I mentioned it to my husband last night, and he said, “You should give them a hell-fire and brimstone sermon once a month.” I said, “They wouldn’t like it if I did – it would hit too close to home.”
Amen! Well said.
Thank you, PB!
I couldn’t agree more and also I would say the emphasis is on “informed” opinions, also paired with “thoughtful” opinions. Too many people, including some colleagues, offer opinions based on popular memes in their subgroup, rather than thoroughly thinking through the values and reasoning that might inform a well-intentioned individual with a contrary opinion. I am always more open to hearing someone’s opinion that contradicts my own, if I feel that my point of view has been honored, considered, understood, and not caricatured. To that end, I have found the book “The Righteous Mind” helpful to me in understanding the values that inform people who think differently than I do on moral issues.