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Reflections of a Re-fired Minister
by Lerry Chase
In Illusions
- The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah,1
Richard Bach tells of meeting a Jesus figure who has the power to teach
the truths of this world and others. The figure is a reluctant Master
who, in consultation with the Creator, has determined that it is not necessary
to endure the crowds and has simply announced to those who would seek
supplication, "I quit." Now, I have no illusions of being a
messiah or even a Master figure. However, I felt a kinship with Bach's
reluctant Messiah as I shared the short story and reflected on my own
faith/life journey.
I don't
know when I figured it out. Actually, I didn't figure it out at all -
it was just there. As a teenager I knew that I would be a minister. Call
it a calling if you want. There was no radiant conversion. There was no
struggle. There was simply an awareness that I would pursue a vocation
of service to others, to the church and to God.
Following my years at Grove City College in western Pennsylvania and later
at Princeton Theological Seminary, I spent thirty years in parish ministry.
For the most part it was enjoyable and I was convinced that it was an
inspired path. There were relationships, teachings, inspirations, and
even miracles. I spent time with teens seeing myself as an adult guarantor,
a mentor who could ease their passage through adolescence. I spent hours
in the counseling office with friends who were in the midst of psychic
pain and sensed the presence of God as we worked miracles together, for
each other. Together we worshipped, knowing that God was in our midst
and together we gloried in the Creation. Those were good years for me.
I
spent thirty years in
parish ministry... Those
were good years for me. |
I served three
congregations - two as a called pastor and one as a designated pastor
having been given temporary assignment by the denomination for the congregation
in transition. The latter was a very small group of believers worshipping
in a very old local congregation tradition that stretched over one hundred
and fifty years. The first was a congregation of 2000 members to which
I was called as Associate Pastor and with whom I stayed almost eighteen
years serving with a succession of three senior colleagues. There they
cared for their young associate and nurtured me into my own adulthood
and into my own sense of ministry. We grew together and loved each other
very much. In the third parish I served as their senior minister. We found
ourselves in an urban residential community living a forty-year-old dream
of better times and struggling to become a neighborhood congregation once
again. In all of these parishes we knew that our path was the path of
God and we cared very deeply for each other and for those around us.
It
was not unusual for me
to put in fifteen hour days
and seventy-five hour weeks. |
Each of these
congregations provided opportunity for me to serve others, the church
and God as was my charge. There were meetings to attend, classes to teach,
counseling to do, visiting to share and liturgical services to conduct
from worship to marriages to baptisms and finally to funerals as we passed
loving souls on into the care of the Creator God. Over the years the relationships
grew deep. The parish was a good place for me. The
parishes I served in Pennsylvania and New York included strong, committed
believers. These were people who lived their faith. They were people who
could tell you what they believed and what difference that made in their
lives. They were concerned about each other, their communities and God's
whole universe. Together we worked hard and long. It was not unusual for
me to put in fifteen hour days and seventy-five hour weeks. Though some
were afraid that I would exhaust myself, I seemed to thrive on the activity.
I felt like Bach's reluctant Master taking pleasure in being part of the
miraculous daily events as all of God's children went about creating the
Kingdom on earth. People were comforted. We grew in awareness, not only
of ourselves, but also of our mission as we extended the love of God into
the neighborhood and, in many ways, expended ourselves in service to those
around us. We knew that we walked with God.
...
now I was to become
part of a ministry that was
immersed in the ministry of
teaching peace and justice. |
After thirty
years in the parish I was given a new challenge to focus my skills on
a new type of ministry. It was one thing to talk the talk of peace and
justice, but now I was to become part of a ministry that was immersed
in the ministry of teaching peace and justice. Theological/philosophical
concepts were given blood and flesh. Instead of being caught up in the
lives of individuals, of their marriages and families, now I would be
challenged by global ideas and how to translate these larger issues into
personal, life-changing experiences. We would speak of personal transformation
and community and peace on earth.
... we still had racists who
smugly worshipped in our
congregations believing
that God blessed their beliefs. |
Bach's reluctant
Master was described as "dying of his need to say what he knew, and
nobody cared enough to listen."2
During one of the political elections, in conversation with several members
in my last parish, I realized that I had so carefully avoided being political,
that my friends had no idea where I stood on the issues of the debates.
In retrospect, I realized that, after thirty years of preaching, we still
had racists who smugly worshipped in our congregations believing that
God blessed their beliefs. Some of our business people still made little
connection between their faith and the practices of their businesses.
After all, they rationalized, their job was to do well so that the community
could thrive. Individuals were so caught up in their lives that there
was little awareness of the ways in which their daily decisions were part
of a larger inequity that made life easy for some while others were kept
from participating in the pleasures of the good life. We could study and
worship together and still not see the political and economic realities
that divided our communities.
Again, Bach's reluctant Master reflected "and when the throng pressed
him with its woes, beseeching him to heal for it and learn for it and
feed it nonstop from his understanding and to entertain it with his wonders,
he smiled upon the multitude and said pleasantly, 'I quit.'"3
It was time for me to move from being a minister to being a missionary.
"...he
smiled upon
the multitude and said
pleasantly, 'I quit.'" |
Many of my
friends thought they understood this designation of missionary as they
tried to understand what it is that I would be about. Unfortunately, the
focus of our missionary effort was misunderstood to be the people in Mexico.
In reality, BorderLinks' mission is to the people of the United States!
These are the good souls who need to be converted. This is the focus of
our evangelism. Our work involved working with our partners in Mexico
to provide immersion experiences for students and people of faith from
the US as they tried to understand the effects of the global economy.
At the time I started we had just grown to seven staff members and we
held no property except for a van and two donated cars. Our office was
in a small house that doubled as a dormitory.
BorderLinks'
mission is
to the people of the United
States... working with our
partners in Mexico. |
Two and a half
years later we are a bi-national staff of eighteen with almost half being
Mexican. We use three rented houses in Tucson. We own two properties in
Mexico, three vans and three old cars. We have doubled the number of trips
and tripled the number of participants. Departmentally, our primary focus
is still on providing experiential education opportunities for US participants.
Additionally, we provide popular education events (in environmental justice,
micro-credit/cottage industries) for border residents; direct service
(free, hot lunches for over three hundred school children, clothing/linen
distribution, retreat facilities and a weekly religious service as well
as community organizing and Bible study) for the residents of several
neighborhoods in Nogales, Sonora; educational transportation; and a full
semester program that will serve students in both the US and Mexico.
'What
does it mean to live
in the developed, "first world"
knowing that one's life style
is supported by the labor of
the "third world?" |
For the US
participants we try to raise the question, 'What does it mean to live
in the developed, "first world" knowing that one's life style is supported
by the labor of the "third world?" In trying to determine what to do with
the learning of one of our BorderLinks' trips, I tell participants that
I don't want them to go home and yell at the clerk in Wall-Mart.
The sins of the global economy should not be laid there. What we do
want is for them to return home and incorporate the learnings into their
daily activities; to be informed consumers. Know that products made 'offshore'
are probably made by low wage labor. Some have called it a modern-day
slavery. Ask yourself if you want to participate in that system. Similar
questions could have been asked before the Civil War as to whether or
not the products manufactured from slave cotton might somehow be tainted
by the system itself. Just as we fought apartheid by boycotting business
in South Africa, perhaps we should develop a consumerism that challenges
multinational companies to be responsible citizens of the world.
What
we do want is for them to
return home and incorporate the
learnings into their daily activities. |
Our participants
will talk with other like-minded believers, and seek ways to be informed
about the use (or miss-use) of migrant labor in their own communities.
They will become informed investors and, whenever possible, exercise their
proxy ownership responsibilities to challenge the corporate powers to
be better world citizens. They will examine their philosophical/theological
assumptions for those ambiguous dark places we all harbor. They will ask
themselves if there are ways they can clarify and simplify their own lifestyles.
They might seek a life style that does not take advantage of others or
does not usurp the resources needed by others to simply survive.
My
life has become much
simpler over the last couple of
years; not less busy, just simpler. |
These are the
learning of an experience on the border. They are also the teachings of
thirty years of parish ministry and preaching. Indeed, God laid a challenge
before me forty-five years ago. I have followed that challenge in my life
and ministry with varying success during years of growth. I continue to
follow that call as I focus my attention on a ministry of education and
actualization. My life has become much simpler over the last couple of
years; not less busy, just simpler. When asked if I miss the parish I
respond, "Sure, I miss the relationships, but I am enjoying this
phase of ministry very much. Each day feels like I am on vacation!"
Here
is a test to find whether
your mission on earth is finished:
If you're alive, it isn't. |
Richard Bach's
reluctant Master had a "Handbook for Masters." In it were teachings
for those who would follow the call. One of these stated: "In order
to live free and happily you must sacrifice boredom. It is not always
an easy sacrifice." 4
Another
suggested "Here is a test to find whether your mission on earth is
finished: If you're alive, it isn't."5
1 Bach, Richard. Illusions,
the Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah. Delacorte Press. 1977. Richard
Bach also wrote Jonathan Livingston Seagull.
2 Ibid.
Pg. 72.
3 Ibid.
Pg. 21.
4 Ibid.
Pg. 130.
5 Ibid.
Pg. 121.
Lerry
Chase is the Director of Fundraising at BorderLinks, and the father of
Rick Ufford-Chase. Besides his work with BorderLinks, Lerry does consulting
for faith based communities and not-for-profit organizations. You can
find our more about these activities on Lerry's web site, www.lwchase.com
Call us at 520-628-8263 or email
program@borderlinks.org
BorderLinks is a bi-national education and service organization.
We have not-for-profit status in the US and Mexico.
© 1987-2001 BorderLinks. All rights reserved.
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