As
I mentioned in my last post,
Southside
Abbey's
funding
is up. More accurately, my funding is up with the Episcopal Diocese
of East Tennessee in August. It has really been on my mind of late
that I am confusing these two issues. Nothing about the funding of
Southside Abbey's ministry is jeopardy. The Holy Spirit doesn't call
us to ministries without providing for them. No, the only change will
be in my compensation.
If I think
back to three years ago, I was perfectly willing to do this ministry
for free as this was as clear a call as I had ever heard. It's
fascinating to me just how quickly I got comfortable with the notion
of full-time employment once it was offered through the diocese.
Without going
too far down the rabbit trail, I am concerned about the two-tiered
system of those who follow Jesus. There are “professional”
Christians and “amateur” Christians. Before I spark a firestorm
with this distinction, remember that Olympians are considered
“amateur.”
This
two-tiered system is less about lay and ordained as it is about paid
and unpaid, but don't think that ordination isn't often a deciding
factor in who is on what side of that line. I really have to face the
fact that I am a professional Christian. I get paid to do all of the
great and wonderful things to which Jesus is calling me everyday.
Would I do the same if I didn't get paid? Does the pay merely free me
up to do that which all of us should be doing anyway? What a
blessing, right? Before the reader jumps up in arms over “the
laborer deserves to be paid”-type cherry-picked bible verses, hear
me out.
Recently,
clergy from our portion of the Diocese of East Tennessee gathered for
conversation, led by our bishop, George Young. When we were asked to
share our anxieties, I spoke up. I do not think that the model of
professional Christians is either sustainable or, truth be told, very
biblical. Routinely the best Followers of Jesus I know are those who
don't get paid for it. This shut the conversation down. It was too
much for those who had dedicated their lives to this system. No more
fears were shared and the conversation turned pretty
pat-on-the-back-ish after that.
I
have written about working myself out of a job before, but I am
really starting to wrestle with what that means. Am I being called to
be a tent-maker or bass-player to pay the bills? Maybe there are some
places that are really making bi-vocational ministry work, but here
in the South, I haven't heard too much about it. Here, it seems to be
something that is done as a last resort.
These
days are days of deep discernment for me. I often meditate on a
would-be-throw-away line from Steve Martin's autobiography of his
stand-up career, Born
Standing Up.
Steve tells the story of being on Johnny Carson's couch on a tonight
show break. After Steve has delighted Johnny and his audience with
prestidigitation, jokes, and rope tricks, Johnny leans over and
whispers to Steve, “You will use everything you ever learned.”
Johnny's
words both haunt and inspire me, as they could the Church. How could
we use what we learned from the Early Church, a time when there was
no distinction between professional and amateur Christians? How could
we use what we learned from Paul who made tents or Peter the
fisherman?
So,
I return to the title of this post, just what exactly are we funding?
If two generations of young clergy walk away from the expectation of
compensation for following Jesus, what do we lose? More importantly,
what might we gain? At thirty-five years old am I really already that
much a slave to the Church Pension Fund? For every “the laborer
deserves to be paid” I hear, I can find a “do not store up for
yourselves treasures on earth.”
I
feel like Southside Abbey has broken open a way to be church without
a building. Maybe we are being called to break open the system of
two-tiered Christians.
This post
was
originally published on the
Episcopal
Church Foundation's Vital Practices Vital Posts
blog
on February 20, 2015. It has been reprinted here with permission.
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