Ordinarily,
my blogs take me a couple of days to put together before they see the light of
cyberspace. This one, however, I‘ve been
working on for 30 years!
30
years ago this week, I was ordained in the NY Annual Conference. Like it was yesterday, I recall how beautiful
the worship service was, and how ridiculous Wesley’s Historic Questions were.
In
case you’re unfamiliar with the ordination process, it’s a long and arduous journey
that includes a Master’s Degree, an extensive background check, a thorough psychological
exam, a presentation of a theological position paper accompanied by a spirited
defense thereof, an awesome sermon, and a series of rigorous interviews with
Boards and Committees comprised largely of folks who know everything.
If,
by some modern Methodist miracle, a candidate successfully navigates past each of those icebergs, they are then paraded in front of their future clergy
colleagues so that the Bishop can ask them Wesley’s Historical Questions.
For
29 years in a row, I’ve heard the assembled body laugh (or at least titter) at
a couple of Wesley’s more “historic” queries:
Will you visit from house to house?
(I bet Adam Hamilton hasn’t kept
this one!)
Are you in debt so as to embarrass you in your work?
(Been to seminary lately, Mr.
Wesley?)
Will you never
trifle away time; neither spend any more time at any one place than is strictly
necessary?
(in other words, do not drive on I-95 or the
LIE!)
If
someone will second my motion, I’d like to move that we update some of Wesley’s
Historical Questions to better reflect the reality of ministry in this millennium. Here are some suggestions, all of which are
based on things I’ve unfortunately experienced over the last 30 years:
Would you
baptize a child who is scheduled to be removed from life-support in the morning
in a Children’s Hospital 200 miles away?
BTW, the father isn’t Christian and the mother doesn’t speak English.
Would you serve
communion to a bully who is beating his wife?
Before you answer, you should know that she is kneeling right next to
him, with a purple bruise surrounding her left eye.
What would you
do if you were the newly appointed pastor to a church where a Sexaholics
Anonymous meeting was taking place every Wednesday afternoon in a room next to
your church’s pre-school?
What would you
do if the choir at your church sounded absolutely awful?
What would you
do if the bride at an outdoor wedding insisted on having her male dog walk her down
the aisle, only to have him stop and spray every single chair within “spitting”
distance?
What would you
do if you caught the teenager of an SPRC member cheating on his/her Confirmation Class final exam?
What would you
do if you saw one of your Trustees going through the garbage can outside your
parsonage?
What would you
do if you opened a letter addressed to you at the church, asking in letters cut
out from a bunch of different magazines so as to be untraceable, “Do you know
where your children are? ALL of
them?”? Included in the letter was the
missing picture of your entire Sunday School that used to be pinned to the
bulletin board in the Education Building.
What would you
do if your much-beloved predecessor left the parsonage uninhabitable?
Tough
questions all.
Nonetheless,
if the Bishop asked me at tomorrow’s clergy session, “Ken, knowing now what you didn’t know then about ministry, would you
still assent to being ordained?”, I would answer thusly:
“There’s
no question about it!”
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