Joy is the Journey

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:26-28)

This passage from Paul's letter to the Romans has formed and informed me for over twenty years. It was at the heart of my discernment to the priesthood, encouraging me to not over think, but enter into silence and listen. Listening is an art that requires me to strip away all distractions, to sift through the noise and the false enticements, in order to hear what is essential. Listening means I open myself to the unexpected, to being challenged. 

My ordination process, twenty years ago, hit some bumps in the road. I had one person, part of the COM in the diocese I was in at the time, who really questioned my call. He did not understand some of my call, in particular he disapproved of my Masters in Social Work dual degree with the M.Div. One day, in a meeting with him, my mentor, and a few other people on the COM (Commission on Ministry), this person questioned me about joy. I had said something about the joy of living into one's call, of being a parish priest and guiding other's to find their joy in God. He said, "And will you still find joy in your ministry when YOU are the one cleaning out the gutters of the church and washing the floors?" His tone revealed a man who was so tired and bitter that there was no joy in him, nor in his ministry. As difficult as he was making my last days of the ordination process, stopping my process and putting up roadblocks, I just felt sad for him. 

As we left, I said to my mentor that I hoped that no matter how hard ministry became for me, that I would never become that bitter or sad. I hoped I would always find the joy.

I think of him, this sad man who years later died a slow, painful, sad death, and remember this conversation. Like the passage from Romans, this too has formed and informed my ministry, been foundational to how I think and work: Help me, God, to find the joy in this. 

I am by nature an optimistic person. I always always think that something is possible, that something more than I can imagine is possible. My leadership as a parish priest has been founded in this principle, that we can do more than we ever imagined. We can do this because the Spirit will intercede when we no longer can, with sighs too deep for words. 

For the last year I have been saying that I think we, this church, is on the brink of something transformational. Something Spirit inspired. I have worked, and studied, and read, and prepared. I am doing everything I can to follow the Spirit and help guide us in the direction that the Spirit is pointing. This is nothing at all like I imagined, even when I started feeling th nudges of the Spirit, I did not know how it might turn out. I still don't know for sure. But something is happening and I have had some clear clues as to what might be coming.

However, just like in those last months before ordination, there are significant challenges. They say that just as God's desire is about to come to fruition, the evil one steps up and tries to thwart God, to prevent God's desire. They say that one will find challenges to one's priesthood in those final days, as the evil one tries to prevent another person from ordination. I think the same is true whenever one is following the risky path of God, challenges come along. 

And so once again I am on the precipice between what was and what will be, only this time I am tired and could so easily slip into despair. I know, twenty years into ministry, how that priest felt. 

I really get it. Bone deep get it. 

Parish ministry is incredibly difficult and discouraging work. Church attendance dwindles, despite every effort to create worship opportunities that deepen and inspire, that meld tradition with new insight, that speak about the world as it is and the world as it could be. Who wants to spend an hour in church when one could be home? Or outside? Or anywhere else? No, it's not cleaning the gutters that deprives me of joy, it's the awareness that nothing I do makes a difference. And so I wonder why I keep on doing it. 

See. That's how the evil one works. Gnaws away at one's most vulnerable place. For me, my call has always been about hoping I could lead others to experience what I experienced when I returned to church: a place where I could find myself, my deepest self, grounded in the love of God, and challenged to do the work to become the best version of myself that I could. This has been profound work, transformational work, life giving work for me. 

My mentor said to me that day, as we walked away from that meeting, he thought that God called him into the priesthood in order to save him from himself...

When I no longer know how to pray, the Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. 

Joy is not about things going well. Joy is not about success, whatever that may look like in parish ministry. 

Joy is the journey, all the challenges and rough patches and difficulties, leading to an outcome that cannot be predicted, and may not look at all like I hope for. 

Joy is the journey not the end. 

Thank God the Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words, for in some way all things will come about as God desires. I know is true, even when I have no idea how, why, or when.

The Spirit intercedes. 

Joy IS the journey.