Holy Hell Week and Low Sunday

It is Tuesday of Holy Week. Get some rest now for the marathon of worship services of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Sunday. I remember feeling so exhausted by the end of the Easter worship I began to refer to the week as holy hell week. There was generally a minimum of three worship services to prepare and as many homilies or sermons to be written and delivered. One community in which I served had an early morning breakfast each day of Holy Week, which meant that five of the ministers had one more presentation to prepare for the breakfast.

In another congregation in which I served there were three deaths in the congregation during Holy Week, including the death of an infant. I had never had the experience of trying to minister to a family in such a circumstance. That truly was one holy hell week.

How do we bring a new word during this annual drama? The script never changes. Everybody in the pews has a minimal working knowledge of the four acts or movements of the Holy Week octave. Yet, each year we work hard to make it all fresh and deeply soul touching so it crescendos into the Easter acclamation “Alleluia! Christ is Risen!”

Bruce Reyes Chow postulated, in 2011, that we should not make such a big deal out of Easter in his blog titled, Why Easter Worship Service Should Be Nothing Special. It is clear to see why the Sunday after Easter is typically called “Low Sunday.” The preacher takes the Sunday off to recuperate from the physical and spiritual exhaustion. The fanfare and exuberance of the musicians is spent. The crowd has dispersed. The faithful few are the only ones in attendance. Compared to the week before, the whole worship experience feels flat, but does it need to be?

Isn’t every Sunday an Easter Sunday? Isn’t each Sunday called The Lord’s Day? Aren’t we in the liturgical season of Eastertide? What if each Sunday we began with the call and response, “Christ is risen!” “He is risen indeed!” What if worship began with strong, lively, rafter shaking music? What if preachers did not take the Sunday off? What if our worship was a startling as was Jesus’ appearances to the disciples?

Preachers, musicians, worshippers maybe we need to tone down Easter Sunday and amp up the Sundays after Easter.

Caught in the Middle, Again

Over the years I have observed an unspoken but very real tension involving pastors and congregants. There are plenty of areas for there to be tensions: politics, theology, external versus internal orientation, chaplaincy or mission, contemporary or traditional worship, and the lists go on. Each pastor can list their own series of tension areas. Yet, there is one in which the pastor is caught and very well may not have the first inclination of its reality.

For a while I thought this tension was peculiar to western Pennsylvania. Upon reflection on other areas of the country where I have served, I now think it is far more pervasive in the Church and across the country. As a pastor, as a member and chair of the Committee on Ministry, and as a General Presbyter (kind of like a Methodist District Superintendent) I have had ample opportunity to observe this cloaked tension. Regardless of congregational size or location this tension is not actually between the pastor and members of the congregation, but the pastor is definitely caught in the tension.

The tension is visible with the annual review of pastoral compensation, or when the pastor asks permission to go on a spiritual retreat for some decompression time. Listen in the corridors or in the parking lot and you will hear comments about the pastor being paid too much; “we don’t get four weeks of vacation after only a year on the job;” “I don’t get paid mileage;” “Don’t they learn enough in seminary? Why do they need continuing education time and funding;” “Now, the pastor wants more time off the job to gaze at their navel.”

The tension in the life of the congregation is between those with a labor or management mindset. There are those in the congregation with what I call a management or owners perspective. Likewise there are those with what I call a labor perspective. Before I go further, let me admit to using stereotypes and not disparaging any particular people or status. Those with a management or owners perspective tend to view the pastor as an employee. Those with this perspective typically want the most production for the least cost and with the least lost time. Those with a labor perspective tend to view the pastor as upper management, and “everybody knows they are paid too much for what little they do.”

Therefore, pastoral compensation and down time are suppressed by each perspective. If asked nobody in a congregation would admit to functioning from either perspective. Yet, listening to comments and observing attitudes the hidden management/labor perspectives function in the life of the congregation. It is possible for both perspectives to be voiced by the same congregants depending on the situation. There are very few voices from comparable “professionals” in the life of a congregation who will champion the cause of the pastor.

What is a pastor to do? There is little which can be done, other than to realize it is another of the tensions/binds which come with pastoral ministry.

The Detroit Presbyterian Council

In a little more than two months Presbyterians will gather in the supreme Council of our denomination. Teaching Elders (ministers) and Ruling Elders will gather much the same as the leaders of the early church gathered in Jerusalem, as did the Council of Nicaea, the First and Second Vatican Councils, and the myriad Councils of the Church throughout history. The one commonality among all the Councils is each convened amid controversy. Controversy will certainly mark the Council of Presbyterians which will meet in Detroit.

Some are referring to the three Ms before the General Assembly this year: Marriage, Mid-Councils and Middle East. The Council will make a decision as to whether to send to the presbyteries a constitutional amendment on changing the definition of marriage. The Council will decide whether to reduce the number of synods from sixteen to eight. The Council will add it voice to issues centered on Israel & Palestine. Any one of the three Ms could warrant the Council’s singular attention without the three being lumped into one meeting.

I believe there is a fourth and fifth M which are at the center of the Council of Presbyterians’ concerns. The two additional Ms are members and money. These two Ms are the epicenter of our collective anxiety. The issues of members and money are directly related to the other three Ms. Some of the largest congregations in the denomination have withdrawn or are in the process of withdrawing to other denominations, because of previous decisions of the General Assembly, members and money are drained from the denominational statistics and coffers.

I have lost track of how many Assemblies it has been since we have not begun the Council meeting with the question, “Is this the year when we will be torn apart?” In fact, following each General Assembly meeting there have been, and will be, those whose disagreement with a particular decision motivates them to seek another spiritual home. The last six decades have seen some the most serious fracturing of the Presbyterian Church, in this nation, since the division into the Northern and Southern branches. Since 1967 we have witnessed the rise of the Presbyterian Church in America, the Evangelical Presbyterian Church and the Covenant Order of Evangelical Presbyterians. With each fracture members and money are the real generators of our anxiety.

We will gather in Detroit with three Ms as the presenting issues and the two other Ms are the true sources of our anxiety. How much will our anxiety drive the decisions of the Council?