First United Methodist Church, Birmingham, MI
Scripture: II Corinthians 4:1-12
Had he lived to see it, no one would have been more pleased by the recent accord between Israel and the PLO than Dr. Harrell Beck. In his prime, Harrell Beck was as good a preacher as there was, and also as good a teacher as there was. The Old Testament was his subject. Boston University was his school. But the Middle East was what he knew.... where he sometimes lived.... and the region from which he first claimed his wife. Concerning the tensions in that part of the world, he was inordinately fond of saying: "Who should know about this struggle better than I, given that I go to work with the Hebrew scriptures every morning, and go to bed with an Arab woman every night?"
And it was the same Harrell Beck who told me the story of the Arab sheik who once took a bag of dates back to his tent to enjoy before bedtime. After making himself comfortable, he lit a candle, removed a date from his bag, held it up against the candlelight, found it wormy, and proceeded to throw it out the door of the tent. So he took a second date, examined it against the light, found it similarly wormy, and threw it out of the tent. A third date led to a third examination, revealing a third worm, and a third eviction from the tent. Whereupon he paused, thought for a moment, blew out the light, threw the candle out of the tent, and proceeded to eat the rest of the dates that remained in his bag.
I suppose you could draw any number of points from a story like that. But the point that leaps out at me is this. If you look at anything close enough.... in a light that is bright enough.... you are likely to find it flawed. Which is certainly true of the church. And which is painfully true of the clergy.
Concerning clergy, these are not easy days for many who do what I do for a living. I have been pondering this sermon since that mid-August morning when I wandered into a Traverse City bookstore and saw the Detroit News headline about the resignation of my Episcopal colleague, Almas Thorpe. For more than a decade, Almas has served as the Rector of our neighboring house of worship, Christ Church, Cranbrook. His resignation, it seems, was tendered voluntarily, albeit not without some degree of coercion (bordering on a mandate) from his ecclesiastical superior, Bishop Stewart Wood. I know Bishop Wood, having once broken bread with he and his wife. To my best recollection, I have never met Almas Thorpe, although there is a certain kinship to be felt with anyone who is 53 years old and who presides over a major suburban congregation in North Oakland County. In the cold hard facts of a newspaper page, it was reported that Almas Thorpe committed adultery with several women, on several occasions, over the course of several years. And in a somewhat warmer letter to the people of Christ Church, he acknowledged those allegations to be true, and expressed both his contrition and sorrow for any pain he may have caused (in the course of being any less than he might have been). Not many days after all of this became public, our staff here at First Church held a half-day retreat at Christ Church (which location had been previously arranged before our destination became somewhat controversial). Following a tour of the sanctuary, we learned from the business administrator that Christ Church was both reeling and rallying from the announcement...
that a young assistant rector was exhibiting exceptional maturity in leading the congregation.... and that summer attendance had never been stronger (as people found "gathering" to be the first essential step in "healing"). It was interesting that as the eight of us walked past the wall where the pictures of past and present rectors are prominently displayed, every one of us paused to look at Almas Thorpe's picture. Stranger still was the fact that the first comment out of virtually all of our mouths was: "My gosh, he really is handsome, isn't he." I don't have the faintest idea what that meant. But we all said it. Certainly none of us believed that physical beauty renders one more susceptible to adultery. Or did we? Perhaps we did. ("Ah, look how good looking he is. Surely that explains it.")
Upon first confronting the headline of Almas' indiscretions, I brought the newspaper home and laid It on the coffee table. It was only later that I noticed that it was adjacent to the Newsweek magazine cover which screamed: "Sex and the Church: Priests and Child Abuse." And on that same coffee table was a very serious book I was reading. Its title was "Saints and Sinners." Its author was Lawrence Wright. And its text profiled six prominent persons of religion, including Walker Bailey (that once-rising star of Texas Methodism.... who (on the way to being touted for bishop), may or may not have strangled his wife. Unfortunately, his wife can't tell anybody the truth of the matter, given that she has spent the last four years of her life in what has been described as a persistent vegetative coma.
All of this troubles me, I suppose, because all of this taints me. Where clergy are concerned, people already have enough reasons to mistrust us, shy away from us, and turn their collective backs on the God whom we serve. As we learned during the demise of Jim and Tammy (and the fall of the House of Swaggert), every church-related scandal paints with a broad brush, and the world does not lack for people who are ready and willing to point out the stains.
But when these things hit closer to home than Charlotte, North Carolina or Baton Rouge, Louisiana, what I feel is not so much "the troubling" as it is "the pain." I look upon our Episcopal neighbors to the north and realize the "quiet carnage of hurt" that has swept over them. There must be enough pain present to give everybody a second and third helping, whether they desire it or not. I think of the people whose lives are in pieces. And I think of other people who are tenderly trying to sweep up the pieces (so that they don't get any more broken than they already are, and so that none of the pieces gets lost).
I think about Almas and wonder how it must feel to be 53 and see so much of one's past slipping away. I wonder how it must feel to know that one has hurt the very people that one has been commissioned to help. And I wonder what it would be like to say an enforced "goodbye" to a congregation one day, with little likelihood of being able to say "hello" to another, the next.
I think about his wife (who left him several months previous).... and what she must have gone through before she did.... and what she must be going through now. Ditto for his kids. And double ditto for his friends.
I think about the other women.... and how superfluously "catch all" that category sounds ("other women").... and how they must have thought they loved him.... and how he must have thought he loved them.... and how empty-handed such people come up, when (as the song says) they go "looking for love in all the wrong places.” I think of the marriages of those "other women." I also think of the number of uninvolved people trying to figure out who the involved people were.... and whether they
knew them.... all the while understanding what such speculation can do to rip apart the cohesion of any community (even a faith community).
Clearly, what Almas did was as unfortunate as it was inappropriate. It does not serve anybody well when the shepherd fleeces or fondles the flock. Some years ago, Kris and I were entertaining an old friend in our living room. Earlier that evening, he had preached a sermon in the church I was then serving. Out of friendship he had come north from one of the largest and most influential congregations in Ohio. He talked about his love for his church. But he also talked about the amount of pastoral work still needed there. This additional quotient of pastoral care was necessitated by his predecessor's divorce and subsequent departure with another woman who had deep roots in that congregation. That conversation with my friend was a decade or more ago. Last year my friend not only reopened that congregation's wound, but salted it. How so? By resigning his position, divorcing his wife, and departing in the company of yet another woman with deep roots in the congregation.
To all of this, I have but a pair of things to say. And I submit that while the two may appear to be contradictory, each of them is true. Hear me out.
First, we who (as clergy) would profess to speak to Christ's Church and for Christ's Church, need to understand that we will be looked at by Christ's church in a closer light than other people.... and (I think) properly so. Clergy do not like to hear this. I have not always liked hearing this. Few of us like the "fishbowl" nature of our existence. We do not like being watched, we say. Our spouses do not like being watched, we say. Our children do not like being watched, we say. We are ordinary, flawed, fallible human beings.... fighting the same demons.... wrestling with the same doubts.... struggling with the same sins as everyone else... we say. All of this is true. And I, for one, have never attempted to pretend otherwise.
Still, we (who accept this calling) are asked to do more than merely confess our common humanity. We are asked to live lives worthy of emulation. That's the part of the job I have never liked, given the awesome nature of the responsibility. But with the passing of the years, I have come to accept it as being both inevitable and necessary. Who says so? The Apostle Paul, that's who. Four times he wrote to churches under his care, saying: "Be imitators of me." "Become as I am," he told them. Which is quite a thing to say when you are as human as Paul was.
To the Philippians he wrote: "Ignore those enemies of the cross whose god is the belly" (wouldn't you like to know what that meant) "and recognize that you have an example in us." Paul, in appealing to his flock for imitation, placed himself squarely in that moral and pedagogical tradition which assumes that a teacher is one who is willing to be exposed to the glare of a student.... that the road to learning is in the imitation of a Master.... and that those in the forefront have a responsibility to live as they lead, and walk as they talk.
Concerning all of this, my colleague at Duke Chapel (William Willimon) adds
Lifestyle is ultimately converted through lifestyle. And there can be no weaseling out of the truth, that discipleship is utterly dependent upon our being able to identify examples worthy of imitation. And if we who preach the faith can't point to such examples.... even to ourselves.... we really have very little to say.
While it is too much to ask that clergy become "poster children" for the Christian life, it is not too much to ask that we live as if our preaching has taken root in us.... and that our claim that "things go better with Christ" might just be true because, from outward appearances, things seem to be going better with us. A group of sixth graders once sent a note forward to their teacher. Upon unfolding it she read: "If you are happy, why not send a message to your face." All of which suggests a second note, scribbled and passed from congregation to clergy. Unfolded, it might read: "If discipleship is as possible and as wonderful as you say, send a message to your life." In short, people probably do have a right to ask more from us.... and expect more of us.... than they ask and expect of themselves.
Having said that, however, I think that it is absolutely critical to remember that most clergy.... like most dates.... are wormy. It is also important to remember that God not only knows this, but has designed it so. If I were God, I would have done it differently. I would have created an elevated breed.... a worm-resistant breed.... in short, a better breed.... to feed those who come hungering to the tent of meeting. But God didn't. Instead, God entrusted this treasure to earthen vessels.... meaning clay pots.... occasionally meaning cracked pots.... in which this fine wine of the Gospel is to be carried, and from which it is to be poured.
Which means, you see, that you will occasionally get some rather wonderful stuff from a rather dismal pot. Or, as Harrell Beck might have said: "Even wormy dates can nourish." The tragedy at Christ Church Cranbrook, is not so much that Almas Thorpe is gone. He probably should be (for the time being). But the greater tragedy, in the wake of his departure, is that people will discount all the good and wonderful stuff he ever did, as if he had never done any. His fall from grace should not obliterate the message of grace. Neither should it obliterate the fact that (from everything that I've heard) he certainly preached it admirably.... administered it capably.... and distributed it widely to some of God's poorer, hungrier and more easily forgettable children. And, in that grace, one can only hope that Almas Thorpe may live to do all of the above again.
Earthen vessels. Clay pots. Wormy dates. Why is it that God has chosen to entrust the store to the likes of us?
There is an old legend (also passed on to me by Harrell Beck) that has Jesus meeting an angel on the front porch of heaven, after His work on earth was done. It is said that their conversation went something like this.
Angel: 'We've missed you. Where have you been?"
Jesus: "I've been to earth."
Angel: "Were you gone long?"
Jesus: "About thirty years, give or take a couple."
Angel: "That's not very long.
Jesus: "I suppose you could say that I died rather young."
Angel: "How did you die?"
Jesus: "Martyrdom.... by crucifixion."
Angel: "Oh, you must have had a great influence."
Jesus: "I ended up with eleven friends."
Angel: "How, then, will your work continue?"
Jesus: "I left it in the hands of my friends."
Angel: "And if they fail?"
Jesus:" I have no other plans."
