Dying and Rising in a Parsonage – Dr. James Nestigen

Transcript (edited for readability).

In the old Service Book and Hymnal marriage ceremony, which was used by the ALC and the LCA, the pastor repeated a traditional and sobering statement about marriage. "And though by reason of sin, many a cross is laid thereon, God does not abandon this holy and precious estate." Each of the vocations involves a cross. God calls us to our stations in life, the various offices we hold in the family, in the church, in the state, and in each one of them we get crucified. That's part of it.

When Jesus says, "Take up your cross and follow me," He's not telling us to go someplace else. He's telling us to go home. You notice that, over and over again after the miracles. He doesn't say, "Go to Tulsa and build a cathedral." He doesn't say, "Start a college." He doesn't say, "Give your life to me and go to Africa." He says, "Go home. Go home." That, of course, is the hardest place to go. That's where fifty years later they still remember. That's where the sins of your youth are invested at compound interest. Did you realize? Whenever it's advantageous, right? I mean, home is where you die. Whether it's in your house with your family, whether it's going to your daily work, whether it's living as a citizen of a nation turned in upon yourself, you die of it. You literally die of it. That's the cross that Jesus wants us to take up.

How many of you remember Ken Korby? Oh gosh, isn't that fabulous? I hope nobody ever forgets him. Oh, I loved him. He told me this story one time when he was pastor in Chicago. He said he had left Valparaiso and he had gone to Chicago and he was serving a congregation inner city, all black parish, and he was sitting in his office praying one day when an old woman, an old black woman, came in to see him. She said, "Pastor Korby, I have had a vision." Well, Ken, of course, had the same estimate of visions that most of us do. I mean, he was nervous right off the bat. And he said, "Okay, what was your vision?" She said, "Well, I was praying that Jesus would lift my cross. And in my vision, Jesus came and took me up into the third heaven." And He said, "Okay, I'll trade you even up." He had a warehouse full of crosses. And so He took me through and He let me look at all of these crosses. "I looked at every one of them," she said. "And when we got done, I turned to Him and I said, 'No, thanks. I'll take the one I've got.'" She got up and left. Ken said to me, "I was entertaining angels unawares." Right? Some message. Some message. Take up your cross is to take the one you've got. It's given to you. You don't have to go looking for it. It'll find you quick as a wink.

So I lectured to you yesterday, and I was sitting at supper and my cell phone rang. And it was the wife of one of my dearest friends, for whom we prayed last night, Lee Griffin. I've been caring for him daily. And last night he was close to death, and so she said, "He needs to talk to you." So while you were praying in the chapel, I was sitting out under the tree, praying with my friend on the telephone as he turns now toward death. You don't look for the cross. The cross looks for you. And when it comes, you carry it.

And one of the places it comes is in your marriage, in your home. I mean, that's about as good a place to die as you can possibly find. First of all, you've got two sinners belly to belly for a lifetime. I mean, that's enough all by itself, right? I mean, "You hurt my wife. It was your seed." Right? Cold as ice. Just piercing. I mean, you live together in a kind of low-grade hostility, punctured by eruptions of intense love. I mean, that's just how it works.

You know, my youngest son, he came home one day. My in-laws had been married sixty-five years, and my youngest son came home and he said to me, "Does Grandpa hate Grandma?" I said, "What in the world made you ask that question?" He said, "Well, I was riding with them today and Grandma was driving and she went through a stop sign. And Grandpa started to yell at her, and I heard hatred in his words." Perfect. First of all, Grandma is still looking for the land speed record, even at ninety-four, you know? Secondly, I said to Jacob, "How long has it been since Grandpa's been able to drive?" "Oh," he said, "maybe five years?" I said, "What do you think Grandpa thinks of not being able to drive?" He said, "He doesn't like it." "And what do you think he thinks when Grandma speeds again?" "Well, he gets mad." I said, "You know, Grandpa and Grammy love one another so much that they hate one another with their whole hearts." "Oh," he said, "I understand." I mean, that's, you know, you've got sinners together, in one another's stuff, literally captivated by one another, and of course it explodes.

One time I supervised the fight between a couple that had been married twenty-five years, and they had never had one. And they were greatly proud of the fact they'd never had one. He came home one afternoon and he beat her up. She was my aunt. I loved her, and my dad called and sent me running over there to Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, fast as I could go, and I went running over there, and I found them. And I said, "All right, since you've started, you might as well have a good one." And two of us, another pastor and I, stood on one either side and they fought for two and a half hours. I mean, they were bringing up stuff from the honeymoon. "I remember when." I mean, some of those sins were so old, they were just green, moldy, dripping, the stuff you find in caves, hanging with the bat. But all of them came out eager for their cash value, right?

I mean, of course, marriage is risky business. But because God has not abandoned this estate, we see in this some of the profoundest joys of life. I mean, what could be deeper? What could be more delightful than the years that have amassed, the inertia of belonging together over all those decades? I mean, that's just sweet as a nut. So this lovely enemy is also the one who gives you a taste of redemption. Boy, if that isn't like Jesus, you never saw it in your whole life. I mean, He prepares the table before you in the presence of your enemy, so that you can laugh with joy, even with the one who has crucified you every day. Couldn't get better than that.

When you get it into a parsonage, of course, it gets way more complicated. So that's what we're going to do. We're going to look at the shape of the cross in parsonage life. And then secondly, we'll look at the taste of the resurrection in the parsonage.

Now, it would help me to know how many of you live in a house owned by your congregation. Oh, look at that. A bunch of you, right? How many of you live in a house you own yourself? Even more, right? "We in the bank." You in the bank, yeah. That you own in the bank's name. Maybe I should. Good. Okay, we'll try to talk both sides, because of the changes that have taken place.

First of all, dying in the parsonage. To begin with, you just saw evidence of the tremendous change that's taken place in parsonage life since the 1960s. To the 1960s, late '60s, early '70s perhaps, pastors generally lived in homes provided by their congregations, proximate to the church. So part of your call was the provision of a parsonage, which the congregation owned. You moved into it when you accepted the call, and lived there as long as you stayed. This put the pastor and the family in a goldfish bowl under constant scrutiny. The pastor lived in a house provided, and since the house was provided, the oversight went with it. And so there was oversight of the building and there was oversight of the couple.

Of course, if I start reminiscing this morning, you're in big trouble, but my father was ordained in 1944. Part of his salary package was the Christmas offering, and all the eggs and all the cream and all the beef that we could eat. It was years before he ever received a salary. That was part of the old economy in kind. He traded his labor as a pastor for the food that we ate, literally. And when he started getting a salary, he thought it was the most magnificent liberation he had.

But we all knew a story about a guy from New Jersey who had moved to North Dakota. Now there is multiculturalism, if you ever saw it. And the ladies in the congregation couldn't figure out what was happening to the bottles they used to bring him cream in. And they couldn't figure out what happened to all their egg cartons. And they couldn't figure out what happened to their pans, and they couldn't. I mean, the stuff just went into the parsonage and disappeared and never came back. So after the pastor left, the Ladies Aid went to the parsonage — you know, this is way too much fun, you know? I mean, Garrison Keillor should get a hold of this story. I'll never tell them. Anyway, they all went, and here down the basement, in one of the rooms, stood everything that they'd given him. The cream jars had never been opened. And the eggs were still in the cartons. He thought he was being treated as a kept man, and resented it furiously. And those women who had given out of their love were brokenhearted. I mean, what a cross.

I mean, this is the way that it used to work, that the economy in kind meant the people in the congregation gave you out of their extra or out of their substance. My grandpa — my father-in-law used to tell a story. His father had served a congregation during the '30s. And he had been vice-pastor when the neighboring congregation lost their pastor. So he would drive down and preach for them. They never paid him. Of course, in those days, you know, tires were very difficult to come by, and gas was not cheap, and he was driving all this way and serving them, and there was never any pay whatsoever. Finally, one day a guy said to him, "Pastor, I'm going to give you a chicken." Well, he thought that's at least something. The next week there was no chicken. The second week, no chicken. The third week, no chicken. Finally, the fourth week he said, "Whatever happened to that chicken?" "Oh, I'm sorry, Pastor. It got well." I mean, that's pretty awful.

At any rate, that was, you know, the condition of parsonage life, even into the '60s. But then, you know, as closely as the family was watched, oftentimes the house was not looked after at all. And so many pastors' families can tell stories of parsonages that had been allowed to go to wreck and ruin, and the daily nuisance of linoleum that was coming off the floor and toilets that hadn't been tended, and of circumstances in the house, loose windows rattling in the wind night after night after night. It was just impossible. And of course, because the people loved the church, didn't sleep in the house — they didn't know this, and if they knew it, they didn't care very much. So they'd come in and tend things reluctantly, complaining about the money that was being spent, and the pastor would be left to live with it.

And so this became a matter of justice for lots of pastors, lacking the equity that normally accumulates when you own your own house. Pastors came to retirement with literally no place to go, and no money — living on low salaries, no money to buy a place. And so, put out cold. And where this became especially dramatic was with widows. Pastors that had worked a lifetime in parishes and had never received adequate recompense. Salaries had been low, and consequently they didn't amass any significant pension. And when they died, they left widows in poverty. Widows getting, you know, miniscule pensions, hardly anything, and expected to survive on it. Well, it's just a recipe for injustice, and it's no wonder that many people think of parsonages with resentment. Because we lived in them. We lived in a goldfish bowl under incredible scrutiny. I mean, you couldn't walk across the street without it being recorded. And at the same time, then, with little or no support often enough.

So, not surprisingly, these conditions led to wholesale changes. And so the traditional parsonage generally remains in rural areas where it's very hard to sell a house. And so the parsonage is the only way, really, that pastors can move in and out. And so congregations off in rural areas have generally kept their parsonages. But in the suburbs especially, but in the urban situations as well — and there's a surprising connection between urban and rural in these kinds of issues — urban homes, inner-city homes are oftentimes as hard to sell as rural homes. And so inner-city parsonages are fairly common too.

But beginning in the '60s, pastors started moving over to housing allowances. And this at least cured some of the problems, until the big drop in housing prices. And then, of course, it means now that many pastors are, because of their house, stranded in their congregations and unable to move. And so we get — at least when I was familiar with what was happening among pastors in the ELCA — there were a lot of pastors who were unable to get a call after fifty, who were living it out in a congregation that was no longer hospitable. The congregations knew that they were a retirement plan for a person who had virtually retired and was continuing to serve, and the pastors resented the congregations like fury. This housing allowance turned out to be just another trap, especially when the economy lost its flexibility and people couldn't move as easily.

Among other things, though, the housing allowances give pastors more insulation from their parishes. You could live some distance away. In a small town, that's a benefit, though you have to drive or walk. One of the most important things I ever learned about being a small-town pastor is walking my parish. I learned it from an old German pastor. Walk your parish. And so I walked that small town and I got to know virtually everybody. You belong to that church where the pastor walks. I've seen them. And I learned more about what was going on in town by walking. People, when you're in the car, people won't stop you. When you're on foot, you're vulnerable. And you hear all kinds of things.

I mean, one of my great discoveries walking was — I walked by this home of one of my parishioners regularly. And of course, when you live in a small town, you know everybody's cars, right? You know who drives what, and you know where they are. So I saw a certain set of cars outside her house every day — frequently, not every day. And finally, one day I said to her, "You get a lot of young women visitors." She said, "How'd you know that?" I said, "I walked by your house." "Oh," she said, "I bet you they're coming to talk to you." She said, "They are. You know, they can say things to me they would never dare say to their mother." I said, "What do you say?" "Oh, I understand. I just listen," she said, "and I know what they're going through, and I tell them that." I said to her, "No, you could say something more." And I taught her to absolve a sinner. I had an assistant from then on. Right? People would go to her who would never come to me. And I learned it by walking. I mean, that's what life in a small town is. This is one of the things that works.

So, but when you live far enough away, you're not living right next door to the church, you've got some protection. And people don't just barge in on you. "How come the church isn't open? Will you unlock it? Will you go over and flush the toilets? I think we forgot to do it. Will you turn off the lights?" I mean, if you're a little distance away, you can't do that. People have to do it themselves, and so you get some protection.

The changes in our public life for women have also had a big effect on parsonages. I mean, feminism and the revolution brought about by birth control, reliable birth control, has emancipated women from some of their traditional vocations. Not all women want to be emancipated; not all women regard this as emancipation. Many are very content with the traditional vocation that women have held in our public life as Lutherans for a long time. But it's changed things. And the pastor is much, much less likely to get by with saying, "Well, we need to make this sacrifice for the congregation." I mean, I got a black eye once for saying that, you know. My wife is a third-generation professional woman. She was a lawyer for thirty years. I didn't get away with a lot, you know. I mean, this changes the equation in the household, and it redefines parsonage life.

And of course, the economy has been particularly difficult for pastors, as seminaries have been forced to raise tuition. Unable to get the level of support they need from the church, they start relying on tuition, and that means relying on the students to fund their own education. When I went to seminary in the 1960s, I paid two hundred dollars a year for tuition. Now the tuition at Luther Seminary, where I taught, is sixteen thousand dollars a year. So you get students graduating with fifty thousand to sixty thousand dollars' worth of indebtedness. And of course, I don't know how Missouri is funding its seminaries — I can guess that they've got to rely on some tuition — but I know what tuition means for you people. That means loans, and that means coming to those loans as you begin your vocation, and that means that you've got, in effect, a mortgage to pay with a limited income at the beginning salary. And that means, of course, that young pastors particularly are strapped financially. Indentured. That they have indentured themselves means nothing. The church has set up conditions where that's the only way to accept the call. And so you get high indebtedness, a low salary, and you get people dying in parsonages when they pay their bills. I mean, it just works this way.

And so these various conditions — the goldfish bowl, the continuous scrutiny, the problems in maintaining parsonages, all the rest of it — this is part of the crucifixion of parsonage life. Whether you live in one or have been able to manage to get your own home or to rent, you know exactly how this works. If you get away from the housing allowance, you solve one problem, you get another one to replace it. I mean, this is just exactly how it works.

So, with these conditions, there are also some classical points of crucifixion in parsonage life that have to do with the vocation of the ministry. And while we're naming crosses, we should identify these two. George Forell — some of you, I hope, remember — one of my dear old friends who died a couple years ago. He's one of the great men I ever knew. He and his Mary, who was equally wonderful. George Forell used to say — well, I'll just tell you a story about him. When Gerhard Forde, who was my closest colleague, had Parkinson's disease, I agreed to take him to a Luther Congress in Copenhagen. I didn't realize how bad shape he was in until we got on the plane. And then I knew that it was not going to be the week I'd planned on. I mean, he was confused and uncertain and frightened. And so we got to Copenhagen, went through customs, went to the hotel. I was hoping to get a good night's sleep, and I woke up, his bed was empty, and I found him wandering naked down the hallway. So I couldn't, I couldn't take my eyes away from him. I had to watch him all the time. And I had flown overnight and was tired, and I mean, I was just getting impossible and I didn't know where to turn. And of course, you know, there's one unfortunate characteristic of Norwegian-Americans: I would die rather than ask anybody for help. And so it was Tuesday, and it was dreadful, and I was walking across the square and I heard — you pardon my directness, but I heard a voice yelling, "Nestingen, get your ass over here." It was George Forell. And he said, "You're going to die if you don't get some sleep. We're taking care of him this afternoon. No questions." You know, no easing the tension, just straight up. And he came, he and this Mary came, and they looked after my friend through the afternoon and the evening. I slept until the next morning. I mean, you know, that's a friend.

Well, George Forell used to say this about the ministry, that everyone else in town has something to sell or something with which to threaten. The pastor has just the Word. That's what we've been called for. That's our vocation. We have been freed for this: to tend the Word and to speak it. Which is our job. This is what we do. We live in God's Word for the sake of speaking it. So our point of obedience every week is the text. And that text takes over the week, hopefully on Tuesday. The text takes over the week and it becomes the warp of the week, through which are woven all of the instances of pastoral care and ministry. And so we live in the text, tending the Word.

But when that's all we've got, the old Adam says, "Uh-huh. You're a Word man, huh? Big deal. Look at everybody else with merit badges up and down their chest. Look at everyone else who has achieved and paid and marked and acquired. And look at everybody else who's got something to point to." When I was ordained, my father gave me the Philadelphia edition of Luther's Works, a plane, and a saw. I've still got them. He said, "You're a loser to hear the Word. Work with wood, because you'll be able to see something that you've accomplished." See? I mean, you know what it is. You work day in, day out with the same families, and they call, they want, they must have, you must go, you drop family relations to go and take care of urgent necessities in the congregation, and you look back and what you see is nothing. What did I accomplish? What did I accomplish? You can't see it. Because the Word by its very nature hides itself in the ear and the mouth. And it doesn't come out for management by objective. The parochial report says how many calls, how many funerals, how many baptisms, how many administrations of the Lord's Supper? And when you've counted it all up, what you see is the duties of your ministry. You see nothing of the accomplishments of your ministry. This is a crucifixion. And this is one of the most difficult parts of our vocation.

Everybody else can look and say, "I sold this much." Everybody else can say, "If you don't do this, I'm going to fix your wagon." But we look, and what do we see? The people that we spend the most time with could care less, often enough. And the people we think we've helped the most turn out to be our adversaries. I mean, it's just this kind of contention that marks our vocation, and it's just here where most of us die. I mean, you look back and you look back and you look back. When I first started teaching at Luther Seminary in 1974, I had classes of which I was very proud. By the time I got done, if I found two or three students in the class I could be proud of, I thought it was a miracle. It changed so dramatically. And it changed that fast. It changed while I was watching it change. And now I look back on my vocation and I say, "What did I do? What's left?"

What's left? My friend Lee Griffin, who is dying, may die today. He and I were retained by the ELCA to help — and the ALC before — to help pastors who were in trouble. We went time after time into the most dramatic circumstances of pastoral life. And time after time, Lee turned the key and opened the door that had been shut for a long time. Now he and his wife wonder if anybody will come to his funeral. What's left? What's left? I mean, you die of this. I mean, you sit and look, and you say, "What in the world did I waste my time for? I mean, I should have gone into investments and become a fat cat like all the rest of them." I'd have gone broke in a minute, right? I mean, of course. But this is the old Adam, who above all likes to keep book — on other sinners particularly, but on me too, and in me too. And then we die, then we die.

So time itself becomes a crucifixion. You know how this works. Pastors have time on their hands. We have unlimited time. No time clocks — not even in congregations with a church council president who would like to establish one. We have no time clock. And so we have time. And time itself becomes the problem. So we fill it with all kinds of stuff to keep ourselves occupied, and we run ourselves ragged.

If you don't hear anything else I say, I want you to listen to this. My father and I were sitting watching Monday Night Football. Howard Cosell. My mother had died at the end of July, at the age of fifty-six, of breast cancer. In the middle of the game, my father turned to me, and he said this: "I thought I had to call, gather, enlighten, sanctify, and keep every Christian in every small town where we live. And now she's dead." We lost him when we lost her. He had time for everybody, but none for us. We hardly knew him. He came to eat at our house. He had carnal privileges, which he usually exercised Sunday afternoon after church. We would hear them upstairs, right? The bridegroom shout. Golly, too much information. Good night. I mean, you know, we didn't know him. You know, of course, this is a crucifixion of a parsonage. We have time and no time. And because we have so much time, we fill it with absolutely everything that we can mark and measure, and because we have no time, we don't get to the essentials. And then we die of it, right? That's where we get crucified.

And so, two, we have the problem of authority. I don't think there's any better definition of ministry than the one provided by Richard John Neuhaus, whom I normally call Richard John Outhouse. I didn't particularly care for him, but this is really great. "We are ministers of a disputed sovereign." We are ministers of a disputed sovereign. Christ's lordship is in dispute. And because we stand in His place, we carry His authority, and we bear His cross. We become the subject of the dispute. And so we die of it.

And so, too, to live in a parsonage is to live with the north end of you uninsulated. You don't have any protection against the reign of sin and death in your community. When five kids are killed at the corner on their way home from a high school dance, you're the one that gets called. When a woman goes to the doctor and finds out she's got cancer, you're the one who gets called. When a young couple who has paid no attention in confirmation and who are ill-prepared for marriage go away to the city to make their fortune, when their marriage falls apart, who gets called? You do. You do. I mean, to be a pastor is to be daily confronted with sin and death. Daily it comes. Here I am sitting with you, having a wonderful meal, and the phone rings, and my life is redefined that fast. Yeah, this is what it is to be a pastor.

And to be a pastor's wife is to live with somebody that you have relatively little control of. He belongs to the Lord and to the parish. And if you try to play trump, he's likely to play higher trump. You die there, you die there, you die there. So how many picnics have you gone on without a phone call coming? And how many times have you been enjoying an evening you looked forward to, and the waiter comes and says there's a phone call? I mean, this is ministry. And we die of it, of course.

So, enough illustrations of the crucifixion. You know this stuff. I'm just summing it up for you. Well, we have to say this — again, what I said yesterday. This is all stuff that drives us down. Christ Jesus overlaps it. You always have to remember this passage, from Joseph: "You meant it for evil. God used it for good." This crucifixion, which the devil would use to drive you to despair and unbelief, the Holy Spirit uses to strengthen you in faith and deepen your love of the Gospel. Of course. Because this is Christ Jesus' hand on your shoulder. This is not the hand of a tyrant or an exploiter. This is Christ Jesus who is carrying your cross with you. And since He carries your cross with you, He never tempts you beyond your strength to endure.

I was sitting with an old pastor's wife a couple of Februarys ago. She said, "Jim, I know that Christ Jesus never tempts me beyond my strength to endure, but He's got way too much confidence in me." Perfect. Right? Of course. We know this: that it's His hand who leads us and His hand that guides us. And so we will never be taken further, but sometimes it seems He knows further than we do.

So there's comfort even in the cross. But we can also talk then about foretastes of the resurrection in the parsonage. I love this. You know, when Christ Jesus speaks of the resurrection, He's always trying to pull it into the present tense. That's really fun. We want to speak of it in the future — that's something that is coming. No. What did He say? "No, Mary." What? You remember. "I am." "No, Mary." "Lord, we know that at the last day —" "No, Mary. No, no, no, Mary. I am. I am the resurrection and the life. Standing here on two legs right in front of you." Here it is. "I am, I am." It's right now. And so the resurrection, Christ's resurrection, breaks out of the future and comes into the present. And it comes into the present under the sign of the cross, so that we see the resurrection in the light of the cross. We catch glimpses of it.

Here's one of my favorites. This has happened to me a couple times. Every older pastor I know tells the same story. You go back to a town where you had served and you run into somebody on the street that you don't recognize. And the person says, "Pastor So-and-so, oh, I remember you. Is it ever nice to see you again? You know, I remember when you said this and that and thus, and so I've been living on that ever since. What a joy to have you back." And you look at him and you say, "Who the heck is this?" And you think, "That's too intelligent for me to have said." Of course. Couldn't be. He's making this up. But that's ministry. See, the Gospel spills over the edges. It forever slaps the bucket. You can't keep it contained. It's always overflowing. This is the miracle of the Gospel. That it's overheard. That in what we offer, in fear and trepidation, the Gospel enters and spills and flows, pure grace just running over.

You know that. When I was a kid, I was sent all the time to the well to carry water home. We didn't have sweet water in our town. We could only get it from a well that was two thousand feet deep. Otherwise we got alkali. I suppose it was a forerunner of all the oil that's up there, no? So I would come home, a little boy carrying the pail, and by the time I got home, there was water from my pocket all the way to my ankle, right? It kept slapping, slapping. That's grace. That's what it is to be a pastor. The grace is overflowing. And it's overflowing, so it's overheard. And you come into these situations in life where you see people in whom grace has taken hold. And when you see people in whom grace has taken hold, you sit with them.

What I love more than anything else is sitting with old couples who have been married fifty and sixty years and just watching the quiet litany. I mean, they've been together for so long that the animosity is gone and the love is just set up. I mean, that's about as close as you get to pure grace. I mean, there it is in human form, a couple who have forgiven one another for years and loved one another for years, and now they're together in the deepest joy possible. I mean, this is a gift of grace. You're getting a glimpse of the resurrection of the dead. You're getting a glimpse of what happens when forgiveness sets up at the deepest level of life. You're getting a glimpse of the future that Christ Jesus has in store for you. He's giving you a taste.

I bake. I bake all our family's bread still, and now when my grandchildren come around, they do what my boys used to do: they pinch dough. They're not content to wait for the bread. They want to get a pinch. And now Christ Jesus is giving you a pinch. He's letting you see what He's got in mind. You're looking at redemption. I mean, you're looking at the Fröhlicher Wechsel, the joyous exchange. You're looking at real sinners who have become also real saints. Simultaneous. My old teacher, Gustaf Wingren, said in his last year that his greatest joy was watching the sinners line up to go to communion. "That's the justification of the ungodly on its hind legs," he said. There you're watching the godless line up to go and receive and hear. I mean, this is about as good as it gets.

So you know how it works. This happens in hospital rooms. It happens at deathbeds. It happens at the undertaker's. It happens in the silence as you sit with an old saint. It happens in these quiet ways in which the ambiguity yields ever so slightly. And we see that behind it all Christ Jesus is hard at work.

So, I'm going to leave you this morning with two recommendations for reading. Many of you know The Hammer of God. Lots of you know that. My parents gave it to me when I was fourteen, and I've read it every year of my life since. That book has defined me in all kinds of ways. I don't think there's anything better for a pastor to read. Because there you see the contention and the sorrow and the crucifixion of parish life, and there you see grace bubbling over. The drunken pastor, throwing up over the railing of the porch, and the old woman coming full of grace. There's both sides. The crucifixion and the resurrection side by side. You know, it doesn't get better. So it's about as good as it gets.

And lately I've come to love a book written by Marilynne Robinson called Gilead. About an old pastor in his last years in a little town in Iowa. She's a Calvinist, which is a problem. So, of course, like all the Calvinists, he's creating his own reality, and I get a little sick of it. I mean, you just wish that grace would slap that bucket and drown them. I mean, you know. Gilead. It's Marilynne — M-A-R-I-L-Y-N-N-E — Robinson. And the book is Gilead. This man, the old pastor, he's good. I mean, what she wants to show you is his sensitivity and his intellect. But if you look over her shoulder, you see a real pastor who has died with his people and who has been raised with his people. And now his biggest concern is his son. He reminisces about his father, who was a wild old prophet of a pastor. And then he worries now about his son. Boy, is that — I don't know her. I don't know what her connections are. I know she's a Christian. I can hardly understand how a person who is not a pastor can write with such wisdom and clarity about our vocation. It's absolutely magnificent.

So there you have two books that you can take with you. I would bet my money on The Hammer of God. Marilynne Robinson is good for dessert, but it's good dessert, you know. I mean, you get steak and potatoes from Giertz, and you get a little frou-frou on the pie from her. But I don't want to deprecate it, because, you know, that book won a Pulitzer Prize, and when you find a book that's halfway intelligent in the public press, you just have to rejoice and say, "Christ Jesus has been busy." I mean, good.

Okay, where are we? Oh, okay, we've got time for questions. Somebody was disappointed yesterday in the questions you didn't ask. So if you don't ask, you don't get anything. Knock, and the door shall be opened. If you don't ask, I will write to somebody in the ELCA, and I'll say I was working with Missourians, and they didn't have a question. Dear hell.

Yes. Could you give us your best opinion as to why it is that in this time, in the twenty-first century, in ministry right now, we seem to be so blind to the importance of crucifixion and resurrection? What is it about? Is it a culture? Is there a theology?

You know, this spring I was in Pendleton, Oregon. The congregation there was founded out of the old, old ALC, the Dubuque people. Johann Michael Reu people. You know his name, right? You, some of you, remember the name Johann Michael Reu. He wrote some of the great stuff on the inspiration of Scripture. So this was a great old parish. And of course, now it's all being ripped apart by contention. So I was talking to an old woman in the congregation. And she said a word that's lived in me all summer. She said, "My daughter is divided from me. My daughter is mad at me. I am living in her basement paying her rent, and she won't talk to me. I'm ninety-four years old and I'm waiting for Christ Jesus to come for me. I cry out to Him over and over again, and I hear the same word: 'Take it to the cross. Take it to the cross.'"

You see, this is a living example of the piety that shaped us as Lutherans, that we see the cross in every day and the resurrection in every day. And of course, all of that comes from Luther's explanation of baptism, originally from Romans 6, Colossians 1 and 2. This is where this language of cross and resurrection is — way deep in our tradition. And it's living and vital. And when you hear it from an old woman like that, you know that it sustained her for years. And I literally cannot understand why we don't use it more. Because it's biblical, it's confessional, it's clean as a whistle, it helps us to understand what's happening to us each day. I mean, if I thought it was just bad luck, I would die. If it wasn't Christ Jesus crucifying me with Him, I would give up. But it's His hand. And because it's His hand, I say, "Lighten up, if You please, but bring it on if necessary." Right? You know, both things. So I don't have any explanation. But I think this language is just as living and vital as it can be.

And I think, too, I guess, that we've been had by the evangelicals, you know, who want to make repentance into a one-time-only, fourteen-year-old event that you talk about the rest of your life, you know, and bore people to tears. You know, golly, I'm so sick of that garbage. "No. I was so lost. But you should see me now. Jesus." Martin Luther said that the Gospel is like a driving rain shower. It comes and goes. Yeah, yeah. Because we are not grateful, God might just remove the Gospel. And I think our ungratefulness can be seen in our worrying about many things, like Martha, except what is necessary — the one thing. So we see a resurrection and an expansion of Christianity in Africa, where they are not all standing around texting to one another and Googling everything, instant gratification. We don't want to die studying these hard subjects. Right? That's right. We are too busy. And I fear for this generation.

In Wittenberg, I talked, I think, to six locals about Martin Luther in 2005. One knew that this was Lutherstadt; the other five had no clue. Sixteen percent of the citizens acknowledge that they are Christians — sixteen percent of the city of Wittenberg. We have some work to do there too. Yeah, exactly. But we have to retain it here, get serious. Yeah.

You know, I was — since I got an early retirement, one of the benefits — so Christ Jesus says, yeah, this is — Christ Jesus gave me this time to serve the churches in Africa. And I go over there every year. And it was so interesting. I've been teaching in Ethiopia at the seminary in Addis Ababa. And I went over there to lecture, and there's an old Swedish theologian from the mission society who's been — he and a Norwegian have been serving that seminary for thirty-five years together. Do they get along? They get along famously. I even had lunch with them and watched, and neither one of them turned on me. And so we were talking about how to serve the church in Ethiopia. And all three of us were convinced of this, that just exactly what I've been talking about here was the most important thing. Because they have learned the hope. And they hear on the radio from Nigeria the prosperity gospel, and they're convinced that the resurrection is around the corner, but they want to separate the resurrection from the cross. And they want to take the cross and the resurrection as the solution to the problem of the cross, so that you go through the cross to the crown. And because you're under the power of the resurrection, you don't have to be crucified anymore. You know? So we had to take these guys into Corinthians. You know? The resurrected one is present now as the crucified one. He always bears His wounds. You never see the resurrected Christ without His wounds. He is always the crucified one.

And maybe the reason we don't talk this language anymore is that we have let this theology of glory take the cross away. We think this is done, it's passed, we don't have to worry about this anymore. Well, if you don't bear the sign of the cross, you're not one of His. This is who He is — the crucified one and the resurrected one. Simultaneously, both at the same time. No resurrection without the cross, no cross without the resurrection day. They belong right side by side.

In speaking about the language that we use, I've really appreciated the language that you've been using — everybody, in fact — that it kills us over and over again. I think that part of this theology of glory that we're talking about here is the fact that when you have people come into your office as a pastor and they talk about the crosses that they bear, and it's like, you know, poor cell phone service or something like that. I mean, we've really cheapened the idea of the crosses that we bear. And we try to, like the story that you opened with today — you know, we place crosses upon ourselves, and we call things crosses without really focusing on the fact that this is death we're talking about. And I think that's Neuhaus's question, you know, that we've really cheapened the whole — the fact that we're really talking about death and resurrection. It's not just a picture game. It's not just some kind of a metaphor. This is real.

Yeah, this is real. And so I guess my question is, you know — I mean, obviously through preaching, through counsel, but I mean — and maybe this is almost from a pietistic kind of perspective — but we look for the crosses that are on us, and I feel like it's a lot, at times it's easier whenever I can see the cross that's on your back than you seeing the cross.

There you go, there you go. Big stuff. You know, when somebody comes to you and starts talking about the cross they're bearing in their bad back, or the cross they're bearing financially, or the cross — they're making a confession. And that's sacred. That is not minimizing the significance of the cross. That's the real stuff. When you turn and say, "Well, you're bearing the cross," that's cheapening it. You see? It depends on who says it. When the person who's in the pain and under the straits or under the cross says, "This is the cross," you know, that's a confession of faith. That's to be honored. But you know, when a pastor turns to somebody and says, "Well, you're just going to have to live with it," you know, that may be true, but there's something else that also has to be said: "I'll live with it with you." You know? I mean, most of us, when we're at our deepest, in our deepest pain, don't recognize the cross as the cross. What we recognize is the pain. What we recognize is the sorrow and the loss, and, you know, but we don't have words for it. And that's the last thing we want to say: "This is the cross." And you have to get pushed past the cheap outs until finally, finally you're able to say, "You know, that must have been Christ Jesus." You know? And to be a pastor is to sit with the person in the pain until you can join in saying that with integrity.

My friend — the wife of my friend who's dying today — she is — he abandoned his kids. They've been married sixty-five years, she said. "The first fifty-five years of our marriage were tortured. The last ten have been pretty good." Well, she hung in there for fifty-five years, you know? When she probably should have left. He was juvenile, you know? I mean, he ran to every fire in the country, you know, saving people, but he didn't have any time for her. And the kids, they could care less. You know, he abandoned them. They're leaving him. So she's all alone. And she's living his death through day by day. And that — you know, I mean, when you're called as a pastor, you have to join the person in that dying. And if you say "This is the cross," then you pick it up with them and carry it alongside. You know? Then that's not cheap; then that's got all the integrity in the world. Because I don't worry so much about Christ's cross being minimized. What I worry about most of the time is that it's not maximized in preaching. You know?

I like your t-shirt. Yes, absolutely. Fellow Minnesotan. Long o's. Appreciate it. We appreciated your words about sitting with your father and your mother, and talking about the parsonage and the dying and so forth, and you've given us, as pastors, a lot of encouragement. And I just wanted to hear some of your words of encouragement for our wives, because you can feel the deep love you have for your wife and the deep love that you've had for pastors' wives. Just want to hear your words of encouragement to them, what it would be, because —

Yeah. I'm sorry that I necessitated the question. I wanted to be both sides fully. But to be a pastor's wife in this culture is to be crucified a couple of times extra, because you have, you know — yeah. Right. You know, in the Orthodox — the — oops, there's my telephone. I thought I'd turned it off. Just a second. I can put it by the microphone. That's my wife. "Shut up." She says, "You've talked long enough." Scott Keith. I've got one graduate student left, and he calls me while I'm speaking. Why does that make sense?

Okay, you know, the Orthodox, when the pastor's in preparation, he and his wife take an oath together, so that she is prepared for the vocation that she's entering, and she takes an oath of allegiance to him and to the church, because they know what she's going to go through. I mean, the hardest part of it is that, you know — I don't think I should say hardest. One of the hard parts of it is, you know, that you're always one step in the remove, so that your husband is engaged and is dealing directly, and you're catching the afterbirth. I mean, you're hearing of it, you know, after it's over. And the pastor's wife gets this caught up in it as much as the pastor, but has no direct way of participation. And so it whips us. It's like playing crack the whip, you know, where you're at the end of the whip and you get thrown. And then, too, you know, once a pastor's wife was honored for carrying her vocation. No. The culture's likely to look at you as a damn fool. I mean, "What did you sign up for that for? You know, I mean, you knew what you were getting," you know, "or you didn't know what you were getting."

And here's the encouragement, it seems to me. First of all, that what is happening to you is inherent in the vocation that you've accepted. You're not suffering for a stupid reason. This is built in. And so the fact that it hurts, the fact that it's painful, the fact that it continues to be painful, is not evidence that you've lost it. It's evidence that you're seeing accurately what's happening. Secondly, the deepest encouragement, it seems to me, is in Christ's promise: "Though you are faithless, I am faithful. I cannot deny myself." I mean, His word to each of you is this: that what you're bearing is His, and He is carrying it with you.

Thirdly, I don't think there's anything better, especially for younger pastors' wives, than spending some time with an older one. Somebody who's been through it. I mean, when I went through my ordeal with Luther Seminary, my wife — it just about killed my wife. And, you know, if we had not loved one another so profoundly, our marriage would have ended too. I mean, I was getting it in the teeth, she was getting it in the behind when I got home. And not from me. You know, from the circumstances. And what saved us was an old couple who came, who called, who stuck with us. And that — I mean, I can't give you a theoretical encouragement that ignores the reality of hands, and hugs, and people who talk. Some of the old pastors who stuck with both of us through crucifixions — I went on internship in Spokane, I found vicarage. I found the next day that the pastor's wife was a homosexual and her lover was the choir director, and that the pastor was being beat to pieces by them. I wound up serving a congregation of six hundred and forty all by myself for a year. You know, it was a death for both of us. But it was the resurrection for both. And the main reason was because there was an old couple who stood with us right through the whole business.

So. Now, "broer" has been removed, and that means it's time for me to sit down. Thanks a lot. We'll talk some more.