Clash of Calendars

This past weekend was Pentecost and Memorial Day--a phenomenon that inspired this post and a great conversation with my new field ed supervisor, Julie. "In the church, what do you do with secular holidays?" she asked.


Essentially, the question is about secular/Christian perspectives on time (Do holidays mark and measure the creeping monotony of human time or should they break into it--shading our chronology with hues of eschatology and reminding us that God defines time?). Likewise, there are two calendars in tension; the Christian calendar (lectionary, Advent, Easter, Pentecost, etc...) and the secular one that every American hangs on their wall. ....but which one should shape our worship?

1. Only the Christian calendar! That's the only true Christian way of life!

• (Julie asked people to wear red/yellow/orange on Petecost in order to avoid the red/white/blue of memorial day)
• Immediately, this may seem right, but it's not so easy. Some secular holidays are conceived as Christian. (What's more Christian than giving thanks on Thanksgiving? And isn't it a commandment to honor our mother's and fathers? So Mother's day is biblical.) Plus, as Julie pointed out, it's important to recognize (and preach to) a congregation's context. If your congregation is thinking in terms of memorial day, then why not give people a way to think about God IN the reality of that life? Besides, in completely ignoring secular holidays, worship runs the risk of being disjointed from life...And even holidays that are Christian have been tainted by the secular world. Advent has become the season of shopping

2. Embrace the secular holidays! Preach to the People.  Christmas and Easter were pagan holidays that Christians used to infuse the narrative of Christ. Celebrations of spring and new life became reminders of Jesus' resurrection.

•  But so many holidays are problematic
• Is 'Thanksgiving' the same as giving thanks? (No, because it's a political holiday and it oppressed the natives...
• Mother's Day run danger of painfully excluding so many....'mothering' isn't limited women and being a woman cannot be reduced to mothering 
• In addition risking false celebration (ie, honoring soldier sacrifices insread of Jesus' sacrifice), secular holidays are often times of false joy ("Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year" so the implication is that if you're not happy, something is wrong with you. Holidays often bring financial/emotional burdens and highlight brokenness rather than invite us into life...
• Plus, "to celebrate a holiday in the worship service is to baptize it. Transformation is needed, but the secular context doesn't always get transformed in worship." -JP
• You could preach them from the fliip side. Preach right at them, "here's what this holiday actually is...here's what we miss...here's the Christian lens and how we SHOULD celebrate them"
• Preaching is a conversion--moving us away from memorial day and death into Pentecost and life!
• If you try this, make sure to alert the person doing the children's message. There's nothing like following a children's message by saying how it was wrong...
• But...Are they really worth 1/52 Sundays? Every year? (when the lectionary is a 3-year cycle). Are these holidays THAT important?

 3. Incorporate one into the other. 

• You can preach lectionary, but nod towards the holiday in a pastoral prayer...

"Storytelling is a battle. For Christians are living waist-deep in competing narratives--stories of empire, nation, progress, and self-actualization, each of which whispers in our ear, 'This is who you really are. You belong to us.'" Lischer

"Let me Be Laid Aside For Thee"

I'll be honest: the loss of guaranteed appointments scares me.

I mean, ministry is scary enough, right? You put yourself out there. You jump through ordination hoops. You open your future to an itinerant system--not knowing WHERE you'll end up--but knowing, at least, that you'll have SOME kind of job. And that, no matter how tiny or creepy the parsonage, your family will have a place to live. 

More than that, I liked knowing that I would always have a place to do ministry.

I can handle moving around. I've reconciled with that idea. But the possibility of NOT having a church? Or doing sixteen years of church ministry and then getting 'assigned' to unpaid church leave just because the conference needs to cut back on the budget? THAT thought is terrifying.

And I HATE the thought of doing local church ministry with one hand behind my back--one hand feverishly waving to the bishop and cabinet to make sure I get noticed.

Will I have to learn Spanish for the sake of job retention? (instead of learning Spanish for the sake of sharing the Gospel?)  If something goes wrong in the conference, will I have to play it safe instead of speaking out? 
Will this make us more competitive against one another? Will this become an excuse for ditching us before retirement? What if they simply don't like me?

...Some of these fears, I'll admit, are unwarranted and my rational heart knows good and well that this tiny detail is not going to derail the whole seeking-faith UMC system. Other jobs don't come with a guarantee, so why should this one?

However, the notion of 'popular ministry' where golden, vivacious, pastors rise to the top and the quiet faithful ones falls through the cracks and lose their appointments... THAT is a real and scary possibility (The United Methodist Church will have to work hard to avoid that) but if I'm walking out on faith, a little fear is probably a good thing, right?

It certainly makes the covenant prayer a more frighteningly beautiful reality.