Professional Distance Versus Foot-Washing Ministry

Therapists, doctors, lawyers, accountants, and CEO's are expected to maintain a certain amount of professional distance.  In fact, their respective codes of conduct require this in their dealings with their clients.  Yet, in each of these professions, the goal is to serve their clients or patients.  This attitude crept into my idea of ministry, and it did not belong there.  I realized this at various times in my time in professional service, and fought against it with varying degrees of success.  I see that it was still there, and I know why.

When I was in ministry I was also acutely aware of my moral failures.  I knew that I had habits that were not acceptable to my Master, nor would they be acceptable to the people I served had they known about them.  Instead of practicing the spiritual discipline of confession, I chose to hide the fact that I was not perfect.  I was confident that I would not be accepted nor understood because I was expected to have no defect of character as a minister.  In short, I was afraid.  I was Adam in the garden hiding from God, David covering his sin with Bathsheba with yet another sin (no, I didn't murder anyone), Elisha hiding in a cave on a mountain, some 100 miles from where he was supposed to be proclaiming the truths of God.  I was putting on a facade that covered the fact that there were rotten boards and timbers in my frame.

This fear kept me from reaching out to those central figures in the church and forcing my way into their lives.  What I didn't know then was that they wanted me there, but having me there was a scary thing for them.  They were afraid of the same thing I was, discovery of their frailties.  What a disaster it would have been to discover that both of us were frail human beings completely dependent on the grace of God through the suffering and resurrection of our Master, Jesus!  Can you imagine the scandal?  Oh wait...

Why was it so hard to live what I preached among the very people to whom I was preaching?  Again Paul shatters my thin weak ministry models with his over-the-top example of devotion to Jesus.  Again in 2 Corinthians 12:15 he points out that as he loves the people more, they seem to love him less.  And he's OK with that!  He's fearless.  He shows his weakness rather than the areas where he shines.  He works along side them to be dependent on wages and work just like they were.  He identified with their world, their struggles, their pain, their perspective, and used that identification to lead them into the presence of Jesus.  The life he led looked like theirs, but his life was lived in the presence of God, and he led them to do the same.  The life-style may have remained the same in the various details, but acknowledgement of God's presence transformed those details into constant worship.

I was somewhat successful in working that out with those who joined after I got to the ministry position, but not at all with those who were there and voted me into the position.  Ironically, the people who were already there were the ones who acknowledged that God had indeed called me there.  They should have been the ones I was least restrained with.  Yet my fears were higher with them than with others.  My professional distance was more prominent with them than with the others.  And their distance with me was more pronounced as well.  They didn't make it easy to get into their lives.  There seemed to be this judgemental distance where I was supposed to prove myself in some way before I was going to be allowed in.  I should have just jumped in.  Let them judge, I had a higher Judge who called me to wash their feet. 

So, yes, I suffered in ministry at the hands of those I was called to serve.  Yes, it caused me to walk away from professional ministry all together, and to forsake dependence upon such a squirrely composition of humanity as I constantly found in smaller churches.  I didn't trust them from that point on, but I have to admit that I contributed to the problem with my fear-driven "professional distance".  Sure, I didn't measure up to their judgemental measurements, but that should have been no barrier to my attempts to burrow into their lives.  I carried the grace with me that they needed to experience freedom in Christ Jesus.  The problem was that I wasn't availing myself of that grace either, and I needed it just as badly.  I judged myself as harshly as they would have, or more so.

So now I sell the opportunity for one segment of these professionals who maintain distance with their clients to gain the continuing education they must have to continue in the profession.  It is sort of like selling air in a vacuum.  I work among those who do not and some who do believe as I do.  I have left the house of God for the house of commerce.  I have entered into the world of those I once served, and rely, as they do, on the work of my hands.  As I look around me, and consider my situation, I am really a large part of the way toward that situation of ministry in which Paul constantly worked.  The part that is missing is a group of people around whom I can minister, a congregation, or group of called-out ones.  Interesting thoughts come to mind now.  Perhaps I am closer to a ministry than I thought.