Another Week, Another Crowd of Clergy
As United Methodist clergy in full connection, Pastor Rachel is ordained into the Order of the Deacon and I am ordained into the Order of the Elder. There is a whole lot behind these Very Official Words, but practically they mean that Pastor Rachel and I are connected to our fellow clergy by covenant. Not just that we share a profession or serve in the same area or report to the same adjudicatory bodies, but a covenant of call, identity, and accountability.
In that covenant we care for one another, are answerable to one another, and trust that we are each called by God, equipped, and trusted to serve in our shared ministry together.
Paraphrased from Anchorman, these covenants are kind of a big deal.
Unlike Ron Burgundy’s unfortunate attempt to prove his appeal, the covenants of our Orders go far beyond superficial descriptions of who is in or who is out, who is known, who is not. It's difficult to put into words the importance of the wisdom, support, and challenge that comes from these covenants.
Just as each of our ministry settings make us better clergy, so too do our relationships and honest conversations with those in our Order. These relationships keep us grounded and accountable, ensuring that we are doing our very best to serve our ministries faithfully in a way that does no harm, does good, and attends to the love of God.
On a yearly basis, the Orders are called to gather. Sometimes this is with other Orders (Deacons, Elders, the Fellowship of Licensed Local Pastors all together). Sometimes we gather as single Order to be able to live into our covenant and work on the theology and practice of our particular Order.
This week I was fortunate to have several days with the Order of the Elders over at Spirit of Grace Methodist-Lutheran Church in Hood River. There, we dove into our identity as Elders here in the year 2025. Bishop Cedrick helped us look back and look ahead at Methodism in our little corner of the country. Most importantly, we reconnected with the others in our Order, sharing our hopes and our hurts before we were all sent out to our varied contexts.
One question we pondered was how to articulate the Gospel’s message of freedom and liberation in a politically charged world. In my discussion group were folks from suburban and rural Idaho, those in small town Oregon, some of us from Portland, and all from contexts of widely varying political climate and opinion.
We struggled with the paradox of this particular time that we are born into – one of great suffering, inequity, and injustice – and the simultaneous draw to drop everything to attend to the sorrow of the world while also being responsible for week to week and day by day business as usual. I have heard this same struggle from some of you as you manage your own lives and your own call toward justice.
The analogy some named was that common illustration of finding injured people in the river and rescuing them one after another after another, then having the insight to go upstream to find what was pushing folks into the water in the first place… when at the same time (and here’s the twist) we also need to manage the river’s dam that provides life-saving power to our community!
What does it look like to proclaim liberation when there are immediate needs downstream, systemic injustices upstream, and a dam of life-as-we-know-it to manage?
No matter where in Oregon or Idaho we served and no matter our own political leanings, we felt it crucial that the words and actions of us pastors did not inhibit the important ways the folks in our congregations can proclaim the liberating, justice-seeking Gospel. As I shared a couple weeks ago, there are some particular actions that are appropriate for clergy alone, but the body of Christ, those hands and feet of Christ who live God’s will in the world, it is so much bigger than just us pastors!
The witness and work of the mutual liberation to which we are all called rests with each of us. I am grateful to serve alongside a congregation who work toward this witness through your inclusion, community, justice, service, and worship.
I had hoped to leave you with a lovely video story of two of our First Church folks who built community with one another. Out of town technical difficulties (and sketchy wifi) have prevented that, so that is something to look forward to. Until then, I’d love for you to ponder:
Where on the river is God calling you to bring your time, talents, gifts, service, and witness?
No matter who you are, God calls you to something, because we all have something to share: even when we feel like there isn’t enough or we feel that we’ve shared all we can. This Sunday the widow at Zarephath will teach us about the (cautious, realistic) abundance of God that calls us into that sharing.
See you then!
Peace,
Pastor Karyn