Remember for my good

This is the time of year that Methodist churches are forming budgets and personnel committees are making decisions about the salaries of pastors.  In our system, conventional wisdom among pastors has often been to think of career advancement in terms of salary.  What I mean is this: Measuring success in ministry is very difficult, and yet we all want a sense of knowing how we're coming along in life.  Church membership, attendance, activity, etc. are ways to measure, but they are not concrete measures.  Salaries feel to preachers to be apples-to-apples measure of how they compare with their peers.  Also, bishops and district superintendents use salaries as a primary guide for appointing pastors.  Some cabinets use salaries as the primary guide, an almost exclusive measure, even above compatibility between clergy and congregation.

I was reading today in Nehemiah 5, and stumbled upon Nehemiah's reflections on his pay for the work of repairing the walls around Jerusalem.  He mentioned that former governors of Jerusalem used taxation upon the people and "laid a heavy burdens upon the people," so that they might have "food and wine."  Nehemiah refuses to follow the example of predecessors who used the people to make a more comfortable life for themselves, "because of the fear of the Lord."  Nehemiah's internal rationale when it came to his support was that God's opinion of his actions in regard to what salary he took for his work was all that mattered--not the opinion of his peers, his spouse, or his own sense of success related to his pay.  I dare say that clergy would raise their support differently if the only thing that mattered in conversations about compensation was God's judgement on their motives and means.

Nehemiah also says that he did not take from the people a food allowance that the empire gave him rights to take, and yet he saw to it that the workers in his administrative apparatus were properly fed.  He says that he always remembered that the people and servants were "gathered there for the work."  He had no problem raising support from the people and he calls the labor and resources for the project a burden.  But he is unwilling to add to their burden for the sake of his comfort.  Pastors would do well to follow Nehemiah's example and to make sure that their only concern is the mission of the church and the support of staff and lay leadership.  Pastors are certainly supposed to call the people to sacrificial giving and service.  But their giving and service must be dedicated only to the mission of the church to proclaim the Gospel and share the love of Christ, never to make a more comfortable life or a more successful ministerial career for themselves.

Lastly, Nehemiah trusts that the Lord, not the people, and not the empire that appointed him, will be the one to reward him.  Nehemiah expects a reward.  "Remember for my good, O my God, all that I have done for this people."  Do we all want God to remember, or do we have some things we wish God would forget?

As pastors make decisions about their giving and receiving, we would do well to follow Nehemiah's example.  God sees the heart and he sees all of our choices in the motivations by which we act and the words which we use to achieve our ends.  We, like Nehemiah, would do well to live as if only God was the rewarder of our work, and that only God would be the one to judge what we have given and what we have received from his people.

Pastoral Prayer for stewardship (presence) based on Philippians 2:1-11, 19-30

Holy God:

We thank you each week for the opportunity to gather in your house and to be with your people.  We thank you that your presence is with us and that your spirit flows to us through each other.  

Especially in this time when we reflect on our commitment to our church family and our call to support its ministries, we are grateful for all that it means to have a family in Christ and to know that we are not alone in our Christian journey.  We are thankful for a people who help us to raise our children to know you, who stand by us and comfort us in the challenges of life, who grieve with us when we grieve.  We thank you for a people who have shared life with us, who know our story, people with whom we have a history.   We are thankful for friends in Christ with whom we can laugh.  We are thankful for fellow soldiers in your army of redeeming love, who lock arms with us in our collective mission to reach our community and world with the grace of Jesus Christ.

We take these things for granted.  We take each other for granted.  So forgive us when we wander, when we lose our heart for your house and your people.  

Teach us to give of ourselves to one another--to fulfill your command to love one another.  Make this body of believers and living community of grace and redemption, a people who bind up each other’s wounds and teach each other by their example how to follow Christ.  Teach us to truly be a body.  And may your body rise up to fulfill your mission.

Amen.