“Take my yoke upon you and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:29-30
It sure doesn’t seem that way, sometimes.
As a priest in the Episcopal Church, I wear special vestments in order to officiate at the Eucharist. I have many, many times donned my alb (white robe, symbolizing baptism), and cincture (rope belt), and then the priest’s stole. This is a long, scarf-like piece of fabric. It can be plain or fancy, but is always in the color of the liturgical season. It falls smoothly to mid-shin. A stole is usually shaped to lie neatly across the back of the neck, and at the nape there is usually embroidered a cross. For 30 years, I have taken the stole in both hands, with that cross facing me, and kissed the cross before placing the stole around my neck. The stole is both the symbol of the office of priesthood, and the symbol of the service of the priest. It is the yoke of office: the thing I and all clergy willingly accept with that kiss. It is a burden, yes, but it is light. Sometimes.
As I mentioned, I have served as a priest for 30 years. During those years, the priesthood has brought plenty of suffering my way: both mine, and that of the people I have served. As a priest, I am sometimes attacked unfairly, and sometimes fairly but still painfully. It is hard to not be perfect for people, and to have to face one’s own sinfulness. And it is also hard to go into the epicenter of human suffering: the parishioner’s husband who has hanged himself in the garage; the 4-year-old’s father who has been killed in a car accident; the parishioner who pilfers cash out of the offering every week; the teenager who has been raped by her step-father.
Still, when it comes to putting on that stole, I have always kissed that cross. I have always willingly placed that yoke on my own neck. Even when it doesn’t seem all that light.
About 10 years ago, I made the move to full-time hospital chaplaincy. I am not in church all the time now. My main ministry has been in an inter-faith setting, where I have not been called on to put on the vestments of a priest all that often. This ministry, too, has plenty of pain, both my own and that of others. And there are days when I want to avoid engaging with one more person in physical, existential, emotional, or mental pain.
But I keep on with it, because I believe I am called, and I have found that God has always both equipped me for whatever God calls me to, and cared for me and my family abundantly in that call. I have a tendency to depression, and the demands of the hospital keep me from falling into any kind of torpor. I find that the colleagues God has brought to work with me in the Spiritual Care department fill me with gratitude. I am grateful for the excellent health I enjoy in late middle age, when so many younger than I am are not well. So I keep at it. I think I am doing good, if not always brilliantly at least persistently.
Yesterday morning I was feeling a need to prepare myself spiritually to face the day at the hospital. I sang a few hymns in the car on the way there. And when I pulled in to the parking space, and turned off the engine, I took a moment to think. Then I pulled out my badge to put it on.
The badge is an essential item in the hospital. It identifies you to staff, patients, and family members as someone who has a right to be there, and whom they have a right to call on for help. It’s a fairly big hospital: about 480 patients in beds at any given time. With the Emergency Department, the Intensive Care Unit, the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, Labor & Delivery, Oncology, Cardiology, Stroke care – it’s a lot of needs. Putting on that badge means putting myself out there for the chaplains I supervise, for patients, for other staff colleagues, for family members and volunteers. I do it every day. I wear my badge on a lanyard. And don’t ask me why it took me so long, but for the first time in ten years at the hospital I realized yesterday that this lanyard is my yoke.
I admit that I didn’t kiss it. But I did say silently, “Okay, God, what do you want me to learn today? I’m counting on you to get me through whatever is ahead.” I put the lanyard around my neck and got out of the car, and walked towards whatever human need or inter-personal drama or unexpected delight God was going to bring me.
It sure doesn’t seem that way, sometimes.
As a priest in the Episcopal Church, I wear special vestments in order to officiate at the Eucharist. I have many, many times donned my alb (white robe, symbolizing baptism), and cincture (rope belt), and then the priest’s stole. This is a long, scarf-like piece of fabric. It can be plain or fancy, but is always in the color of the liturgical season. It falls smoothly to mid-shin. A stole is usually shaped to lie neatly across the back of the neck, and at the nape there is usually embroidered a cross. For 30 years, I have taken the stole in both hands, with that cross facing me, and kissed the cross before placing the stole around my neck. The stole is both the symbol of the office of priesthood, and the symbol of the service of the priest. It is the yoke of office: the thing I and all clergy willingly accept with that kiss. It is a burden, yes, but it is light. Sometimes.
As I mentioned, I have served as a priest for 30 years. During those years, the priesthood has brought plenty of suffering my way: both mine, and that of the people I have served. As a priest, I am sometimes attacked unfairly, and sometimes fairly but still painfully. It is hard to not be perfect for people, and to have to face one’s own sinfulness. And it is also hard to go into the epicenter of human suffering: the parishioner’s husband who has hanged himself in the garage; the 4-year-old’s father who has been killed in a car accident; the parishioner who pilfers cash out of the offering every week; the teenager who has been raped by her step-father.
Still, when it comes to putting on that stole, I have always kissed that cross. I have always willingly placed that yoke on my own neck. Even when it doesn’t seem all that light.
About 10 years ago, I made the move to full-time hospital chaplaincy. I am not in church all the time now. My main ministry has been in an inter-faith setting, where I have not been called on to put on the vestments of a priest all that often. This ministry, too, has plenty of pain, both my own and that of others. And there are days when I want to avoid engaging with one more person in physical, existential, emotional, or mental pain.
But I keep on with it, because I believe I am called, and I have found that God has always both equipped me for whatever God calls me to, and cared for me and my family abundantly in that call. I have a tendency to depression, and the demands of the hospital keep me from falling into any kind of torpor. I find that the colleagues God has brought to work with me in the Spiritual Care department fill me with gratitude. I am grateful for the excellent health I enjoy in late middle age, when so many younger than I am are not well. So I keep at it. I think I am doing good, if not always brilliantly at least persistently.
Yesterday morning I was feeling a need to prepare myself spiritually to face the day at the hospital. I sang a few hymns in the car on the way there. And when I pulled in to the parking space, and turned off the engine, I took a moment to think. Then I pulled out my badge to put it on.
The badge is an essential item in the hospital. It identifies you to staff, patients, and family members as someone who has a right to be there, and whom they have a right to call on for help. It’s a fairly big hospital: about 480 patients in beds at any given time. With the Emergency Department, the Intensive Care Unit, the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, Labor & Delivery, Oncology, Cardiology, Stroke care – it’s a lot of needs. Putting on that badge means putting myself out there for the chaplains I supervise, for patients, for other staff colleagues, for family members and volunteers. I do it every day. I wear my badge on a lanyard. And don’t ask me why it took me so long, but for the first time in ten years at the hospital I realized yesterday that this lanyard is my yoke.
I admit that I didn’t kiss it. But I did say silently, “Okay, God, what do you want me to learn today? I’m counting on you to get me through whatever is ahead.” I put the lanyard around my neck and got out of the car, and walked towards whatever human need or inter-personal drama or unexpected delight God was going to bring me.