(Read The Minister's Ego and The Minister: Changing the Bells and Whistles before as a recap).
Stanley Hauerwas writes (of Matthew 3:13-17), "The baptism of Jesus is foundation of Christian ethics. Here Jesus speaks his first words in the Gospel, explaining to John the Baptist the purpose of Christian ethics: "to fulfill all righteousness." Here is revealed the source of Christian ethics, which lies in the interrelationship between the members of the Trinity: the Father who opens heaven and speaks, the incarnate Son who goes down, rises, and fulfills all righteousness, the Holy Spirit who descends and rests upon." (Stanley Hauwerwas and Samuel Wells, The Blackwell Companion to Christian Ethics pg 14)
The minister has all that is needed for him to change his basic desires. In the foundation of her baptism, the minister is given the necessary elements to change her id. Though it is difficult to do considering the minister functions in a church system which seeks to make "Christian" an adjective, an epithet, a style--when what God offers is particular actions--verbs--through which ministers can become and be distinctive nouns--people, disciples, witnesses. (Hauwerwas, pg. 13). The issue resides in the traditional understanding of Christian ethics which tries to make the world a better place without becoming a better person. In order for a minister to truly change the church system, they first will be challenged to change themselves.
The issue of a minister's id resides in their understanding of Christian ethics. If ethics is simply about making the world a better place without becoming a better person, i.e. doing good by giving to organizations or donating items without becoming a better person, i.e. living sacrificially, loving others as Christ loves them, then the mode of ethics that is followed is not going to change the id. One could argue that if we give enough to charities or watch info heart wrenching stories on the 700 Club, eventually our ids will change. The problem though is that the changing of our desires is not the purpose of the giving. The purpose of the giving is the ego fulfilling the id's desire to make oneself feel better or less guilty. If the ethic's purpose is only to appease a feeling of guilt or basic desire to be loved, then the ethic does not change us. It is an adjective.
In the church system the term Christian is used to qualify a noun or a person; giving more information about a person or object, i.e. the Christian Bible, or the Christian wife. The term Christian is regulated to giving more information about an object or person, instead of being who someone is. Returning to the minister's baptism, in our baptism we see all that Jesus has embodied. There are three dimensions of the baptism of Jesus that constitute the our Christian ethics. First is heaven is opened. The gospel begins with the tearing of the heavens and ends with the tearing of the temple curtain (Hauerwas, pg. 15). Second, God's Spirit descends like a dove, giving God's people his power. Third, God speaks. God tells everyone the importance the gift of Jesus is, "You are my Son, the Beloved,; with you I am well pleased." Mark 1:11. "God tells us that Jesus means everything to God, and that God makes himself fully known in Jesus. It also holds out the promise that, just as God gives everything to Jesus, everything he gives to Jesus he gives through Jesus to his people." (Hauerwas, pg. 15).
"Jesus has everything the Father has to give, and he gives us this everything in the unlikely place called baptism in the church" (Bruner, pg. 94). Through our baptism, we have been given everything Jesus has been given, and in those gifts, ministers are given a new set of basic desires in which our egos will strive to satisfy. But these new desires are no longer worldly desires, they are desires in which the kingdom becomes a reality. That reality is brought to fruition through our passion and our faith in who Christ is the direction and the purpose of the story in Scripture. The kingdom is defined and identified by and through Christ; therefore, our service in ministry is an extension of the service of Christ, making our basic desires those of Christ's basic desire to serve humanity with great humility.
Soren Kierkegaard observed that from the moment we are born, "man is not yet a self": we struggle to discover who we are and our relation to the world around us (Christopher M. Drohan, "Alfred, The Dark Knight of Faith" Batman and Philosophy: The Dark Knight of the Soul pg. 187). Kierkegaard compares two fundamentally different ethical orders in his work Fear and Trembling: those who champion infinite justice as their ethical ideal, and those who champion personal love, devotion, and faithfulness as the moral high ground. These two ethical orders exist within the life of ministry because they are the orders that gives us meaning and purpose for each one extends from the ethical order of Christ.
The best way to look at this is through the ethical order of both Batman and his servant Alfred Pennyworth. For Batman justice is sociopolitical. "Justice is served when life and liberty are protected, namely by the laws and legal institutions founded in justice's name" (Drohan, pg. 185). Batman works with these institutions because they are the ones responsible for defending justice; however he is the first to break the law if he deems it unjust. Batman believes justice is something concrete that no legal system could ever completely capture. There are situations that exceed abstract legal codes and laws, i.e. stealing food to feed your family and jaywalking are hardly morally reprehensible; yet they are illegal and subject to the full punishment of the law (Drohan, pg. 186). Batman's ethical obligation belongs directly to the very justice that the law gets its power from.
For Alfred, justice is not so much a matter of social structure, but a personal matter of treating people with respect, kindness, and love. Alfred's actions reflect his intrinsic belief that people are duty-bound to each other, and that justice occurs when one serves another to the best of the one's ability (Drohan, pg. 186). For Alfred, justice is found in the very words of Jesus, "But whoever wishes to be great among you must be your slave; just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to server, and to give his life a ransom for many." Matthew 20:27-28. Alfred views justice as a duty, honoring his promises, cares for those he is responsible for, and values the work he has chosen. "Thus when Alfred agreed to serve the Wayne family, the commitment was a blood oath, a lifelong obligation to be broken only by dismissal or death." (Drohan, pg 186).
Where as Batman shows us justice as law, peace, and fair institutions, Alfred shows us a much higher justice, that of justice as love and devotion. Likewise, ministers may view justice as a duty and is only carried out through loving one another as Christ loved us (John 13:34). In our ordination, we bound by duty and honor to serve our fellow brothers and sisters. With the laying on of hands, we take on a lifelong obligation to be broken only in the resurrection of the body. We commit ourselves to a standard of ethics that is tattooed onto our hearts, minds, and souls; and we seek to fulfill this form of higher justice with all our strength. Yet, the ethics we abide by, the justice we seek is inherently unfair, because there's never a guarantee that one's kind deed will be reciprocated (Drohan, pg. 186). This is true of a minister; in fact it is rarely the case that our congregants will return our love and devotion with the same attentiveness. Still, we are bound by duty to them because of our ordination. Our ordination and our baptism creates a love that is unconditionally to the church and the members of the church.
In a way, it is absurd to love an institution and people unconditionally because we must willingly give ourselves and our form of justice over to the church because it is through the church that God's story is being told and God's justice is taking form. It's absurd because the church's actions are often misguided and self serving; yet the minister serves a the reminder that the church is called to a higher duty in Christ. We serve them with great love and respect, even though that same love and respect is not a given because that is our duty. Faith against all odds and faith amidst the absurd--this is the minister's existential condition (Drohan, pg. 187).
This is where Kierkegaard's observation of self is being formed in the minister's identity. We are given a perpetual state of anxiety within the church system because we try to define ourselves distinctly from our environment and from the mass of other people surrounding us. "We despair at the absurd paradox of trying to constitute a unique identity amidst places and histories that existed before us, and despite the opinions and identities that others impose upon us. And yet the moment we define ourselves for others is the moment we succumb to their histories and definitions, never really arriving at our own individuality. Thus an, "an existing individual (minister) is constantly in a process of becoming," says Kierkegaard" (Drohan, pg 188). While our ordination serves as our oath, our baptism serves as the movement of being constantly in a process of becoming. Our baptism into the Christian faith led to our ordination into the ministry of faith. Our ordination into ministry of faith leads to our duty bound lives serving God. And serving God is full of absurdity and paradoxes.
Abraham is possibly the best example of this absurdity. After years of trying to have a child, the Lord rewards them with the promise that he and Sara will conceive and have a son. Several years after the promise is fulfilled, God asks Abraham to take Issac up to the land of Moriah and "there you shall offer him up as a holocaust on a height that I will point out to you." Genesis 22:2. God was asking Abraham to sacrifice the very gift God gave him in Issac, whom he loved more than anyone else on Earth. Despite the absurdity of the commandment, Abraham does what he is asked. He submits to God's task.
Kierkegaard remarks on this moment, saying: "He believed by virtue of the absurd; for there could be no question of human calculation, and it was indeed the absurd that God who required it of him should the next instant recall the requirement. He climbed the mountain, even at the instant the knife glittered he believed...that God would not require Issac" (Drohan, pg 190). Kierkegaard means by "virtue of the absurd" that Abraham believed, he means that Abraham was able to trust God because he was being asked to do something unfathomable. That he could find no reason for God to give him such an impossible task did not dissuade him; instead, it actually made him believe in it's necessity (Drohan, pg 190). Instead of speculating or questioning God's motives, Abraham simply trusted in God because God had never let him down or betrayed him.
The minister's id is about the absurd. Our desires are to fulfill a mandate at that is simply impossible to do: "Love one another as I have loved you" John 13:34. It is truly impossible for ministers to love those in their care as Christ loves them because we do not have the ability to do so. Yet, we know that this absurd request or requirement is possible for Christ has given us the necessary tools to see it done. Where God provided a ram for Abraham, God provided the actions and words of Christ. Our basic desires changed in our baptism, duty bound in our ordination, are absurd to carry forward but with the faith that moves a mountain, we know that we can because God has never betrayed us.
Like Abraham, Batman, too, believes by the virtue of the absurd. Externalizing and organizing his pain in the form of a bat who hovers over the city of Gotham, Bruce is able to carry himself self-assuredly inspite of the horrific images/memory of his parents' death. In the face of the absurd, he has confidence in a more infinite justice, to which he resigns himself (Drohan, pg 190). Kierkegaard tells us that resignation is the surrogate for faith," for a person resigns herself to what is infinitely just, that justice becomes the crux of her very existence, and the ground for her faith (Drohan, pg 191). The minister, like Batman, at once feels her life has meaning, and she looks beyond her own pain and suffering toward easing the pain and suffering of others. Ministers no longer focus on their selves, instead he willing sacrifices himself for others. The minister, in a very real way, becomes a prophet or as Kierkegaard says, "become more like knights. Unwavering in their mission, completely devoted to their just cause. A prophet, like Batman, is one of these "knights of infinite resignation" for he has dedicated his life toward sowing infinite justice. Their life is now but a means to an infinite end, an end that surpasses all other concerns, including self preservation (Drohan pg 191-92).
Ministers who live into this role of a prophet often find themselves on the outside of the church. There is not room in the church system for prophets. They disrupte the flow of politics. They speak truthfully into a community that is unable to handle such truths and in turn crucify them; yet, the minister is required to have a little of the prophet in him. It is a burden but those who have chosen to be the prophet live into the ethic of a knight of infinite resignation. These prophets in the form of advocates for social justice, advocates for equal rights, men and women who dedicate their lives to a meaning greater themselves are beyond magnificant with what they acheive; but they are resigned to the reality that their justice will not come in their lifetime. While they hold the title of minister, their dress and actions are not of ministers. They are something more.
In contrast, the minister in the church, is a knight of a different breed. We, like Alfred, are not devoted to some infinite and ideal virtue, but to a humble trade. We do not strive to make the infinite real, but to perserve the life of the church. As long a Batman is preserved by Alfred, so is their justice; just as the minister perserves the church, the prophet's justice is preserved. Thus we realize the same justice but we do so vicariously (Drohan, pg 192). Yet, we surpass the justice of the knight of infinite resignation by simultaneously realizing love, which is to say a justice made tangible in the instant (Drohan, pg 192). In each visit we make, each sermon we give, each funeral and wedding we officiate, with each loving embrace we give our church, we make the justice of God tangible and real in that instant. The minister sees justice in everything they do; therefore in their actions they become knights of faith. The paradox of this higher ethic is that on the surface it looks so ordinary, so banal (Drohan, pg 192).
Kierkegaard describes the typical knight of faith, saying:
There is nothing fancy about the minister. The humble minister is dressed no different than a secretary or a digger. Looking at them, you might not know they are a minister. The knights of faith carry on with the daily grind; while in contrast the knights of infinite resignation are spectacular, their armor matching their self assurance, and their deeds expressing infinite flair. Yet, the meager knights of faith are nothing special and their deeds are routine.The moment I set eyes on him I instantly push him from me, I myself leap backwards, I clasp my hands and say half aloud, "Good lord, is this the man? Is it really he? Why he looks like a tax collector!" I examine his figure from tip to toe to see if there might not be a cranny through which the infinite was peeping. No! She is solid through and through. Her tread? It is virgorous, belonging entirely to finiteness; no smartly dressed townsperson who walks but to Fresberg on a Sunday afternoon treads the ground more firmly , he belongs entirely to the world, no Philistine more so. One can discover nothing of that aloof and superior nature whereby one recognizes the knight of the infinite. He takes delight in everything, and whenever ones sees him taking part in a particular pleasure, he does it with the presistence which is the mark of the earthly human whose soul is absorded in such things. She tends to her work. So when one looks at her one might suppose that she was a clerk who lost her soul in an intricate system of book-keeping, precise is she. She takes a holiday on Sunday. She goes to church (Drohan, pg 193).
The real difference between these two has nothing to do with the attention the receive. While the knights of infinite resignation are always waiting for some future ideal state, the knights of faith have found it, and are living it presently. Their eternity is not to come, but is found in the moment, as they realize that in loving and serving others they exercise the kind of fellowship that infinitely sustain humanity. For them, peace on earth must be made with every gesture and every action. And it starts by committing ourselves to another person and by helping that person in every way that we can (Drohan, pg 194).
In our ordination, we are committing ourselves to the service of God through the church. Each of us, in our space, serve a community with an unconditional love. We make the impossible possible by expressing it spiritually by our unwavering claim to an unconditional love of a people who are desperately seeking the God who came in Christ. We, unlike the prophets, do not seek out a justice for all, but only for the church we care for. While we serve together, we serve separately, with each their own people to love and care for. The minister commits his whole life and the entirety of his faith toward the service of his Christ through Christ's church. In remaining faithful to our congregation, the minister remains faithful to his ordination, to his baptism, and to the Christian ethic given by Christ. And this, Kierkegaard tells us, ultimately is "Love" (Drohan, pg. 195).
It is absurd to love a church with an unconditional love as a minister knowing that same love is returned to you with conditions. It is absurd to love a church unconditionally knowing that when you leave, while it may be sad for awhile and it may hurt the church, you will eventually be replaced and forgotten. It is the paradox of the absurdity of our ordination, of our baptism, and of our Christian ethic we live out the kingom of God in a real tangible form through our unconditional love: "By your love, they will know you are my disciple" (John 13:35). The minister is the dark knight of faith.
