In seminary, my professors taught me many things. I learned to exegete, to lead a meeting, to sing hymns on pitch, and to recite significant dates in the history of the church. Unfortunately, I did not learn what to do when a blindingly handsome stranger with straw gold hair and dazzling white teeth began attending the church where I am pastor.
I consider myself a reasonably mature person. I always scoffed at stories of ministers getting embroiled in sexual indiscretions. I believed the phenomenon of male pastors running off with their secretaries was an embarrassing mid-life-crisis cliché. Certainly I would never get so overwrought with passion that I would cross a boundary of appropriate behavior.
Sigh.
by Phoebe Jones
Seminary did a very good job at teaching me that it would be really hard—nay, impossible—to date anybody as a young clergywoman. “Don't even get your hopes up,” should have been printed on my diploma. I, like many others, saw the flood of seminary classmates rushing down the aisle before heading off on internship or to their first church. It was not difficult to conclude that my chances of finding a rewarding relationship would plummet with the laying on of hands at ordination.
Now, fortunately I wasn't very good at the dating thing and didn't mind living alone, so it didn't seem like a huge deal. I'd just experienced the ending of a relationship gone sour, so was feeling particularly inept at that kind of partnership. I also happen not to be a person who has always craved children or a husband. So, it was kind of a bum deal, but I had accepted and come to terms with the likelihood that I would be a lifelong singleton.
You are now reading into a moment when this minister wishes there was no church at all, so that she could enjoy a Saturday night like everyone else.
Tonight I wrote a sermon in the midst of a party I could not attend.
I live in the heart of downtown Indianapolis, a city that is currently teeming with the excitement of both St. Patrick’s Day weekend and the Big 10 Basketball Tournament. I actually live across the street from Conseco Fieldhouse, where the tournament is being held. I didn’t really choose this location because I love basketball, but for the energy and excitement of downtown life. I moved into this building so it would be easy to meet people and have fun. After living in New York City for three years, I was not too excited about biding my two-year fellowship in a garden apartment in the suburbs where I knew no one. So I opted for a choice location right in the middle of it all. Indianapolis is actually a pretty great city, and has a good downtown. I can walk to Nordstrom’s and the Indy Repertory Theater and Sushi on the Rocks. I live next door to a rowdy dueling piano bar. The bartenders know my drink and I have met some great people in my building.
After a long pause in our conversation,
I suppose that he felt the need to ask another question. I was
inclined toward hanging up. The conversation had been annoying
thus far. I didn’t see the potential for improvement.
“So, what’s your favorite movie?”
It is probably best that this was
a phone conversation so he couldn’t see my eyes roll with the exasperated
gesture that accompanied it. He asked this exact question three
times – in our three previous phone conversations. The fates hadn’t
aligned as his first email contact arrived in my Match.com inbox days
before Christmas. Though he was heading out of town to see family,
my schedule was more of a nightmare. Our casual emails drifted as New
Year’s arrived. We had graduated to the phone by then. It was clumsy.
And yet, our conversations had always had this tone of silence.
Ministers are often the recipients of odd and not entirely appropriate comments, so most of us get used to putting on our unfazed faces and playing along. However, there are limits. I have to admit that my professional poise slipped a bit when a leering photographer at a wedding I was officiating leaned over and whispered that I had “great legs for a minister.” Aside from being unsure whether that was really a compliment, I felt speechlessly awkward, as though both my person and my vocation had been somehow violated. In another kind of workplace, this would have been considered sexual harassment; for a minister, the recourse is not so clear. When so much of our ministry depends on hospitality and graciousness, when and how do we draw the line?
They say mirrors never lie, and mine said “You look fabulous!” It was one of those nights when my clothes fit perfectly, my hair did exactly what I wanted it to do, and my skin had spared me its temperamental breakouts. I swayed to the beat of my stereo while applying mascara to my lashes without even worrying about whether I’d put out an eye. A little lip gloss, a final full-length mirror check, and I was ready to go. Extrovert that I am, I almost always love going out with friends, but that night, my whole body practically vibrated with energy. I was ready for something to happen. I was on the prowl.
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught the flash of the simple, silver cross I usually wear when preaching. Just before I slipped out the door, I swear I heard it whisper, “Remember, you’re still a minister.” As if I could possibly forget!
The town was all a-twitter. The gossip network was running full force. The new pastor, they said, had a man staying in the parsonage.
He had been there over a week, visited the church, and met many of my parishioners before the rumors got back to me, of course. I had only been ministering there a couple of months, and no one wanted to actually ask me about my "mysterious" guest. I probably should’ve expected that there would be talk, but it just didn’t occur to me that my life was considered so scandal-worthy! I'm a member of the coed dorm generation. I also forgot that certain key factors wouldn’t be as obvious to everyone as they were to me. “I don’t know if this will make it any better,” I sighed, when I finally caught wind of the gossip, “but he’s gay.”
For twenty-five years, my Christmas Eves remained much the same from year to year. My parents, siblings, assorted other relatives, and I would gather to consume a massive feast. We would sing Christmas carols in harmony. We would eat more food, and open piles of presents. The house would be bright with colored lights and sparkling tinsel, and loud with laughter and music. We would go to bed late and awake early for the opening of even more gifts, and of course more food.
My Christmas Eves are a little different these days. I generally spend the day in front of my computer, finishing the sermon I’ll preach for the biggest crowd of the year. No pressure, of course. As my family digs into dinner, I pass candles around a church 1,500 miles away. After leading the last worship service, I meander back to my dog and a darkened house - because I usually haven’t had time to hang up lights or other Christmas decorations during the rush of Advent; it’s a very good year if I manage a tree. I heat up some leftovers, pour a glass of wine, pop in a movie, and collapse on the couch. Then I wake up on Christmas Day and...go back to sleep as long as possible.
I began seminary with several single classmates, but our number was significantly reduced over the three years we spent there. By senior year, it seemed like a mass headlong rush to the altar. Those of us who had not joined the stampede mostly avoided the topic, as though voicing it would speak it into reality, but in a fit of honesty, a friend moaned one night, “Once I’m a pastor, all hope of getting married is over.”
At the time, I was puzzled by - and occasionally scornful of - my classmates’ partnering inclinations. “Get Married” has never made it to my life to-do list. It still hasn’t. Although I’m sure I’d make it work if it happened, I can’t imagine doing ministry as a married person. I can’t imagine living as a married person. Still, doing ministry and living as a single person has brought my classmates’ fears into sharp and sometimes painful clarity.
