Hey, Gentle Reader, last night I posted this comment on a website about spiritual direction, which is a valid pastoral service that has been degraded to a kind of religious cash grab:
"Spiritual direction, like all forms of pastoral care is not a marketable good or service. I have had conversations with several friends and colleagues, many of whom are outside of the church, and the response to the idea of spiritual direction for pay has been unanimously greeted by them with scorn, bemusement and horror, and this sadly reflects on our witness as Christians.. If a spiritual director is in it for the paycheque then they would do well to consider working in secular counselling instead. It was recently recommended that I get a spiritual director (Anglican, and it is a paid service). However, I am on a low income, and this is something I simply cannot afford. Likewise, I would never be comfortable with someone charging for this kind of assistance. It simply runs against the grain of Jesus' call to us, that we forsake all to follow him. By the same token I am employed as a mental health support worker. I am paid quite a miserly wage by our health authority (I live in Canada, where we have public health care). I would never dream of individually charging a client or patient for my help. When I was active in street ministry for many years that would have been the furthest thought from my mind. I really believe this whole structure needs to be addressed and thoroughly reviewed and with repentance".
So, as many of you already know, I was in street ministry for around fifteen years or so, between 1982 and 1997. I was not in this for the money. Except for what God provided through the kindness of others, or through part time work (I was a home support worker as well), or through sales of my art, I had no other income, really. We were a community for much of that time, and we pooled our resources. To this day, I recall that money was the only thing we never fought about. We all believed that God was calling us to be generous nd to share everything we had with others, as giving to Christ. We were able to stay alive and maintain two houses for ministry and retreat and an apartment for our work of ministry downtown. We did okay for a couple of years, but also accepted that nothing was going to be permanent. We lost the ministry house after a year, but more from our own mismanagement of the place. The two consecutive apartments, both in Vancouver's West End, were already accepted as temporary for places to stay and to receive visitors while any one of us was spending a lot of time ministering downtown. Had the Anglican Church not hated us so much, then I'm sure they would have dipped into their vast reserves of wealth and helped keep us alive, but it seems that I have always been a bit too radical for those guys.
We would never have even imagined charging a fee for our services. That would be obscene! Plus, most of the people we were interacting with were themselves dirt poor, as were we, so it put us at the same level. And made us a lot more approachable.
For that matter, I wouldn't even dream of charging money for teaching English as a second language when I'm in Latin America. My reason why? No one ever charged me more than token dollar a session in one of the community neighbourhood houses to teach me Spanish. I got it all for free, and for years have practiced language exchange, where native Spanish speakers help me improve my Spanish and I do the same for them in English. Charge a fee? Never!!!!! That would prevent real friendships from developing, and I treasure the friends I have made who speak Spanish with me. Because money and fees create distance between persons, and to practice this same form of simony in the Christian church does absolutely nothing to build community. It simply keeps people apart.
Christian ministry is not intended to provide either a steady paycheque or a comfortable living. That ain't the deal. And for any person interested in Christian ministry, if they want to be truly effective in God's work, then they had better dispense entirely with the idea of pulling in a living wage or better, benefits and retirement plan. God promises nothing but his presence, blessing and provision for our daily needs., and nothing else. Once our work has outlived its usefulness, or we have strayed from the path he has called us to take, then provision is going to dry up, as we experienced at times in our community and ministry. And this always became for us a call to reflection and repentance. Once the sin and disobedience were recognized and dealt with, the provision would resume.
Real Christian ministry, to be authentically Christian, is also a call to living in the Lord's presence and keeping our hearts open to serving the poorest, the most vulnerable, the most excluded and the most despised. It also means living lives of perpetual repentance and renewal. It is a life of love, of love in action, of hearts full of compassion, grace and humility. It is a living contract with a Living God.
Jesus didn't ever charge so much as one lousy shekel to those he taught and healed. This is why spiritual direction really needs to be reviewed. It should never be treated like a day job or as a profession. It is a sacred calling, but it also must imply friendship and I can't think of anyone who charges a fee for their friendship (I think the politically incorrect term for that kind of arrangement would be prostitution).
Paying for spiritual direction also discriminates against the poor. A priest and I were talking for a while about me considering the Third Order of St. Francis. So, she sent me the web page, I read it, then it turned out that I would have to have a spiritual director first before considering such a venture. I am on a low income. So I cannot afford this. It also runs against my principals, which I believe to be biblically based and informed, so I cannot accept that a professionalized service of pastoral counselling would not be somehow tainted by corruption, given that it is for pay, and that by default, it excludes the poor.
But the Anglican Church is still a church of and for the status quo. Yes, many parishes provide community meals and other programs and other much needed and valuable help, but for the most part, the poor are still othered in Anglican churches and likely this is not going to change very soon. I know this in my own experience. And it is still happening to me.
Jesus never charged for his love. Neither did Paul. He rather eschewed his right to be supported by the nascent churches he helped plant and birth and chose instead to work for a living, to set an example, and not to create hardship for others.
In conclusion. I sometimes want to tell Anglicans that if money is really so important to you, then why not just charge admission to your churches, like they do with the famous cathedrals in Europe. Since only those who could afford would still be in attendance, that shouldn't be a problem since the Anglican Church really still is a church for the wealthy. You would all be surrounded by people just like yourselves, with no embarrassingly poor folk coming in to make things a little bit unpleasant. Perhaps the clergy could also charge user fees for their pastoral services. That all does stink, rather, doesn't it? Then quit allowing spiritual directors to charge fees for their help. That is really not much better than buying indulgences, you know.
I heard someone mention recently that the Anglican Church has really come a long way in becoming the church that Jesus has called them to be. Well, may I reply with the words of the late Della Reese:
"You came a long way from St. Louie, but you still have a long way to go".:
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