In much of my career as a
philosophy professor, it was necessary to engage in considerable
self-promotion. In the college setting there were limited openings each year
for rank and salary advancements. To demonstrate one's qualifications for
promotions through various professional activities, it was necessary to develop
strategies to convince chairpersons, faculty committees, deans, and presidents
that an applicant deserved to be among the few moved up. Self-promotion was
also required to secure opportunities for one's continuing education and for
projects. It was also necessary to lobby for a satisfactory teaching schedule,
preferred class size, particular courses to teach, sufficient office and
classroom equipment, secretarial assistance, and for effective involvement in
the institution's governance.
Experts on self-promotion have
provided guidelines on how to achieve one's objectives, such as "set goals and
plan your campaign," "focus on the specific people you need to know for their
direct or indirect support," "become known in the broader community through
media exposure," "develop and use a brochure, newsletter, or clever
stationery," "dress appropriately: look the part," and "learn techniques for
convincing people." All of this self-promotion can be carried out aggressively
or assertively, clumsily or with style, at the wrong time or the right moment,
and, justly or unjustly. Furthermore, even when one has used the most
honorable, successful strategies, one must deal with mean-spirited responses
from envious colleagues. The celebration of each other's accomplishments is not
the norm in academic circles! Resentment against achievement permeates our
culture at many levels and in many vocations.
For the most part, sitting
around waiting to be noticed and invited to new levels of service is
ineffective. My first ordained position in my middle 20s was on the faculty of
the Choir School of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine (one of our rector's
alma maters). Early in my second year I realized that I had no talent
whatsoever for teaching and living with endlessly exuberant 5th through the 8th
grade boys. In fact, by that fall, in my mind they had become adversarial
incarnations of characters in the Lord of the Flies! As I was busy
sending dozens of vocational inquiries to the city and the world, I learned
that another young cathedral clergyman - a colleague I had come to respect
highly - was ready to move on, too. I asked about his progress and told him of
my efforts. He looked at me with some degree of disapproval, and said, "I'm
waiting for the Holy Spirit to place me." Somewhat defensively, I blurted out
the familiar saying, "God helps those who help themselves." We parted that day,
continued to work well together, and we were both eventually placed. To this
day I'm not sure how much was due to the Holy Spirit, to our own efforts, word
getting around, or a combination thereof.
I am convinced that vocational
self-promotion implemented ethically is compatible with being a Christian.
Graceful ambition can be a sign of healthy self-acceptance, self-regard,
self-confidence, and enthusiasm for the work one is called to do. I disagree
with those Christians who prefer to leave all initiatives to our Creator,
Christians who interpret any degree of confident ambition as devilish
arrogance.
Nonetheless, there are dangers
for those of us required to compete in our work. Our self-promotion can spill
over into all areas of our lives and even become addictive. Among friends and
family as well as in all activities we might demand center stage. We might
create inappropriate competition outside the workplace. We may become seduced
by the exhilaration of recognition in what we do and demand the same in all our
relationships. We might join with a movie character who shouts out in anguished
exhaustion, "To each man, he is the center of the universe." We could
come to believe that the maxim "Watch out for number 1" fits well for us in all
situations, personal as well as occupational. Each of us could come to live out
the conviction, "I am the clue to life."
To all such excesses John the
Baptist serves as a correcting hero. Although he was an ambitious
attention-getter, even his career efforts were not ultimately for himself. His
very job was to be a "pointer" to someone else. He appears to have set goals
and planned his campaign wisely. He focused on people he needed to know for
their support. John became known in the broader community. He learned
techniques for convincing people. Whether he dressed the part appropriately and
how successful he was are arguable issues; and, I doubt that he had anything
like a newsletter, brochure, or clever stationery.
It is possible to listen rather
indifferently to most of today's Gospel from Luke. "You brood of vipers!"
sounds a bit like demented Manhattan street-preaching. To us, John's
exhortations for justice are all too familiar. His predictable threat of
judgment is not even an irritant; the warning that lives not bearing evidence
of repentance share the fate of fruitless trees might be no more than a hushed
"boo" at dusk.
More likely to escape our
attention is the Baptist's faithful pointing to a low-class Jew, Jesus, as
God's Anointed One - Jesus, the embodiment of the Creator's purposes for
humanity. For those whose lives have been surrendered to habitual
self-promotion and unbridled ambition, John's call is no incidental matter. The
pressures and anxieties accompanying some vocational self-promotion may be
necessary and even exhilarating. However, the constant pointing to oneself in
personal life as well can be isolating and hellish. John's words to turn
around, to repent, have been with us throughout the centuries as warnings to
those who have become the centers of their little worlds. People so centered
are on the wrong road, a dead-end journey burning them up in exhaustion and
delusions of grandeur. In this context "repent" takes on more meaning than when
heard on a city street!
As is every other Christian
congregation, the Church of Bethesda-By-The-Sea is called to share in the
ministry of John the Baptist. With him, as read in today's Gospel, we call for
justice - as do many wonderful atheists, agnostics, and people of other
religions. But uniquely with John, you and I are called to be faithful pointers
to Jesus Christ and the social justices flowing from God's Word. Our mission is
not only to care for deserving people, but to invite them into Christ's
fellowship. We as the Church worship and give thanks to God through Christ; we
learn and teach; we gather for forgiveness, healing, fellowship and care in
Christ's Name; we are guided by Him as the clue to all we are and all we do. If
we fail to be pointers to Him, we become one more floundering social agency
housed in a museum of ancient fairy-tales and rituals.
As a result of Dr. Warren's
gracious invitation and the Bishop and Vestry's approval, last July I began to
serve a bit in this parish as a "retired assisting priest." A joy of this
ministry is that it did not result from my usual vocational self-promotion.
Frankly, I was skeptical as to whether there would be what one bishop calls a
"divine match" between myself as a priest and this rather conservative
congregation. Now, five months later I feel very much at home and have
formalized my membership here as a parishioner. I'm especially delighted with
the warm collegiality and growing friendship with my fellow clergy, each of us
a very different personality with particular gifts. I appreciate our rector's
willingness to put up with my independence and occasional liturgical
clumsiness. In that regard, I am learning from him. (I must add that Dr. Warren
is the only priest I know who "does church" so well that he hardly needs the
prayer book or hymnal; he knows them both - with heart and mind.)
Elsewhere, however, I'm
promoting myself - in a retirement mode - with a few secular, professional
activities. I remain ambitious. I'm enthusiastic about what I am called to do
at this time in my life. Nonetheless, John stands there insisting on fairness
in our lives. His prophetic invitation to get back on track when we stray is
coupled with assurance of God's grace, mercy and forgiveness. John's faithful
pointing to Jesus is also a call to limit our self-promotion; it is a warning
that God's clue to true life is not the person we see in our mirrors, but He
who is born in Bethlehem and annually in our hearts, none other than Jesus
Christ Our Lord. Amen.