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Good morning theologians and wild unicorn tamers!
The following is Part One of a Three Part Series on Rural Ministry and Care!
I. The "Highs" and "Lows" of Rural Ministry, Theology, and Care
To begin a transparent and fully Christian conversation about the role of the pastoral figure in a rural community, we must necessarily begin with the confession that Jesus Christ, the very figurehead and centerpiece of Christianity, was a rural Jewish teacher, preacher, and healer. It is important to recognize and confess this, because it tells us something about how our Christ relates to communities of people. The ministry of Jesus, as we see illustrated beautifully in the synoptic Gospel accounts, was largely parabolic. Jesus rooted his ministry and care of God’s children in story. I will contend that story is what shapes and forms human communities, in general, but especially rural communities. I believe, firmly, that Jesus knew his community, that is to say, he knew his people, and this is why he knew that his ministry needed to be one of storytelling. This is not just any storytelling. This is storytelling that brings life to the dead, separates sheep from goats, honors lowly widows, and plants seeds of Logos wherever it is proclaimed. It is redemption. It is death and it is resurrection. To discuss rural communities is to discuss persons formed by and dependant on story and to include the role of their “shepherd” in the discussion is to discuss storytelling as life-giving Gospel.
Story being key to understanding the ways in which rural communities function, it would be best, then, to include stories about rural communities and their pastoral figures. Rev. Geraldine Granger, as played to bubbly and smartass perfection by Dawn French, is The Vicar of Dibley, a fictional village in the rural countryside of Oxfordshire, England. The young priest of Ambricourt, a French parish depicted in the classic novel The Diary of a Country Priest, shares the inner workings of his spirit with us as he recounts story after story of his relationships with his parishioners, the village, and the countryside itself. England and France. A thirty-something female Anglican vicar and a twenty-something male Roman Catholic priest. Their stories and villages are quite different, in many ways, and yet they are each brimming with lively and odd characters who, although caricatures in some senses, are people we have met and know in our own hometowns and parishes.
“All theology comes out of a particular community and context.” The life stories of Vicar Geraldine “Gerry” Granger and the unnamed country priest are impacted by the life stories of the people who exist within the parishes, communities, and contexts that they serve. We see something of the “rural character” coming out in these stories. We see something of the “Christ character,” or, what we might call the “incarnational element” coming out in how Gerry and the country priest respond to these stories. The response is the absolute crucial element of the storytelling that happens in rural contexts of worship and care. All of the stories that are told and all of the responses are, chiefly, core pieces of a largely oral theology. “Maybe, if Tex Sample is right, the theology of the rural community is an oral, rather than primarily a written theology. Maybe it is time that we begin to think explicitly about a theology that we believe in our bones and live out of our hearts.” As a person who has served rural congregations, I can relate fully to this description. A rural theology is its own story. It is full of “highs” and “lows” like any other human experience, or story, but it is still uniquely its own and, I believe, blessed by God to be so. This oral theology and storytelling has been moving at its own pace forever, so, when a new clergyperson enters the scene, the interactions can be difficult, frustrating, and even painful. Caring for and preaching the Gospel to people who have been telling the same story for years can be daunting and, at times, can suck the life, passion, and creative energy right out of you. But, this rural form of storytelling (many rural parishioners would much prefer the term “story” to the term “theology.” The latter is too “academic” for many of them.) can also be quite life-giving!
Richard Curtis adds a dose of real life to Series One of BBC’s The Vicar of Dibley with Episode 6, titled “Animals.” Vicar Gerry, a smart-assed but deeply feeling woman, has already upset the local “characters” of Dibley because of her gender, her weight, her boisterous demeanor, and her progressive views on theology and social convention. Bear in mind that most rural folks are still clinging to traditionalist conservative stories as their defining stories. When Gerry recommends the idea of introducing a Franciscan “Blessing of the Animals” service into Dibley’s liturgical year, it is met with mixed reactions quite typical of a rural parish. Many of the area farmers are ecstatic that Vicar Gerry notices how important pets and livestock are to the lives of Dibley folk while the staunch president of the vestry, David Horton (played to tight-lipped perfection by Gary Waldhorn), pushes back with conservative ferocity. “This is not how things are done in church!” Richard Curtis is very good at showing his viewers that David’s story is not a bad one, it’s just a different one. He may be a stuck-up, dried up bastion of conservatism, but his story still matters! With humor, Gerry pushes forward with the service, and eventually, David’s heart softens, although at one time he had threatened to call Gerry’s bishop. These sorts of threats are not foreign to most stories of rural ministry and yet, neither are the joys of embracing the people and their lives, even if they involve bringing a noisy, smelly goat into the sanctuary! In Series One, Episode Eight, Vicar Gerry navigates the difficulties of trying to keep everyone’s feelings from being hurt as she is invited to one Christmas dinner after another. Vicar Gerry has a hard time saying “no.” Some issues of self-care and boundaries are not specific to rural ministry, are they?
The young priest of Bernanos’ The Diary of a Country Priest is deeply impacted, perhaps too much so, by his relationships with his parishioners. Their doubts become his doubts, their vulnerabilities become his vulnerabilities, and their joys become his joys. In a sense, their stories become unique chapters in his own story, and his in theirs. The priest of Ambricourt feels what Dietrich Bonhoeffer expressed as “the concrete Christ of community.” Bernanos’ touching, intimate, and very personal account of the fictional young priest’s experiences are very layered and complex, much like our own life stories. While we cannot possibly tackle every piece of the young priest’s story, we can tackle two quotes which come out of his richly finite and mysteriously incarnational experiences: The first quote is “God is not a torturer.” The second quote is “All is grace.” These are both lessons that the young priest learns from the stories he lives with his parishioners and with his new countryside home. The depressed, self-loathing, and self-reflective priest spends his days seeking ways out of his feeling of isolation. Ministry can be a very lonely vocation to pursue, but rural ministry has a special isolation all its own. The already tormented priest, who could surely use some friendship, pays a visit to the local Countess who is deeply bitter against God and struggling with extraordinary doubt. The priest’s dedication to the Countess in prayer and visitation aids her in returning to God through the means of communion. That very night, however, the Countess dies in her sleep and her daughter spreads the vicious rumor that the young priest drove her to an early grave by sharing harsh words that tormented her to death. The young priest’s self care completely disappears at this point and he is driven to stomach cancer and dies in the care of an elderly mentor priest.
“God is not a torturer” and “all is grace:” Two important confessions of belief that can only be experienced as incarnational story in the place where the “highs” and “lows” of rural living overlap. It is much easier to divide the stories of rural ministry into high mountaintops and low valleys. These are, after all, parts of rich imagery used in our holy Christian Scriptures. But, the vast majority of humanity knows that we are almost always living somewhere in the tension between the mountaintop and the valley. The vicar of Dibley and the priest of Ambricourt are two examples of people who entered into that place of “in-between” storytelling and breathed cross and resurrection stories of incarnational hope and Gospel into the lives of their individual parishes. But, they did not do this alone. When they were down, cast out, and lonely, their community members reached out to them and carried them. Maybe that is what the “highs” and “lows” of rural ministry and storytelling are all about. Maybe it is all about that person, whether clergy or laity, who, when you are broken down and weary, will carry you to the Table of the Lord, when you simply cannot stand, whether through prayer or any other means. Maybe the story of rural ministry is, ultimately, the story of a broken and resurrected rural preacher, teacher, and healer. Maybe the rural story is a story about Jesus Christ.
Amen.
Soli Deo Gloria
~Josiah
*Bibliography
Bernanos, Georges. The Diary of a Country Priest (Da Capo Press: Philadelphia, 1937).
Rural Ministry: The Shape of the Renewal to Come ed. Shannon Jung, et al.
(Abingdon Press: Nashville, 1998).
The Vicar of Dibley (Richard Curtis, Dewi Humphries, 1994).
