Unworthy

I don’t know if you’re a comic book movie fan or not, but I recently watched Marvel’s Avengers: Endgame. If you plan on seeing it, I’m going to spoil one part of it. So I’d quit reading now. Again …

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

At one point in the movie, Thor goes back in time to the day his Mother, Frigga, dies. He tries to avoid seeing her because the knowledge of her death is almost too much for him to bear. But Frigga confronts him and, as Mom’s do, she sees right through his defenses and he unloads his soul to her. He explains the events of Infinity War and how he failed, how he hasn’t lived up to what he’s supposed to be. She comforts him like only a Mother can.

As Thor starts to leave, he tries something — he holds out his hand to summon Mjolnir from somewhere in Asgard.

But it doesn’t arrive.

Frigga turns to Thor’s companion, “Sometimes it take a moment,” she says with a gleam in her eye.

And then, suddenly, Mjolnir flies into Thor’s hand. With tears in his eyes he says, “I’m still worthy.”

While this was one of several moments in Avengers: Endgame that moved me to tears, it’s the one I relate to the most. You see, like Thor in his darkest moment …

I struggle with worthiness.

I remember sitting with a priest wrestling with the call of God to become ordained. As I unloaded to her, much like Thor unloaded to his Mother, I told her how unworthy I felt, that God should choose someone else. To paraphrase what Hal Jordan said to Tomar-Re in the Green Lantern, “God made a mistake.” She replied, “So? None of us are ‘worthy.’ But God calls us anyway; God calls the foolish to shame the wise. What’s your point? ” At the time, I felt a bit of relief but as time goes on, the feeling of unworthiness continues to be a constant companion. And not in a healthy way.

I feel so useless in my calling. I’m not serving anyone that I can see. I’ve tried to have home gatherings but no one comes. I’ve offered my services to others — go to where they are — but no one’s interested. My writing seems to be very niche, they’re not helping the people I thought they would. I feel like I have a dark stain I pretend isn’t there but everyone can see it. I’m not wanting anyone’s pity; just stating the facts the way I see them.

The way I look doesn’t help either. With a goofy eye, horrible teeth, and a bald head I look like the love child of the Hunchback of Notre Dame and Sloth from the Goonies. Appearance is everything and I’m just not that approachable.

More and more of my thoughts and views have isolated me from others, too. Being a white, middle-aged, straight, Christian man doesn’t seem to give me a place or a voice. No one’s interested in what I have to say or cares to hear it. Besides, better people than I have already said it so who would want to hear what I have to say anyway.

I believe most of the “end time” prophecies in the New Testament have already been fulfilled in the first century during the war between the Jews and the Romans culminating in the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple.

I believe in Christian Universalism — that the death of Christ actually rescued all people and will one day restore them and the entire cosmos.

I thought I could really make a difference; help people the way I’ve been helped. I guess I’m just kidding myself.

I remember sitting at the table eating lunch with my Abbott and other Bishops and priests at the Lindisfarne Community’s annual retreat. It was the day of my ordination into the priesthood. As I looked around the table, I saw doctors and professors and engineers. Me? I’m an IT professional. While I’ve been studying theology and church history since my early twenties, I’ve gone through the Bishop’s school at Lindisfarne, and I’m a trained Spiritual Director, that just doesn’t seem adequate in most circles.

I could serve at local parishes but I really struggle with that whole model, as anyone who’s read this blog can attest. One of the greatest issues — I’m not sure “injustice” would be too strong a word — that’s ever happened to the world has been the institutional church. Sure, the church has accomplished great things but we’re lying to ourselves if we don’t acknowledge all the harm it’s caused, too. From the beginning, Jesus never intended to create another institutional religion; he was already a part of one. His purpose was to create a way of being that transcended religion; that superseded it. I have no problem with people getting together for community worship or meals, but to create huge buildings and spectacles when the world is in such pain is to miss the point of it all.

Along that same line, to repress and reject people based on the color of their skin, the gender, their sexual orientation, their economic or political status is just flat out wrong and not The Way of Jesus. To tell someone they aren’t welcome at Jesus’ table — neither my table nor my denominations table, but Jesus’ table — because of any of the aforementioned things or more besides is to be blind to the inclusive nature of Jesus and the Good News.

Maybe I’m just having a pity party, feeling a little depressed since it’s Mother’s Day and I genuinely miss my Mom (she died about thirteen years ago). I don’t know for sure. But I do know that like Charlie Brown, I struggle with it all. I want so much to be used by God, to help people get free from the addiction of their own falseness, of the parts that aren’t truly themselves, but at the same time I don’t want to offend others either. I don’t want something I’ve written or said to push someone away who’s desperately trying to know God. I don’t want to be another reason why people have turned away from being free. At the same time, though, I want to be true to myself. I want to talk about Jesus. I want to see God as both Father and Mother. I want to hear the Spirit speak to me through the Big Book of God — nature.

I don’t care if I offend religious people, pious people, better-than-thou people. It was through my own offense of “better-than-thou-ism” that I truly began to grow in God’s Love and Grace. That’s when I first saw that I’d put the idol I thought was God in a box that was too small. Of course I don’t want to go out of my way to offend those types of people either, but I make no qualms about rubbing them the wrong way. No, it’s the ones who’ve been hurt by the religious elite that I desperately want to help. To show them that not all people who follow Jesus are assholes (though I freely admit that I can be an asshole, too).

I don’t know where this is going. I just wanted to write something honest about my feelings of unworthiness. I lack the confidence that I see in a lot of people. I wish I could write like the late Rachel Held Evans, a young woman who changed me probably more deeply than I’m even aware. Or the many young people who have the courage to “come out” about who they really are, like Matt Easton.

There’s something Frigga said to Thor that was very powerful.  She told him that we all fail at being who we’re supposed to be. We can only succeed in being who we really are. For me, my unworthiness comes in when I think of clergy — of what clergy are “supposed” to be. But, we do things differently in the Lindisfarne Community. While there are some of us who fit into the traditional roles of clergy, most of us, however, really don’t. I guess I need to lean into that. I need to give up on what I’m “supposed” to be and just be who I really am.

Thank you for taking the time to read my ramblings.

~~~

In the Love of the Three in One,

Br. Jack+, LC