The House of God: Part 2

Perhaps the most controversial of laws in The House of God is the last one: The delivery of medical care is to do as much nothing as possible.

Samuel Shem illustrates this law toward the end of his book when a wealthy hospital donor is admitted to the hospital with rectal bleeding.  The main character diagnoses him with something that simply requires bed rest for a couple of weeks.  There are no tests ordered.  There are no invasive procedures done.  The patient's own healing processes are allowed to take charge, and the patient recovers fully.  Not only that, but the patient fully realizes what the doctor did and invites him out for a pleasant weekend.  The patient even makes the remark that by essentially doing nothing, he got better faster (he had been admitted several times previous to the hospital). 

Of course, as I thought this one through, I wondered just how that would fly in congregations.  Can you imagine the thought of reporting to your vestry, your council, your board, or what have you, "This past month I did as much of nothing as possible."?  Can you imagine the fireworks that would fly?

But let's process the thought for just a moment.  Let's think about some of the core, central components central to living the Christian life.  In particular, let's think about the majority of the Christian disciplines: prayer, fasting, study, worship, silence, solitude, and the like.  How many of these things are labor intensive?  How many of them require doing essentially nothing? 

How would it fly if a pastor, priest, deacon or what have you, reported to the vestry, board, council, "This past month, I spent 20 hours a week praying for the congregation, fasting to grow in my relationship with God so that I could better preach His Word, and sitting in solitude with no distractions to better hear God's voice.  I spent 10 hours studying God's Word in scripture and reading other Christian authors to learn more about the One I serve and am leading this congregation to serve.  I spent the remaining 10 hours making phone calls, visiting the sick and shut in, writing my sermon, and administrative tasks."  How would such a report be welcomed?  How would a report of, "I spent the majority of my time 'doing' nothing." go over?

Oh, but what about all of the tasks of the congregation?  What about feeding the hungry?  What about making sure all the shut-ins get visited?  What about preparing Bible study?  What about checking on members who haven't worshiped in a long time?  What about making sure the facilities are in working order?  What about being in public and inviting folks to come to our church?

These are important tasks, to be sure.  But if the pastor, deacon, priest is doing all that stuff, what is left for congregation members to handle?  How do they also take responsibility for the livelihood of the congregation?

Maybe we clergy don't spend enough time doing "nothing": praying, fasting, studying, listening to God and His Word.  Maybe we try to do too much fixing and meddling.  Maybe this is why we burnout so quickly.  Maybe this is why we lose so much steam.  Our congregations tend to do pretty well without us telling them what to do and trying to make them do things, and perhaps when we try to make them become something they are not, well, perhaps that's when most of the bad things happen.