Remembering Dr Hazel Roper

Burying the saints is part of ministry.  I have long become accustomed, though not numbed from the familiarity of being part of a funeral service where a beloved congregant, family member or friend has died and the people of God gathered for the holy task of burying a beloved one.  Presiding or officiating as a pastor at funerals is particularly difficult when you have to manage your own grief in the midst of this sacred yet fraught moment.  I find such work keeps us connected to our core beliefs, as clergy are tasked with leading people to remember that we are dust at best and this life and its pain and success is fleeting.

On Monday, a difficult yet joyous day happened at the Calvary Baptist Church of Lowell, MA.  A sanctuary full of mourners gathered together to say farewell to a beloved family member, friend, colleague, mentor and veritable legend.  The Rev. Dr. Hazel Roper lived out her ministry in local church pulpits, around the table with churches all around upstate New York and advocating for clergy and churches in the sometimes difficult discussions about clergy compensation, clergy pensions and everything else that most of us struggle to speak about, let alone discuss frankly about "money and church" matters.

Hazel Roper excelled in pastoral ministry, whether in local church or denominational work.  I count myself as one of the many pastors who benefited from her keen insight, firm resolve and wise ways.  She assisted a congregation I served with understanding the complexities of clergy pay and pension, something that when I myself retire in the 2040s will be most thankful got started years ago with her skillful advising.  She kept in touch after I moved into the Regional ministry work with upstate New York churches myself, working with a number of congregations in pastor searches and other needs where Hazel's interactions years ago created moments of clarity during conflict and challenge.  Indeed, as I told her once, I could work with healthier churches in the present day thanks in part to the helpful and insightful work she did with pastors and congregations.  Indeed, I have heard it said in recent days that Hazel is considered the reason some churches remain in better shape all these years later, thanks to her careful work in the 1990s and early 2000's. 

As I passed word to colleagues about Hazel's unexpected passing, I kept hearing stories of mentoring conversations.  A number of clergywomen serving today give thanks to Hazel as a mentor, an inspiration and an exemplar of a determined Baptist woman called to serve God and the Church through ordained ministry.  A pastor at the funeral gave a brief testimony, simply saying Hazel was her example and a "she-ro" of the faith.

When the family offered their memories, it was noted that Hazel was a long-time member of the Lowell church, going back to her childhood.  When she retired decades later from ministry, she served again as a lay leader, providing her talents as the church moderator.  When the Calvary church burned when Hazel was nine, she offered the pastor her piggy bank's contents to help rebuild the church.  Fittingly, memorial gifts in her memory are suggested for the present day church's roof repair fund! 

As I listened to the many words of testimony given by family and friends, congregants and colleagues, I noticed the two stained glass panels flanking either side of the altar area.  To the left, the traditional image of Jesus, the Good Shepherd, benevolently tended the sheepfold.  On the right, the image was of Jesus kneeling in prayer with his gaze heavenward, most likely in that moment alone in the time just before his betrayal and death.   While such images are overly familiar subject matter for stained glass, the two images paired well with the liturgy and testimony unfolding in the altar area.

As we journey through the Lenten season, I ponder mortality and what it means to live a life of significance.  Hazel left a legacy that is like faith itself, a matter of things seen and unseen. As the call went forth that day earlier this week, we have the challenge to raise up more Hazels to serve Christ and God's people.  Her legacy is already enriching the lives of people who attend churches who are healthier for her ministry work years ago.  Her legacy lives on in the women and men she encouraged to stick out ministry's most difficult moments or when vocations seemed too distant to be "ours" to accept and undertake.

When somebody asked how the funeral went, I said, "It was the best type: you laughed, you cried, you listened to the Good Word and good words and then you went downstairs for a great big meal."  How else should a Baptist be remembered than a rousing time to sing, to give thanks to God and to be nourished by the memories and table fellowship afterwards?

Thanks be to God!

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Dr Hazel Roper's obituary appears via:   http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/lowellsun/obituary.aspx?n=hazel-a-roper&pid=184705560&fhid=2434

A retrospective on the occasion of her 50th year of ordained ministry appeared in 2014:  http://www.lowellsun.com/lifestyles/ci_26183585/living-history

Wandering the Park and Facing the Future

In Albany, New York’s Washington Park, you will be able soon literally to “tiptoe through the tulips” with the annual Tulip Festival.  If you like tulips, Washington Park will be laden with many beautiful beds of tulips.  They crown a Tulip Queen and the festival weekend provides all manner of amusement and enough fried foods to make a cardiologist weep.

 

In the midst of the Park, the great fountain will be soon home to pennies and quarters tossed in, the screams of joy as children splash in the waters (especially on a hot summer’s day) and undoubtedly, more than a few youth and grown-ups who decide to give in to their own urge to splash in the waters as well!

 

When I first visited Washington Park, I noticed the beautiful statuary all around the fountain’s center.  From a distance, I wondered if it was Poseidon with his trident upraised and attended by his court.  As I got closer, I realized that it was a different scene being recreated.

 

I knew what the subject of the fountain was thanks to years spent in Baptist Sunday School.  The fountain recreates this moment of Moses striking the rocks with his staff and the waters pouring forth. For many around the statue that day, some likely had no clue at what inspired the fountain’s subject matter. 

As an obviously religious person (the robe is always a dead giveaway at church, isn’t it?), I found myself wondering how the generations of Park visitors saw this same fountain.  Surely when it was dedicated, it was with great pride and common knowledge of this story from Scripture.  But today, with the Capital District ranking highly (and nearby Vermont the same) with a distinct “religiously disinclined” or “nones” populace, did the fountain in Washington Park resonate with mere aesthetics (for it is beautiful) and really not with the biblical text inspiring its creation?

 

For all of us, those who see Poseidon, those who see Moses and those who just go “cool fountain” and move on through the snow banks today (wishing for the tulips sooner than later), I say “Welcome to 2017!”   This is the context every local congregation (American Baptist, Christian or otherwise) deals with on a day to day basis.  The brave faith communities are the ones who understand it, mourn the change and then look for ways to move into the challenges such a time as this presents.

 

When I visit congregations, I find that for many, there’s a very offensive four letter word that I likely get into trouble for bringing up.  The word is (and I hope your ears will not burn as I utter it):  RISK.

 

Risk is what makes a church or any other organization do something other than feel left on the sidelines by change.  Change comes at us, change rushes past, without looking to see if we’ve reacted to it.  Change, after all, is not the “enemy”.  It’s part of the world we live in.  How we decide to engage what change brings, well, there’s the big question.

 

Most of us would enjoy church if it were more like the park we can visit in Albany.  A stroll, a bit of leisure and beautiful fountains and tulips appeal far more than church business meetings, balancing budgets and counting attendance.   Yet that park is also the creation and ongoing commitment of a city to keep up the park, plow the snow, plant the tulips and repair the fountain when Moses strikes the rock yet the piping underneath is being difficult and requires more of a plumber than a patriarch to bang upon it.

 

Church is about brick and mortar (and if you are a Trustee, you pray for the brick and the mortar each night as you remember the last time pointing had to be done and the bills and headaches that followed).  Church is about the worship services that happen (and if you are involved with worship, you know it comes with the weekly wrestling match of getting a sermon to come together, preferably before 3 AM Sunday morning, and the difficulty of getting everything “just right” to help the gathered worshippers sing and pray together, unless a snow storm rolls through the night before).  Church is about the little stuff that makes a person feel connected enough to move from being a visitor to becoming a member (and even learning how to pitch in with committee work, while praying that a term on a church board is for three years, rather than a life sentence).

 

Church is a lot of things, but it’s more than all of this.  It’s also about evangelism, outreach and being part of a community and its needs.  You’ve undoubtedly heard this over the years in various forms and with opinions about what was tried and what failed.  Indeed, you may have heard the people and Moses and thought to yourself, “Are sure that was back in ancient times?  Some of it sounded quite familiar and hits close to home!”

 

Every congregation has its ups and its downs.  How it learns to thrive, how to become more resilient to challenge (and in fact even energized by taking the punches and rolling with them as well) will be a matter of learning how to risk and live to tell about it.

 

What the future holds is uncertain and involves a decision about what risk you are willing to explore.  But remember that whatever each person has on their hearts and minds, whatever each person here wishes to say out loud at the meeting (or outside in the parking lot afterwards), each of us has the blessing of this story about Moses, the people and a rock that sprang forth with water.  God is with us, even when we think God has given up on us (or we’ve just given up on our own).

 

I’d like to think that the church can be that park where much toil and effort happens by the work of many hands willing to engage in the mundane tasks of day-to-day needs as well as the short moments when tulips are admired briefly over a weekend.  Churches are places where much good can come even from people wearied or worried by the circumstances at hand.   For God is the God of abundance, and with that hope, how can we not move from grumbling and wanting to being given the refreshing sustenance of holy waters that lift us back up and out into the desert once more, knowing that indeed, there will be a Promised Land?

Making Baptist life faithful and alive

Last week Baptist ethicist Robert Parnham died.  Many Baptists around the world have shared their lament at his passing and much thanksgiving for his life and work.

I met Robert a couple of times over the years, and I have been a contributor to the Ethics Daily website for years.  Without a doubt, Robert offered his keen intellect and deep faith to the task of encouraging Baptists to think and act out the implications of following the Gospel.

Recently, Ethics Daily carried a recent blog post of mine.  They tagged the article to identify it along with other articles about "Baptist life".  Looking at the other articles similarly tagged on Ethics Daily show the stories of Baptists involved in a number of needs, local and global.  You learn of Baptists learning to explore faith within and well beyond the four walls of the local church.

Read these articles via:  http://www.ethicsdaily.com/section/columns-on-baptist-life

Once you have explored these essays and articles, you can see the ongoing legacy of Robert Parnham, faithful Baptist, and be inspired to go and do likewise.


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Note:  For the articles I've contributed to Ethics Daily (since 2005--wow, has it been that long?), click this link:   http://www.ethicsdaily.com/search.php?search=Hugenot&location=-1

Entering into Lent: Life Awaits

This past week, I was part of three different meetings.  Each was unique in that the conversations were specific to a set of questions and quandaries.  Each was quite similar in that the groups gathered around each table earnestly wanted to seek God's will in the midst of a time of challenge.

Sometimes my work is to bring resources.  I shy away from suggesting that I, or anyone else around the table, will have "the" answer or worse, a "quick fix".  Instead, I advise the slower, the patient, the less anxious, the less immediately understood way forward.  (Admittedly, such work is a tough sell, especially when I'm feeling the need for expedience or anxiety drives more than I care to admit.)

As we begin Lent, Christians have the opportunity to examine the spiritual life and decide what priorities have to be claimed or reclaimed, what practices and habits should be given up, and how to learn these things with a spirit of humility and provisional grace (for others as well as ourselves!).

Thomas Merton offers a prayer that I often share with groups when conversations come to an end.  I share it with you:
MY LORD GOD, I have no idea where I am going.
 
I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end.
 
Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.
 
But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it.
 
Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

 

Thomas Merton, “Thoughts in Solitude”