PROPHECY GONE STALE

Four-and-a-half years have passed, but only now can I begin to talk about it:

Shortly after my departure from the congregation in Greenville, I was recruited to conduct the High Holy Day services for a once sizable, now foundering, synagogue in central Pennsylvania. That in itself is not unusual. Congregations that cannot afford the salary of a fulltime rabbi will often turn to a “freelancer” to lead the worship for major holidays, when attendance is as large and demanding as, say, Christmas Eve and Easter.

Having already conducted High Holy Day services for nearly three decades, I had few opening-night jitters or flop-sweats as my term as fill-in rabbi began. And my new congregation apparently concurred. The fit seemed only too good. They showered Linda and me with hospitality, invited us into their homes, accommodated us as family.

There was talk – much of it self-initiated, I confess – about bringing me up occasionally during the year for special events: retreats, study weekends, holiday celebrations. Maybe, some of us postulated, we could even establish an ongoing relationship of my spending two weeks a month in Pennsylvania to address the more routine pastoral, civic, and institutional needs of the congregation. Perhaps we might even be able to prod the congregation into a renaissance. But, nothing ever came of that, and the idea likely rubbed some of the more reticent members the wrong way.

The seeming love affair continued for three Holy Day seasons. On the fourth, things apparently started to chafe. The president called between Rosh Hashanah – the New Year – and Yom Kippur – the Day of Atonement – to politely and softly admonish me that my sermons were getting “stale,” and that some congregants were demanding ones of greater relevance.

Clichés come to mind, but greatest among them is that my bubble burst. I was not taken so much by the chutzpa as by the astonishment that for the first time in 30+ years in ministry, my sermons were deemed not too controversial, but not sufficiently relevant – my anger not piqued so much as my ego flat-deflated.

I was still sure that the sermon I has prepared for the austere fast of Yom Kippur would score high on the relevance scale. It was, dramatically, or so I thought, taken from the majestic Isaiah 58, a prophecy raining condemnation on those who fast meaninglessly and gabble empty prayers while not attending to the homeless, the hungry, the oppressed.

Would this be my swansong? Apparently. In the aftermath, the congregation was polite, but remote. A few months went by, and a terse call from the president told me that my services would not be needed for the next High Holy Days. They had “hired someone nearer by to attend more closely to their needs,” but they would not have had me back as their Holy Day rabbi, “regardless.” End of conversation. End of relationship.

Why he had to be so cruel as to tell me that my services would not be required “regardless,” I will never know. Telling the truth unnecessarily can become brutality, especially to the fragile ego of someone whose profession should have taught him to be tougher.

Is that why it hurts still so many years later? Or is it the disillusionment and humiliation that we would assume only babes-in-ministry, not hardened professionals in it for the long-haul, should suffer? Is it the inescapable truth that when one conjures up the compelling words of a Prophet of Israel he will ruffle the conscience of the complacent, not necessarily enough to change them, but enough to get them pie-eyed angry at the messenger? Is it that when one asks for “relevance,” he should be careful for what he wishes? Or is it that “relevance” itself has become an empty cliché for things that engage us momentarily like a baby attracted to a shiny bauble, only to be bored a nanosecond later? Have I, wizened by the years and fears and disappointments, become strong enough to read and hear the message, but no longer tough enough to deliver it?

Now, I will spend the rest of my life listening to someone else’s sermons, wondering, longingly, if the thunder of the prophet was too much to hearken, or if the staleness of his messenger just rendered the message irrelevant.