I feel like a Coward

I feel like a coward. The poet claims one such as I dies a thousand deaths. Shakespeare puts his expression of bravery in the mouth of his character Julius Caesar in the play by the same name. 

Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.
Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,
It seems to me most strange that men should fear;

Well, Julius, wonder all you want, I fear and I fear often. In the most diluted manner you can imagine I relate to our Lord’s night of agony as he faces the cross. To suggest that Jesus displayed cowardice when he begged for his life and against the suffering that he knew would come that next day is without warrant. Our Lord was no coward yet he did not desire the experiences of pain and finally the death that awaited him.

What distress do I face that compares to the cross? Two roads lie before me. I can wait three and half years (age sixty-six) for SS retirement and a pension. In the face of this outrage, I can retire immediately. This would mean no social security and a reduced amount of pension income of about ten thousand dollars annually. This amount subtracted from my current salary would be a considerably larger reduction. It would also mean, far more significantly, that the work of ministry would end for me or take on a very different and uncertain quality and pattern of service. I would no longer have a pulpit from which to expound the Word of God, to announce the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I would no longer have a congregation to serve as their pastor.

I live to give a witness to Jesus Christ and to expound the Word of God. I desire to be used of God to nurture faith and faithfulness in others. I just realized that this is my reason for being. Maybe this is too narrow a reason for living? Unlike Jesus, I offer no redemption to a lost and dying world – I merely point to the One who secured that redemption through His blood. Should my voice be silenced, should my service cease, there are countless others to carry on in my place.

I have always related to Jeremiah the prophet of God, who understood the words of God in him to be like a burning that must be let out or it will consume him. I doubt the burning will end with my retirement. With Paul I say, “Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel.”

If I acquiesce in the face of such a blatant departure from the moral truth revealed by God in His word I will preach, by silence, a message I know to be deadly false. Isaiah says in the 62^nd chapter of his recorded words, “For Zion’s sake I cannot be silent.” By remaining a member (a leader) in the PC(USA) I lend my name to a lie. By having my name on the same list of ministers whose very manner of living publically mocks the very holiness of God, I give credence to what I know is sinful.

Every day I remain in the PC(USA) I feel like a coward.