a #ruralpresence post - If you meet George Herbert on the road...

(this post was 1st published on the Rural Presence Blog)

Still in some minds the uber-model for Anglican rural ministry, George Herbert was born in Wales in 1593 and spent only 3 years of his life as a parish priest.  He also packed into his 39 years a stint as an MP and a period as an academic as well as the poetry and the hymns.  Today the church remembers him...

King of glory, king of peace, who called your servant George Herbert from the pursuit of worldly honours to be a priest in the temple of his God and king: grant us also the grace to offer ourselves with singleness of heart in humble obedience to your service; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

 Many of us working in rural MPBS may not be quite so grateful for his legacy. In his small book, A priest to the temple, or the Countrey Parson, his character and rule of life, Herbert has had an enormous influence on what we think Anglican parish priests do all day.  


Yet Herbert himself , in the book's introduction, warns the reader that what follows will be a counsel of perfection:

I have resolved to set down the Form and Character of a true Pastour, that I may have a Mark to aim at: which also I will set as high as I can, since hee shoots higher that threatens the Moon, then hee that aims at a Tree.

In a few brief chapters, Herbert does indeed set the bar high: not only is this an ideal, it's also a polemical piece, speaking against the divisions and failures of his own time.

Justin Lewis-Anthony's riposte to Herbertism,  If you meet George Herbert on the road, kill him, is one of the livelier challenges to the 17th century writer's shadow.  He puts Herbert's model in context and charts the way it has been appropriated and reshaped in successive generations, ending with a vision of the parish priest as "omni-present, omni-competent and omni-affirming,"... and burnt out...

If not The Country Parson, then what?  Justin Lewis-Anthony's book offers 3 models:  witness, watchman and weaver.  With a more rural focus in view, Amiel Osmaston, in a chapter in Reshaping Rural Ministry proposes 7 models of leadership rather than priesthood, which is itself an interesting distinction.  These complementary models - farmer, entrepreneur, storyteller, carpenter, parent, weaver (again!), midwife/layer-out - are not expected to be exercised only by clergy or by any single leader, but in community.

Herbert's model of ministry may not be quite so transferrable, but the poetry lives on.  Here's a beautifully crafted sonnet-parable:

Redemption

Having been tenant long to a rich lord,

Not thriving, I resolvèd to be bold,

And make a suit unto him, to afford

A new small-rented lease, and cancel th’ old.

 

In heaven at his manor I him sought;

They told me there that he was lately gone

About some land, which he had dearly bought

Long since on earth, to take possessiòn.

 

I straight returned, and knowing his great birth,

Sought him accordingly in great resorts;

In cities, theaters, gardens, parks, and courts;

At length I heard a ragged noise and mirth

 

Of thieves and murderers; there I him espied,

Who straight, Your suit is granted, said, and died.