Shafted again by their own government

THE GREAT DIVIDE

There is nothing that illustrates the great divide between the wishes, the hopes, the
passions, the compassion of the American public and the members of Congress more than the current sad treatment of the military veterans.

The citizens, the average person, the people in the street care deeply about the veterans. They have and continue to respond to the great number of programs and charities that have sprung up to support our veterans. So many companies have created programs where the purchase of their product means that the company will make some donation to a veterans’ cause. The Wound Warrior charity gathered in large donations which unfortunately did not get to the veterans, but still demonstrated the public’s great desire to help.

The public has great sympathy and compassion for these veterans because they understand that our government has sent them over and over into some terrible situations that should have never been begun. These veterans were asked to begin a war. Something no other veterans in our history have done. These veterans were sent into a war that should never have been started by us. But they have gone and done their duty to their commanders. They have sacrificed lives, body parts, and emotions. The public recognizes the great debt we owe to these men and women.

Yet over the last eight years the House and the Senate have repeatedly refused to pass legislature that gave better benefits to these veterans. When veteran hospitals and medical services are so backed up that three months waiting lists are normal, when more veterans are coming home with physical disabilities and emotional needs, when the job market is complicated at home, the House and the Senate have five times failed to help veterans.
In 2015 when the Veterans Affairs Funding was presented in the Obama budget, the House Appropriation Subcommittee removed more than $1.4 billion dollars in veteran services. Included in those cuts were $690 million earmarked for direct VA medical care and another $582 million in VA construction projects. The results of those cuts were that that approximately 70,00 fewer veterans were able to receive needed care.

In 2014 there came forward a very personal and emotional bill called the Women Veteran and Families Health Services Act that was a bipartisan bill to provide fertility treatment and counseling for severely wounded veterans and the spouses. This bill never made it out of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee because Republicans wanted amendments that prevented the involvement of Planned Parenthood.

In the same year, 2014 Senator Bernie Sanders introduced Veterans Health and Benefits and Military Retirement Pay Restoration Act. This was sweeping overhaul of health care and education benefits. The Senate gave it a 99-0 procedural vote approval, but Senator Mitch McConnell attached all kinds of sanctions against Iran and the debate over the amendments resulted in an expanded debate over cost of the benefits and 41 of the 45 Republican Senators voted against the bill.

The refusal to vote for and give the veterans the increased benefits they deserve has a long history. Republicans in the Senate refused to approve a Veterans Job Corps Act in 2012 and Senator McConnell killed a Homeless Women Veterans and Homeless Veterans with Children Act in 2010 because they did not like the cost. But they could turn around and voted for increase military spending in the same session. This is a nation that cares and wants to take care of our veterans. Apparently this Senate does not. We need a new Senate.

ANNUAL REVIEW
Most of the “terms of call” for Presbyterian ministers, I do not know how it goes in
other denominations, contains wording that suggest that there should be an annual review of the performance of the minister.

It is an idea that has great potential. It is an aspect of employment that many others in lots of other fields of work experience. Teachers are “observed” by other teachers and principals. Sales people have annual reviews. Other corporations have procedures that bring people in for an annual review of how their work has been. There are precise standards for these evaluations in some places. In other places it is much more subjective and difficult to evaluate the quality of the work being done.

I think that the profession of ministry is a very difficult profession to evaluate. By what standard do you judge the work of the minister? Is your model of how the minister ought to perform taken from the television preachers you have seen? Is the model by which one judges the minister one of the tall steeple preachers in the area? Maybe the committee is made up of people who want the minister to focus of the works like Mother Teresa or the Rev. Jesse Jackson, be a social activist? Maybe there are some who ask, “What would Jesus do?”

What are the bullet points that the committee needs to consider? George Buttrick, an outstanding minister in New York City in the 40’s and 50”s said that there are two things a minister ought to focus on: Calling on members and visitors, and Preaching. But even those must be dissected. Calling - how often? One a month on all members? One a quarter? Maybe all members once a year and when crisis comes? And there are deeper questions. What should happen in those calls? Should there be an agenda? I once heard of a minister who went with questions: Do you all prayer together every night? How is your habit of scripture reading? Do you find your place of work being a place where you feel comfortable sharing grace with others? How can the church help your spiritual life to grow? Other ministers just make it a social call unless the member has a question. Hospital and nursing home visits? How often? Every day?

Preaching - now there is a real sticky wicket. How do you evaluate the quality of the preaching? Is the work of preaching to comfort or challenge? Is the job to give answers or raise questions. Dogmatic or “Faith in search of understanding?” Does the preacher speak the politics of the kingdom of God or the politics of the USA? Is the preacher enable the members to leave satisfied or to leave a bit agitated? Is preaching a Bible study experience where most of the time is spent in telling the Bible story or is it to relate the Bible to contemporary society? How long should that sermon be? Does the preacher keep to the time limits? Does he read from a text or “preach from the heart?”

From my forty years of ministry, I have had a number of “annual reviews”. Some with just one member of the session. Some with a committee. Some with a job description given in January and used in December to see how it was accomplished. From those forty years, I do not think I had very many reviews that I thought were very helpful. Most of the time I thought they were too kind or indifferent. There was a “proforma” feeling about them. Let’s get this over.
How do you think a minister ought to be evaluated?