What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • Who is the happiest of the them all?

    Mirror, mirror, on the wall….
    Who is the happiest of them all?

    Turns out the answer is clergy.

    According to the BBC, the government is beginning to include measures of happiness in what it attempts to do and part of that has been trying to quantify who the happiest people are in society. Turns out the answer at the top of the list is “vicars/priests”.

    I’m not at all surprised. Oh, but there’s so much to say about it – not least the fact that I know plenty of clergy who are very far from happy. My hunch is that those who are unhappy in this job tend not to be unhappy about the essence of the job and are frustrated because they can’t vicar enough to fulfil the hopes that they once had. (My apologies for verbing the noun in that last sentence).

    The list itself is fascinating as it lists job categories by average income too. Second most happy people are CEOs bringing in lots of dosh.

    Here’e the top ten happy categories:

    (Rank) Occupation Mean income (£s)
    (1) Clergy 20,568
    (2) Chief executives and senior officials 117,700
    (3) Managers and proprietors in agriculture and horticulture 31,721
    (4) Company secretaries 18,176
    (5) Quality assurance and regulatory professionals 42,898
    (6) Health care practice managers 31,267
    (7) Medical practitioners 70,648
    (8) Farmers 24,520
    (9) Hotel and accommodation managers and proprietors 32,470
    (10) Skilled metal, electrical and electronic trades supervisors 35,316

    I’ve been asking myself why it is that clergy come out at the top. Some combination of the following factors is probably at work:

    • Very high degree of autonomy – notwithstanding bishops, presbyteries and other forms of oversight, clergy have to be very self-motivated.
    • We are in the joy business.
    • There’s a relatively high level of vocational testing before you get in – the churches try to select those who are most likely to cope with a very odd life.
    • High satisfaction levels around being with people in trauma and emotional need – you know you are doing good very often
    • High level of variety in daily life.
    • It is a life not a job.
    • Inner calling is a greater motivator than money – you don’t go into it for more money.
    • Lots of opportunity to develop a life where internal reflection allows you to work through your own stuff.
    • The job involves telling people they are loved and learning how much you yourself are loved too.
    • You get to walk into places and situations where others are frightened and help them deal with their fears.
    • Worship.

    I’ll write sometime about why clergy are not happy. But for today, I’d be interested in any further comments about why clergy are happy.

    Anyone?

    ,

66 responses to “Sermon Preached on 9 October 2011”

  1. kelvin Avatar
    kelvin

    Now, I think we are in danger of moving away from commenting on the sermon that was posted above.

    Further comments that are focused on that sermon are welcome. I think that I will exercise my perogative and choose not to host any further debates on this thread unless they pertain directly to the orginal post.

    Several comments from those of differing opinions have been gently hushed.

    Reply
  2. Alan McManus Avatar
    Alan McManus

    I remember hearing you preach this sermon, Kelvin, and being surprised at your take on it. Mine, I now realise (thanks for the research, Rosemary), came from Augustine (via my RC school chaplain, now happily married, whose constant theme was the love of God for us). It’s difficult to revise views learned while young as the evidence we accepted as children is not always acceptable to our adult minds – if we chose to review it. So I sympathise both with my coreligionist and with our Cromwellian interlocutor, despite their abrasive tone and the fun we can have with bowels and prostrates: they appear both to speak the truth as they see it. But so does everyone else commenting – and some (like Jaye) read the Hebrew scriptures in the original. I like the interpretation put forward by Kenny and Agatha and just because it was a convenient one for Augustine doesn’t mean it has to lack truth. So I turned to the Greek for backup and the first word that struck me was Ἀρίστων (ariston) which has connotations of excellence and survives in ‘aristocrat’. This king calls his ‘banquet’ (Jerusalem Bible) literally ‘my excellence’ – and he’s obviously gone all out. So none of the big wigs turn up and he goes all inclusive and gets the good and the bad in. Then throws a hissy fit about the dress code. He sounds A LOT like me when I’m directing. Then I noticed there’s a lot of play on IN and OUT (even ‘crossroads’ is διεξόδους – diexodous – way out ways?) and the final words are a pun on κλητοί (kletoi – named/ invited) and ἐκλεκτοί (eklektoi – called/ chosen).
    Now I suspect that shackling a quest hand and foot and shoving him out the door into outer darkness (the Greek word for darkness is the Classical root of ‘Scotland’!) may have put a rather gloomy outlook on the evening’s festivities. Could that be the point? It’s sandwiched between the parable of the wicked husbandmen that has the son of vineyard owner exit sharply and the trap Jesus escapes about taxes.
    With all this about ‘who’s in who’s out?’ and ‘which side of the coin are you on?’ can we take this passage with a pinch of Paul (and Augustine, and Cromwell) and say ‘our righteousness is as filthy rags before the Lord’? So the point is not how we are named/ that we are invited but that the church (ekklesia) we are chosen and called to be is not one of domineering control freaks throwing hissy fits because the excellence of their table arrangements has been spoilt by someone not following rubrics. Or by (ditto) because their nice ideas about biology (JS, once you mention ‘purpose’, no biologist will take you seriously) have been spoilt by people in love. St Mary’s is a great liturgical feast indeed. Everyone goes all out for excellence. Yet I’ve seen the oddest-dressed people doing the oddest things (me late, again, in my glad rags included) welcomed. The RC Church in Scotland, of whose hierarchy I am deeply deeply ashamed, would do well to stop whitewashing sepulchers and start calling the clergy and laity in their charge to inclusive love.

    Reply
    1. Alan McManus Avatar
      Alan McManus

      That should be άριστον, guest, εκλεκτοί. Transliteration is correct, it was the cut and paste that was slapdash. Fortunately my phone does Greek (no pun intended) but it doesn’t do breathings.

      Reply

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