I haven't posted in a while due to some unexpected travel. My wife's grandfather passed away and we went back for the funeral. It was a good time to be with family and to see how the Christian community really supports people during a death in the family.
While there, we had the visitation with the family at the funeral home. This is when family and friends come and visit the family and also to witness the body of the one who has passed. It is tradition there to line up as a family to receive people as they come. Something we noticed which we thought was kind of funny was the number of people that commented on my height. It is funny to me, because if someone is short, people don't go up to them in a place like that and say, "Oh, your a small one!" I just find that funny....
Anyway, the one thing that I really wanted to comment on was the other thing people would say to me, that was: "Oh you are her husband, the minister." The reason this sticks out in my mind is because I guess, I haven't gotten my mind completely around the idea of the "specialness" of being a Minister. To some people it is very "special" to be a pastor. The reason I think that people feel this way is because you didn't hear people saying about my in-laws: "Oh, you are her husband the manager/dispatcher." Or, "You are his wife the nurse."
Being a pastor has a lot of different expectations from people. It isn't always easy to accept the role as representing Christ. As Fredrich Buechner puts it in Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy & Fair Tale, "...not because of anything he knows or anything he is in himself but because, as an ambassador is revered for the government he represents, he is to be revered for representing Christ." (pg. 40) This is hard to accept at times, but I think as a pastor I need to think of it in this way as well. It is not because of a degree I hold from a certain Seminary. But it is because I am representing Christ that people think my job is "special."
When Morning Breaks and Shadows Flee (Boston)
5 hours ago
1 comment:
Thanks for the post, Brian. Very thoughtful words indeed and a helpful reflection on the importance of our task.
For far too many, the pastor is supposed to be the CEO or the cheerleader or the stand up comic and political expert. They think that the primary job of a minister is to address their felt needs and fail to see that Christ wants the minister to address the Christian's *real* needs by means of faithfully preaching the word - both the law and the gospel - and by faithfully administering the sacraments. It's unbelievably difficult in an age of political-candidate pastors and TV personality pastors and the like to garner much support for faithfully studying and exegeting the word in order to prepare a sermon which will be the preached means of grace for a group of needy sinners. And yet Christ has seen fit to send ministers out in order to "preach the word" (2 Tim 4:2) knowing that a time will come when people will be bored of ministers who teach "sound doctrine" (4:3).
On the other hand, I'm struck by how many - in our own circles especially CRC/URC/Etc. - who fail to see that the pastor, while called to the vocation of the ministry, is also just a rotten and broken sinner like the rest. He's not going to be patient all the time. He's not going to return calls as quickly as he should.
But he's also a husband, or father, or son, or softball team pitcher, or beer connoisseur, or Star Wars movie fanatic. I've wondered if some who seem to idolize and *overly* revere "the domine" have placed expectations upon their ministers that Christ has not. They expect the minister to not only minister the word and sacraments, but also to sound extra pious, to have kids who don't get D's in school or listen to heavy metal music and get a nose-ring. They expect his wife to make the ham buns for the church potluck at the drop of a hat and believe her to be a sub-par Christian when she doesn't volunteer to teach Sunday school (in spite of the fact that she isn't a co-pastor, but like everyone else in the church, simply holds the office of "general believer").
Well, I'm getting long winded here. Since I stopped blogging due to time constraints, I guess I now and then feel like speaking a word or 500 in blogdom! Hopefully that as we serve in our Reformed churches, we'll be able to remind people that though we haven't been called to the job that many would like (CEO, comedian, etc.), neither have we been called to the job that many expect (perfect father, husband, dis-interested in non-Church type things like USC football or all things USC athletics!).
Well . . . again, thanks for the great post! Keep up the awesome work brother!
-AC
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