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advice to young pastors: will you be a friend of sinners?
So you’re a young pastor. Have you noticed that people sin? Yes, they do bad things. Some they do to you–complain about you to others for example because they are afraid to speak with you directly. Oh that’s galling. So you will be tempted to focus on those sins because they make an impression on you. But that’s not what the poor sinners need so much. They need someone to talk to about the struggles in their lives which often involves sins–the sins of others or their own or the communal sins that affect them. As you are sitting there listening to a poor sinner, you will be tempted to assume the posture of the expert.
You know, like the dentist, or the doctor, or the auto mechanic. Because you are insecure as most human beings are. If you don’t feel insecure as a pastor I doubt you’ve chosen the right field. Tender of souls? Come on! And when we humans feel insecure we grope around to secure ourselves, often grasping for branches that only slow our fall.
lean back and pontificate pastor
So you you will want to assume the posture of the expert. Like the time Sam came to my study to ask my opinion on some matter of theological import. It’s great to be asked such questions because its an acknowledgment that you might know something the questioner doesn’t–about God, no less! I was enjoying the feeling and I leaned back in my high backed office chair–the equivalent of drawing on my pipe–and fell backwards to the floor, with my feet sticking straight up in the air and my keester pointed at Sam. We hooted and hollered and I gained a much better perspective on myself down there.
Who would you rather talk to if it meant opening up on the matter of your sinning?
Exactly. You would want someone who understands sin from within the sinner status. Please, would you have even approached God as father were it not for Jesus, the Son, assuming the sinner status by baptism, by immersion in mortal flesh, and by public displays of friendship with notorious sinners? Me neither.
You will be judged by people in your congregation as to your orthodoxy. People don’t assume that their pastors are orthodox anymore. They expect them to slip down the slope and they are on the lookout. Some of them are in touch with national ministries that teach them how to be on the lookout.
One of the simplest ways to assure these members of your congregation about your orthodoxy is to talk tough on sin from the pulpit. Not their sins, however. Other sins. There are certain sins, in particular, that you can talk tough on which will offer an inordinate assurance of your orthodoxy. As long as you are clear on THAT, phew! you’re OK, and not in danger.
These will often be the very sins that the people dying for your pulpit denunciations are biologically immune from committing.
the silence of the lamb
Remember Jesus being presented with the woman caught in adultery? These religious men corralled this woman and brought her to Jesus to be assured of his orthodoxy. Actually they were hoping to find the cracks in his orthodoxy. (We all have ‘em if you look hard enough.) Jesus knelt down and wrote in the sand. He rudely ignored them until they got bored and went away. And then he and the woman had a conversation that they were not privy to.
You’re a divorced and remarried person, say. And you’re feeling bad about the divorce. And you’ve read the hard sayings about remarriage, oh, and it just gives you a sick feeling in the pit of your stomach. Who do you want to talk to? An expert on divorce and remarriage, or a friend of sinners? Me too.
People do not–nor should they–open up to others about matters involving their vulnerability as human beings without trusting them. They don’t go to an eye doctor for the removal of a metal splinter from their eye if the doctor’s hand is shaky or his tweezers a little rusty. They are looking for gentleness and competence and experience mainly. And the smart one are looking for candor.
I’ve noticed that pastors are compassionate about matters of human weakness and frailty and sin to the degree that they know intimately and love dearly people who are dealing with these matters. Pastors who deal with particular human weaknesses from a theoretical posture are usually less compassionate–on the whole, all else being equal.
People in general are much more compassionate in direct proportion to their loving engagement with struggling people.
divorce and remarriage, for example
My study of the Bible on the question of divorce and remarriage led me to one conclusion: that the Bible does not clearly and definitively allow for the remarriage of a divorced person unless the divorced spouse dies. I know about the two reformed “exception clauses” too but it was my honest reading that these were not definitive when it came to the question of remarriage. The church for hundreds of years agreed with that cautious assessment.
Yes, that was at a time in my life when I was young and none of my closest friends were divorced and remarried. That was before my daughters were old enough to be married, so it was difficult for me to imagine how I’d feel if they were locked in a marriage with a guy who was misbehaving badly and all their efforts to resolve the thing were futile and the situation didn’t fall into the “two possible–though not definitive–exceptions” found in the Bible.
Oh my, human life is messy and pastors are people who are willing to wade into the mud, not shout out advice from dry land.
Here’s the thing, young pastor: there are a whole host of issues that the church in our day is struggling with. Theologians and seminary professors and the writers of Christian books and owners of media microphones have weighed in on these issues and will continue to weigh in on these issues. These leaders tend to cluster in institutions that support their various perspectives. Rare are the voices in these discussions who are risking their jobs by their thoughts.
These people are in the fray all right but it’s a fray of ideas for the most part. Various arguments about various positions are being advanced in the way that arguments are always advanced. Listen in to the discussion. But understand who you are: a pastor.
A pastor is a shepherd. An under-shepherd to be exact. Maybe “sheep dog” would be even more precise. You are there with the flock as one of them. The mud on their feet is the mud on yours. Regarding SIN there are no differences between you and them. Just the details differ.
In fact you are one of them and the degree to which you allow yourself to think of them as “them” rather than “us” is the degree of your delusion and your uselessness to them and Him. You are thinking as a hireling then and not as a pastor.
The ball on these issues, I believe, is now in the pastors court where the people are.
Tags: adultery, divorce, issues, Jesus, orthodoxy, pastor, remarriage, shepherd, study, the Bible
April 22nd, 2009 at 4:14 am
Great post and very helpful. Listened to you talk at St Mary’s London last year and you blessed me. Hope all is well. David
April 22nd, 2009 at 3:45 pm
I thank God for you Ken, and for this post.
April 22nd, 2009 at 9:42 pm
It’s amazing how life experiences soften the heart. I realized that most of my strength of character was imaginary when I was about 30. I got scared by the possibility that my husband had cancer, and I started being inexplicably mean to him. I was completely unable to make myself stop it, and I was totally surprised that I wasn’t noble and servant-hearted like I ‘knew’ I would be under such circumstances. Thank God there was no cancer, but in the relief afterward I think I had a choice between either allowing the experience to humble me or finding some way to change my standards to justify my behavior. A general policy of mercy is working for me.
My life has pretty much cured me of thinking I know ‘what I would do’ and formed my understanding of the passage, “Judge not lest you be judged.” In practice, it means (to me) that while I must hold myself to the standard I understand from the Scriptures (on divorce, for instance), but for the grace of God, circumstances can really arise that can make it too hard; therefore it behooves me to be merciful toward those for whom it has in fact proven to be too hard.
I love what you said about thinking in terms of ‘us.’ In my experience, it’s being in this sin thing together that makes us really useful to one another in overcoming it.
April 23rd, 2009 at 12:49 am
Ken, it’s good that you’ve changed from the less tolerant, less compassionate you that you once were so many years ago. I congratulate you on that. You wrote:
“My study of the Bible on the question of divorce and remarriage led me to one conclusion: that the Bible does not clearly and definitively allow for the remarriage of a divorced person unless the divorced spouse dies… Yes, that was at a time in my life when I was young and none of my closest friends were divorced and remarried. That was before my daughters were old enough to be married, so it was difficult for me to imagine how I’d feel if they were locked in a marriage with a guy who was misbehaving badly and all their efforts to resolve the thing were futile…”
What you are describing there, when you were young so very many years ago, seems to me to be a MILD CASE of a much-studied personality type known as the “Authoritarian Personality”, which consists of:
> excessive conformity
> submissiveness to authority
> intolerance
> insecurity
> superstition
> ridged, stereotyped thought patterns
“People with this type of personality seek conformity, security, stability. They become anxious and insecure when events or circumstances upset their previously existing world view. They are intolerant of any divergence from what they consider to be the norm… They tend to be superstitious and lend credence to folktales or interpretations of history that fit their preexisting definitions of reality… They think in stereotyped ways about minorities, women, homosexuals, etc. They are thus dualistic – the world is conceived in terms of absolute right (their way) Vs. absolute wrong (the ‘other’, whether African American, liberal, intellectual, feminist, etc.)”
http://www.gossamer-wings.com/soc/Notes/race/tsld007.htm
There are many young Christians today who are tolerant and accepting of people who are divorced or divorced-and-remarried. There has never been a good reason for a Christian to accept and embrace the negative characteristics of one’s own Authoritarian Personality type, no matter how mild a case it may be. It’s a personality type that should be repented of at any age by any Christian who has it, as soon as possible, before it does further harm to anyone.
April 23rd, 2009 at 7:14 am
I like the sheep dog analogy. Pastors really watch out for the flock.
But as James chapter 3 says (sort of…) “Not many of you should aspire to be sheep dogs. You will be judged more severely.” Indeed, and that judgement won’t normally come from what we say from the pulpit. It will come from what we say and do during the week. The sheep hear. They have good ears.
It’s the unspoken agenda of the pastor [Who gets my time this week? Are the poor welcome here? Do I really hold a confidence?] by which he will be judged. ALWAYS…
What the sheep are looking to hear from the sheep dogs are phrases like “I sure love you.” “I’m really sorry.” “I struggle with lying, too.” “This won’t surprise, I hope, but my two main temptations are pride and lust, too.”
The pastor still is the perfect one to lead out on the prayer of confession … “Loving Father, I confess that I have sinned against you in thought, word and deed by what I have done and by what I have left undone…”
April 23rd, 2009 at 8:03 am
Martha, I loved this in your comment: “In practice, it means (to me) that while I must hold myself to the standard I understand from the Scriptures (on divorce, for instance), but for the grace of God, circumstances can really arise that can make it too hard;” YES! Scripture is God’s word TO US–from God to us, in his voice, into our hearts. When we receive his word as speaking to us, his words have power. It is SO EASY to “hear” for others and apply what has lost it’s power to “them” because the word is now an “it.” Instead we think we are being “tough” by applying his word to others—demanding of them in one area what we are unwilling (sometimes) and unable (often) to apply to ourselves in other areas.
April 23rd, 2009 at 8:12 am
mark,
it really sounds like you’ve got it all figured out! I was wondering if i could send you a writing sample so you can let me know my potential personality disorders?
April 23rd, 2009 at 5:38 pm
My, my, my. Life is a messy sinful blessed glorious beautiful ugly messed up lovely deadly suffering ecstatic liveliness and grievousness, isn’t it? And we are all. The priestly and the lowly. The saintly and the vile. The righteous and the unrighteous. The older brother and the younger brother. The Marthas and the Marys and the Peters and the Johns and the Pauls and the adulterers and the unclean of every variety. In this thing. Whether we like it or not. Together. In Christ. If we are lucky. If we are in truth radically and undeservedly blessed. Every sanctimonious and abject lier and sinner among us. Blessed. In one another’s company. Because we are more or less in Christ. Periodically in and out of Christ. But always seeking a way back in. Toward Christ. Thank God!
April 24th, 2009 at 10:00 am
The sheep dog analogy is cracking me up! We’ve owned sheep dogs and I’m a huge fan of the movie “Babe”. The last thing sheep are expecting to hear from sheep dogs is “I love you!” Sheep HATE the sheep dog. Our dog would herd our children and the chickens and he would chase them, barking ferociously and nipping at their backside like he was going to actually bite them. They ran in abject terror from him.
I think we might need another analogy! LOL!
April 26th, 2009 at 12:22 am
“Life is a messy sinful blessed glorious beautiful ugly messed up lovely deadly suffering ecstatic liveliness and grievousness, isn’t it?”
I’m only 31. And I read this quote, and my soul says, yes. I’m only starting to glimpse how glorious this thing is… and I hear that this is only backstage for the main event. Can’t wait to see what that’s going to be like!
Ken, I am now alarmed by this… “Some of them are in touch with national ministries that teach them how to be on the lookout.” That is absolutely ridiculous. How about national ministries that teach members to spy on one another?
Anyway, people don’t have to “tattle” on pastors; they simply leave. For instance, consider the case of Pastor (formerly Bishop) Carlton Pearson. He was the leader of a huge predominately African-American congregation in Oklahoma. He was a protege of Oral Roberts and HUGE among young Black Christians when I was saved 15 years ago. Not only was he a phenomenal preacher, he has a GREAT voice. His choir’s CD was one of the first gospel albums I purchased, and a group of my college friends always made the annual pilgrimage for his Azusa megaconferences.
At the beginning of this decade, Pearson says that he received a revelation from God after his heart was utterly grieved by the suffering in Rwanda. It bothered him that they died without hearing the gospel. He believes he heard from God that *all* were his. From that point on, he began preaching universal reconciliation — I can’t state how opposite that was to what he preached/believed before. To me, he always seemed like one of the kindest of the “giants” in the Pentecostal genre, but what a difference from what I remember! Pearson preached that everyone will eventually be saved, and began to welcome all kinds of folks into the church. But over 90% of his congregation left. He was branded a heretic by mainstream Pentecostalism. The liberal mainliners took him in, and he is now with the United Churches of Christ.
See? No need to “tell” on pastors. Things sort themselves out. I suppose. Because Pearson doesn’t seem to miss what he used to have at all. Which is why I pray that the emerging Great Conversation reaches the corner of the church world that I hail from, and soon. Perhaps Pearson wouldn’t have had to be so radical with his break IF his faith and worldview allowed any quarter for the sinner. Even if his doctrine isn’t what most of us would agree with, his heart definitely seems to be in the right place. Whatever else can be said of him, he is definitely a friend of sinners.
April 27th, 2009 at 1:26 am
Ebony, I’ve read Bishop Carlton Pearson’s book, “The Gospel of Inclusion,” and I recommend it to anyone who may be interested in that topic.
From Bishop Carlton Pearson’s forthcoming book, a work in progress entitled, “God Is Not a Christian”:
“It has been my happy experience to learn that the idea of the ultimate salvation of all was the prevailing theological posture of the first 400 to 500 years of Christian Church history. It was the prevailing doctrine in Christendom as long as Greek, the language of the New Testament, was the language of Christendom. According to Dr. J. W. Hanson in his book, ‘Universalism the Prevailing Doctrine,’ the first comparatively complete systematic statement of Christian doctrine ever given to the world was by Clement of Alexandria, A.D. 180, and universal salvation was one of the tenets.
“Clement declared that all punishment, however severe, is purificatory; that even the ‘torments of the damned’ are curative…
“To quote Clement of Alexandria, ‘He saves ALL universally, but some are converted by punishment, others by voluntary submission… We can set no limits to the agency of the Redeemer: to redeem, to rescue, to discipline, in his work, and so will he continue to operate after this life… All men are his….for either the Lord does not care for all men…or he does care for all. For he is savior; not of some and for others not…and how is He savior and Lord, if not the savior and Lord of all? For all things are arranged with a view to the salvation of the universe by the Lord of the universe both generally and particularly.’
“It appears to me that the early church fathers were not only advocates of the doctrine of universal reconciliation but, also of ‘Ultimate Reconciliation’ as well. Gregory of Nyssa said, ‘All punishments are means of purification, ordained by Divine Love to purge rational beings from moral evil and to restore them back to communion with God… God would not have permitted the experience of hell unless He had foreseen through redemption, that all rational beings would, in the end, attain to the same blessed fellowship with Himself.’”
http://www.newdimensions.us/content.cfm?id=2010
April 27th, 2009 at 10:53 am
for what it’s worth: matters of ultimate destiny are matters that we are wise to have a great deal of humility concerning; especially humility concerning our ability to have a fully resolved understanding that covers all the bases. I think this applies to confident assertions of universalism as well as confident assertions regarding the meaning of the doctrine of hell in terms of how it is played out in the end. WE must remember that the heart of our fallen state is not the fact that we are immoral vs. moral; it’s related to our having eaten from the forbidden knowledge: the knowledge of good and evil–so we have a tendency deeply rooted in us, to which we are mostly blind, to make judgements concerning good and evil as if we have the power in ourselves to do so competently.
April 27th, 2009 at 11:18 am
“I am the living one. I died, but look—I am alive forever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and the grave.”
I am so thankful that Jesus holds the keys. I shudder at the thought that other human beings think they can tell him what to do with these keys. He paid for those keys with his life; we can only thank him for using them to set us free.
April 27th, 2009 at 2:37 pm
Ken, thanks for the reply. I was with you for your first two sentences, but beginning with the word “WE” I lost you. If I try to summarize the part of your response that I don’t understand, I get this:
The heart of our fallen state is related to our having eaten from the forbidden knowledge of good and evil, so we have a tendency deeply rooted in us to make judgments concerning good and evil as if we have the power in ourselves to do so competently.
Please explain that, especially the part about how we don’t have the competence to make any “judgments concerning good and evil.” Thanks.
April 28th, 2009 at 11:35 am
Mark 1
I accept the fact that universalism is the more comfortable view, but just because it is more comfortable to our sensibilities, does not mean it is true, especially with a careful study of scripture, regardless of what Clement or some other single person might have said in the past.
If punishment alone purified, Jesus’s death on the cross loses its meaning. Why die for mankind when just a little purgatory for sinners will do the trick?
But I think Ken’s perspective is key here (loved the post, Ken!), we certainly are not wise enough to figure out exactly what happens after death and need to be humble about those speculations.
As my grandfather would say when presented with very speculative theological questions; (he was a Prsbyterian-Baptist-Presbyterian pastor) ‘I am so glad that is not my problem, but God’s.’
April 28th, 2009 at 4:57 pm
response to comment 14 from mark1, This is from Genesis 2, which is dealing with the mysterious heart of the human condition in its broken state. This story reveals something that I think is the product of revelation rather than reason per se: that the heart of the human “missing the mark” is not that we are immoral vs. moral, but that we succumbed to the temptation (and continue to live out of the result of succumbing)to think that we could be like God by knowing good and evil. This is why so much that pases as “Christian thought and discernment” is actually just a working out of our core problem–that we think we can be like God knowing good and evil. So we judge the daylights out of everyone (but ourselves, usually). This is powerful tug that you see when Christians jump quickly to moralizing, especially on the moral choices of those other than themselves. It’s in our fallen nature to do so. Bonhoeffer talks about this a lot in creation and fall and his other book, ethics.
April 29th, 2009 at 4:54 am
Point of clarification:
I did not share the Pearson story in order to talk about the merits of universalism, et. al. I shared the story to:
1) address a minor point in Ken’s original post — about congregations who choose to report their pastors to national organizations. The Pearson example shows that membership usually goes elsewhere.
2) address the overall point of the blog entry. “Will you be a friend to sinners?” From everything I’ve heard, Pearson truly wanted to be a friend to sinners.
Nowhere in my post did I advocate universalism, or final judgment, or anything like that. The best long view on the future outside of the Bible’s “Sufficient for the day is the trouble thereof” is actually an (atheist) author and pen friend/correspondent of mine, Philip Pullman. His take on it is “Time shall sort us all out, I suppose.” That’s where I stand on universalism. Where I stand on Pearson’s universalism: time shall sort that out, I suppose. Where I stand on the experience of responding to human suffering that led to Pearson’s universalism: dear Lord, let my heart break with the things that break the heart of God also. Are we saved by our theology? By our doctrines?
Then again, this conversation has much lower stakes for me as a congregant and sister in the faith than it does for leadership. Perhaps this is what happens when laypeople like me wander mindlessly into pastoral conversations. You have thought long and much about these matters; comparatively, I have thought much less about them and will resume lurking and learning. (However, if ever you find yourselves in debates about education and language policy, I shall “go and do likewise.” )
April 29th, 2009 at 8:16 am
The really frightening thing about judging others is that we seem to enjoy it so much.
April 29th, 2009 at 12:27 pm
I think the way the Carlton Pearson issue has been addressed by some in the comments has been that the congregants of his church sinned in their response to Carlton’s change in theology. I think you might be judging the congregants in this instance. Try to put yourself in their shoes. Their church has always held a certain position and then suddenly, the pastor receives a revelation from God that changes everything. That’s not what they signed up for. If I’m a pastor and I make a massive shift in my doctrine, I have to expect that many will not follow me. That’s not what they agreed to when they joined. It makes sense to me. Doesn’t it make sense to you?
April 29th, 2009 at 8:13 pm
The conversation about universlism will continue the old evangelical stance on exclusitivity is real hard to swallow for most people in and out of the church and it is probably the biggest stumbling block for those who are looking in and wondering what this has to do with unconditional love. I have struggled with the salvation issue more than any other issue in my walk as a Christian with no resolve accept for trust and hope for Christ being the merciful judge.