"Some people come to church looking for a way to make life better, to feel good about themselves, to see things in a better light. They arrange a ritual and hire a preacher to make that happen for them. Other people come to church because they want God to save and rule them. They accept the fact that there are temptations and sufferings and sacrifices involved in leaving a way of life in which they are in control and plunging into an uncertain existence in which God is in control. One group of people sees religion as a way to successful, happy living; nothing that interferes with the success or interrupts the happiness will be tolerated. The other group sees religion as a way in which hurt, flawed and damaged persons become whole in relation to God; anything will be accepted (mockery, pain, renunciation, self-denial) in order to deepen and extend that reality. One way is the way of enhancing what I want; the other way is a commitment of myself to become what God wants. Always and everywhere these contrasting expectations are in evidence."
-Eugene Peterson, Run With the Horses: The Quest for Life at its Best, IVP Press, 2019, Commemorative Edition, Kindle, pp. 80-81
This quote is from Peterson's chapter on Jeremiah 20 in which Jeremiah gets put in stocks as punishment for his prophetic preaching. Jeremiah doesn't say what people want to hear. The tension that Peterson describes fits Jeremiah's situation and Peterson's experience. Does it fit with yours?
In my experience, it isn't quite so either-or, but instead lots of gray area in a shifting spectrum. There is tension in my own mind over these differing expectations. I would like to be the pastor who makes everyone happy but also challenges us to make the sacrifices that transform us more and more into Christ-likeness. Can we have both?
I wonder whether one of the difficulties is reconciling our relationships inside the church with the ones we have outside the church?
Yesterday we had movers here for most of the day becausemy mom is moving in with us. Towards the end, after learning that we're from Los Angeles, one of them asked how we ended up in Kansas. I wondered whether the conversation would become uncomfortable once they found out I'm a pastor. It didn't, but then I wondered whether I fit their expectations of a pastor. I didn't ask, so I will never know.
Maybe that's the stumbling block, that we don't talk about our expectations. And maybe one reason we don't is that we don't have them clear enough in our own minds to articulate them?
Every once in awhile I get inspired and brave enough to ask a group these sorts of questions. There is often awkward silence. None of us likes that awkward silence.
Sometimes I wish I could know what people are thinking without having to ask. In the movies in which someone has this ability, there are blessings and curses that go with it. In Star Trek, Vulcans can do a mind meld, but they always ask for permission first. The result is almost always positive as they find solutions together.
Since I can't know everything people are thinking, I will have to keep turning to the One who does, and keep trusting the Holy Spirit to guide us through having conversations in which we reconcile our differing expectations.
Thanks, God.
Great message!
ReplyDeleteThanks!
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