The Ideal Pastor
Stories
Lectionary Tales For The Pulpit
Series VI, Cycle A
Object:
"If I wanted to drive a manager up the wall, I would make him responsible for the success of an organization and give him no authority. I would provide him with unclear goals not commonly agreed on within the organization. I would ask him to provide a service of an ill-defined nature, applying a body of knowledge having few absolutes, and give him only volunteers for assistance. I would expect him to work ten to twelve hours per day and have his work evaluated by a committee of 500 people. I would call him a minister and make him accountable to God." So said Duane Swenson of the Menninger Foundation back in the days when "him" and "his" would have been perfectly appropriate in referring to a minister.
Sound familiar? It puts one in mind of the description so often given of the perfect pastor. According to surveys, he/she is 28 years old and has been preaching for thirty years. He/she is tall and short, lean and hefty, has one brown eye and one blue; hair is parted in the middle with one side blond and straight, the other, dark and wavy.
The perfect pastor works from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. every day in every type of job, from preaching to pruning to cleaning the privys. He/she spends all his/her time with the youth of the church and visits fifteen senior citizens every day but is never out of the office when you drop by for a chat. He/she knows how to delegate authority and does all the things other people are too busy to do.
The ideal pastor wears good clothes, drives a nice car, lives in a comfortable home in a pleasant neighborhood, where he/she regularly entertains the congregation all on a salary of $100 a week, half of which is donated back to the church. Obviously, he/she understands the ins and outs of finance and develops a healthy church budget but never mentions money. His/her preaching is powerful and challenging but never steps on anyone's toes and, of course, never goes on for more than fifteen minutes. He/she smiles all the time with a straight face because he/she has a delightful sense of humor that keeps him/her serious about the work.
He/she has a wonderful spouse and fun-loving, well-adjusted children who never seem to mind that Dad/Mom is always busy with other people's needs. He/she is a warm, compassionate, deeply caring person but whose own skin is so thick that no unkindness or insult has any negative effect.
We laugh at that sort of description but the laughter has just a bit of an edge to it because those wild expectations are not entirely far-fetched. The result has been a presumption in recent years that ministers are an unhappy lot and that significant numbers are leaving to find other employment. But according to findings in the Pulpit & Pew National Clergy Survey, seven out of ten who responded say they have never considered leaving the ministry and are happy in their vocation.
Truth be known, it is an incredible vocation if one is called to it. There are wonderful satisfactions among the challenges. We can identify with Ezekiel's imagery. The prophet stands before a vast panorama of desolation ... an ancient valley full of parched skeletons, baked in the desert sun for who knows how long. The grim reaper had had a field day.
Now a conversation. God says, "Tell me, Son, will these bones ever come back to life?" The prophet responds, "C'mon, Lord. You know the answer to that -- when you're dead, you're dead." To which God answers, "Preach to them, Son. Tell them that I will bring them back!" A wonderful word of hope from Ezekiel to those exiled Israelites who were afraid their best days were behind them and they would never get back home. And a wonderful word for occasionally frustrated preachers who wonder whether their work and words ever make a difference. The text says good preaching can even raise the dead.
So I preached as I had been commanded; and as I preached, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. I looked, and there were muscles on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath in them. Then God said to me, "Preach to the breath; Preach, Son, and say to the breath: 'Thus says the Lord GOD: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these dead ones, that they may live.'" I preached as God commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude.
-- Ezekiel 37:7-10
When a local preacher died, his relatives found he had neatly tied up the messages he had delivered and placed a card on top of them with this inscription: "Where has the influence gone of all these sermons I have preached?" Underneath he had scribbled in large letters, "over." On the other side this answer was found: "Where are last year's sunrays? They have gone into fruits and grain and vegetables to feed humankind. Where are last year's raindrops? Forgotten by most people, of course, but they did their refreshing work, and their influence still abides. So, too, my sermons have gone into lives and made them nobler, more Christlike, and better fitted for heaven."
"I preached as God commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude."
Sound familiar? It puts one in mind of the description so often given of the perfect pastor. According to surveys, he/she is 28 years old and has been preaching for thirty years. He/she is tall and short, lean and hefty, has one brown eye and one blue; hair is parted in the middle with one side blond and straight, the other, dark and wavy.
The perfect pastor works from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. every day in every type of job, from preaching to pruning to cleaning the privys. He/she spends all his/her time with the youth of the church and visits fifteen senior citizens every day but is never out of the office when you drop by for a chat. He/she knows how to delegate authority and does all the things other people are too busy to do.
The ideal pastor wears good clothes, drives a nice car, lives in a comfortable home in a pleasant neighborhood, where he/she regularly entertains the congregation all on a salary of $100 a week, half of which is donated back to the church. Obviously, he/she understands the ins and outs of finance and develops a healthy church budget but never mentions money. His/her preaching is powerful and challenging but never steps on anyone's toes and, of course, never goes on for more than fifteen minutes. He/she smiles all the time with a straight face because he/she has a delightful sense of humor that keeps him/her serious about the work.
He/she has a wonderful spouse and fun-loving, well-adjusted children who never seem to mind that Dad/Mom is always busy with other people's needs. He/she is a warm, compassionate, deeply caring person but whose own skin is so thick that no unkindness or insult has any negative effect.
We laugh at that sort of description but the laughter has just a bit of an edge to it because those wild expectations are not entirely far-fetched. The result has been a presumption in recent years that ministers are an unhappy lot and that significant numbers are leaving to find other employment. But according to findings in the Pulpit & Pew National Clergy Survey, seven out of ten who responded say they have never considered leaving the ministry and are happy in their vocation.
Truth be known, it is an incredible vocation if one is called to it. There are wonderful satisfactions among the challenges. We can identify with Ezekiel's imagery. The prophet stands before a vast panorama of desolation ... an ancient valley full of parched skeletons, baked in the desert sun for who knows how long. The grim reaper had had a field day.
Now a conversation. God says, "Tell me, Son, will these bones ever come back to life?" The prophet responds, "C'mon, Lord. You know the answer to that -- when you're dead, you're dead." To which God answers, "Preach to them, Son. Tell them that I will bring them back!" A wonderful word of hope from Ezekiel to those exiled Israelites who were afraid their best days were behind them and they would never get back home. And a wonderful word for occasionally frustrated preachers who wonder whether their work and words ever make a difference. The text says good preaching can even raise the dead.
So I preached as I had been commanded; and as I preached, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. I looked, and there were muscles on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath in them. Then God said to me, "Preach to the breath; Preach, Son, and say to the breath: 'Thus says the Lord GOD: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these dead ones, that they may live.'" I preached as God commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude.
-- Ezekiel 37:7-10
When a local preacher died, his relatives found he had neatly tied up the messages he had delivered and placed a card on top of them with this inscription: "Where has the influence gone of all these sermons I have preached?" Underneath he had scribbled in large letters, "over." On the other side this answer was found: "Where are last year's sunrays? They have gone into fruits and grain and vegetables to feed humankind. Where are last year's raindrops? Forgotten by most people, of course, but they did their refreshing work, and their influence still abides. So, too, my sermons have gone into lives and made them nobler, more Christlike, and better fitted for heaven."
"I preached as God commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude."
