Learning, again.

It's funny how God works. Yes, I said funny. Who knew we had such a humorous God?


All throughout Scripture we read stories of God doing funny things. Take, for example, Elizabeth in the New Testament. God sent an angel to Elizabeth's husband, proclaiming to him that his wife, well beyond her child-bearing years, would conceive a child; her child, by the way, is John the Baptist.


Or, how about Jonah? Jonah gets called by God to go and preach to the far-off and far-out city of Ninevah; only, Jonah's got a different idea. He heads in the opposite direction, to Tarshish. Yet, on his way, God overthrows Jonah from the boat and a giant fish swallows him, spitting him out three days later on the shores of the road to Ninevah.


Well, I've had my own run-in with this humorous God. After my post about learning to be a pastor and the serious venting I was doing about things being a waste of time, God's been working at me. It started with a sermon I was listening to from the archives of the Luther Seminary Chapel. The sermon was preached by Dr. James Boyce and the text was Galatians 4.4-7, 

"But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children. And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, 'Abba! Father!' So you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child then also an heir, through God."

Dr. Boyce preached a wonderful sermon and what struck me hard was this line,

"...the sorrow for the past and the worry about the present is quite appropriate. But now that this fullness of time has come, because of the birth of this child, God has marked all time with a grand gesture and because of that, faith no longer looks up in to some vast space. But now in faith, Paul says, we look to the voice of the Spirit that speaks precisely within our hearts, here and now. We look here to this table to the sign of our Lord's presence in bread and wine. And so as you gather here today once again, may you know in them the testimony and the promise to each one of you, that God has forever marked your time. You belong to Christ." - Dr. James Boyce, Luther Seminary Chapel Sermon, 1/4/2012

What really caught me in all of this was, "the fullness of time had come." I began to realize that while I was spending lots of time looking around and lamenting all the monumental "wastes" of time I seemed to be experiencing, that this was precisely the time and place God was/is coming to me and all of us. In the "time wasted" on projects and tasks during the day, God was there, calling me to a life of service. But it wasn't finally until God broke in upon me with the Gospel that I could hear and see these monumental wastes of time as calls to service. Dr. Boyce's sermon proclaimed God's good news, the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In the fullness of time, "God marked all of time with a grand gesture." It was the gesture of his only Son, born fully under the law to redeem us who were under the law so we might receive adoption as children. I belong to Christ, I heard, by the power of the Gospel. And this grand gesture right there in my little office, listening over an archived internet podcast, preached this lively Word of God right into my dead and lifeless heart.

And if I were a more sentimental person, this might be a rather serious moment. But, I'm not. So I find it funny; our humorous God has taken the time to enter into our humanity to set us free from the law and to adopt us a child and an heir to a new time. It's not time marked as monumental waste, but time marked with the flesh and blood of the body of Christ, calling me into service.

Real funny. Thanks, God!

BTW, if you want to listen to the sermon, just click this link:
http://download.luthersem.edu/chapel-sermon/20120104-sermon.mp3

Learning to be a pastor

Between Christmas and New Year's Day we took a brief trip to Sioux Falls to celebrate Christmas with my folks and sister, and to relax a little. I've heard it said from many other people before, that one never really realizes how much one needs a little break until about half way into the break.

Well, my epiphany didn't come until the third day of our trip. It was then that I finally felt relaxed enough to let all the last six months of life and ministry sink into the background a little bit. It truly felt like some Sabbath time, which I have not felt like I have had yet.

Life as a pastor is interesting in this way. There are days when I get to church and time just goes; the day is spent doing office work, visiting, getting the mail, doing more office work, visiting more, going to a meeting, etc, etc, etc. These days FLY by. Yet, on these days there is not much tangible, visible evidence that things are getting done. I feel exhausted at the end of the day, but I don't see the fruition or accomplishment of something tangible.

I often have this sense that I haven't even done anything, or I have completely wasted my entire day. That's probably the hardest emotion to deal with: the feeling that I've wasted a whole day. I know that this congregation has blessed us with a great salary, benefits, an absolutely beautiful house to live in; so with this in mind, I feel like the end of the day should not produce a feeling of waste.

And then there's another feeling that creeps up that I don't like. I have feelings of guilt when I spend an entire day in the office, doing work that hopefully keeps the organization functioning well. I know that one of my tasks as pastor is to administrate an "organization" that hosts a weekly event of about 100-115 people, in addition to all of the other activities happening throughout the month. Yet, whenever I give an entire day to doing this work, I'm always worried that I haven't given enough time to the more typical (or at least the more stereotypical) work of a pastor, such as visiting. I don't know where this feeling comes from, either.

There, that feels better. It feels good to have it out on paper or a screen where I can see it all. Perhaps these are normal feelings; perhaps I'm not the only one who deals with them. But even if they are normal, it's still important that I know that I am feeling them and I can air them out a little bit. It feels good to give these feelings a little air, even if it is only here.

With all this said, it is also important to hear that I am forgiven for my monumental waste of time and my guilt about doing the ad-ministration. Ministry must be done in all sorts of forms, and sometimes it will be a waste of time, or at least feel like it. But, I'm learning. I'm learning to be a pastor. Seminary can teach Bible, systematic theology, pastoral care theory, even some leadership; but it cannot teach a person to be a pastor. That is learned right out here. And sometimes it causes these feelings. Yet, God forgives and calls me into this life of ministry each and every day, even when it feels like a monument waste of time, I know that God is bringing about the forgiveness of sin in the world and making all things new through Jesus Christ. So, thanks be to God. Even when it feels like a waste.