Part 1: Receive the Word | Part 2: Respect Him | Part 3: Remember Him | Part 4: Obey Him | Part 5: Reward Him
I think it’s worth devoting a post to some summary, synthesis, and extension.
Nothing in this series ought to be surprising. The way you should treat your pastor is the way you should treat anyone.
Some religious traditions draw a clear line between clergy and laity; others don’t. I grew up Baptist, which almost defines itself by denying such a distinction.
(By the way, that historical fact makes it all the more odd that some Baptist pastors of more recent vintage have acted more as popes—and bad ones—than as shepherds.)
Given my tradition, then, I’m not at all surprised or uncomfortable with the idea that we ought to treat our pastors the way we treat everybody else.
And we know instinctively how to do that. The Golden Rule. Think about how you can treat others the way you’d want to be treated. Say nice things. Lighten their load. Build them up; don’t tear them down.
Most people treat their close associates this way, if for no other reason than that they don’t want their lives filled with conflict and chaos, or because those others can do something to reciprocate. Jesus, of course, holds us to a higher standard, the Law of Love: we treat others well because God has loved us and enabled us to love others in a similar, though imperfect, way.
Why do we have this obligation? Two primary reasons. The first I’ve just mentioned: God’s grace to us has placed us in his debt, and we are now obligated to forgive as we have been forgiven and to love as we have been loved (2Co 5.14-21).
But there’s a more fundamental reason. All of us, every single one, from the greatest hero to “the least of these”—the unkempt, unclean man sleeping in the gutter—each one of us is an image of God Himself, a recipient of his character and attributes—though, yes, broken—and so all of us are of infinite worth, despite our failures, our foibles, our flaws. To love your neighbor is to love God, who is infinitely worthy of infinite, perfect love, the kind of love that we will never be able to give him.
We love our neighbors. And that includes our pastors.
Perhaps you’ve never experienced an emergent need for pastoral care. Perhaps you’ve never been in the hospital, or involved in planning a funeral while you’re so grief-stricken you can’t think straight. Perhaps you’ve never faced a decision so thorny, and so consequential, that you felt in way over your head.
Perhaps. I’m happy for you.
But, my friend, that day will come, almost as surely as the sun will rise tomorrow. And when it does, you will understand how much you need your pastor, and what it costs him emotionally and personally to walk that valley with you. How much better it will be, in that day, to walk it with a dear and trusted friend, than to do so with a relative stranger whom you listen to casually or distractedly for 25 minutes a week.
So place a value, personally, on his ministry to you in the pulpit and in the life of the church. Consider ways you can demonstrate to him the value of that ministry. Speak to him of what he has taught you, how he has changed your life for the better. Take his advice, when it’s good advice—and let him know you took it. Pay the man for his work, and with more than just money.
He’ll be glad you did.
And so will you.
Photo by Francesco Ungaro on Unsplash
George Lovely says
Excellently written Dan. Thank you!