It is always difficult to describe the role of a pastor. But I think Eugene Peterson has it pretty spot on in his book ‘Reversed Thunder: The revelation of John and the praying imagination’. He writes:
‘People who
live by faith have a particularly acute sense of living in the middle. We believe that God is at the beginning of
all things, and we believe that God is at the conclusion of all life. It is routine among us to assume that the
beginning was good (and God saw everything that he had made, and behold it was
very good). It is agreed among us that
the conclusion will be good (And I saw a new heaven and a new earth). That would seem to guarantee that everything
between the good beginning and the good ending will also be good. But is doesn’t turn out that way. Or at least it doesn’t in the way we
expect. That always comes as a surprise. We expect uninterrupted goodness, and it is interrupted. I am rejected by a parent, coerced by a
government, divorced by a spouse, discriminated against by a society, injured
by another’s carelessness. All of this
in a life which at its creation was very good and at its conclusion will be
completed according to Gods design.
Between the believed but unremembered beginning and the hoped for but unimaginable
ending there are disappointments, contradictions, not to be explained
absurdities, bewildering paradoxes – each of them a reversal of expectation.
The pastor is
the person who specialises in accompanying persons of faith in the middle,
facing the ugly details, the meaningless routines, the mocking wickedness, and
all the time doggedly insisting that this unaccountably and lovely middle is
connected to a splendid beginning and glorious ending.’
What a
wonderful role and an amazingly privileged task. May I expand this to us all in our day to day
lives? May I suggest this might be a
wonderful evangelistic strategy with whoever we meet? To remind everyone that the beginning was
good – the conclusion is glorious – and here and now we have a God who wants to
walk with us and a community of Saints who want to support us as we make our
way to glory. It sounds like the job of
pastor is to be good news. May we all be
good news. Who might you pastor
today? May God bless you as you do so!
