Get Away

“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” (Matthew 11:28-30, The Message)

For the last six days, I've been on vacation. Kind of strange, isn't it, for a pastor to take a vacation at the very beginning of Lent? Well, the calendar just worked out that way this year. With Holy Week and Spring Break coinciding this year, I decided to take an earlier week off as we head into the busy-ness and excitement of Lent.

And I needed it. Did you know pastors get tired...even tired of religion? The words above, Eugene Peterson's translation/paraphrase of Jesus' words, describe the place I get to sometimes. I remember a pastor/professor of mine at Asbury who once told us that when we become a pastor, we cut our chances of going to heaven in half. We laughed. Now, I guarantee you every one of us in that class that day know the truth of what he said. We want a relationship with Jesus, and sometimes the church gets in the way. I'm not "down" on the church as many are today. I love the church. It's just easy to let the day-to-day busy-ness and details and demands get in the way of walking with Jesus.

So a break was essential to my soul at this point in my life. We didn't go anywhere...except my daily trek/pilgrimage to Starbucks. We ate out some. I cooked a lot. And, due to others' schedules, there was a lot of time when it was just me and Hershey (our dog) at our house. I watched several movies, did some walking, and read a lot. For the first couple of days, I didn't want to read anything about religion or church, so I read a "Star Wars" novel. Finished it rather quickly. I finished "The Hunger Games." And then I picked up a book by Eugene Peterson that I had started but, due to time demands, hadn't gotten very far in. It's his memoir, entitled simply "The Pastor."

I like to read biographies and people's stories, so I thought that's all this would be. But, true to Peterson form, it was much more than that. The book is a recounting of his struggle and re-struggle to live into the role and the title of "pastor" and all that means. Peterson's struggle (and, I came to realize, mine as well) is that "pastor" doesn't mean what American culture has assumed it meant. Pastor means "caring for souls." American culture defines pastor as CEO, CFO, counselor, fixer of problems, community representative, the one who does everything, etc. But the problem, Peterson contends, is that when we're doing all of that, we can't care for souls—our own, first and foremost.

I'm still reflecting and absorbing much of what Peterson said, but the book became for me an essential part of my library as I once again seek to redefine and understand my identity as pastor, as pastor in THIS community. This May, I will have been in "professional, full-time" ministry (a term Peterson rejects, but I haven't yet come up with anything yet to replace it) for twenty years—a good time, it seems to me, to remember, remind and redefine who I am and who I want to be for the next twenty. Peterson's words reaffirmed my call, and reminded me why I am a pastor. It's to care for souls. That's why God calls pastors, no matter what other molds the culture tries to shove us into. God's call is still the only one that matters.

Comments

Popular Posts