Sovereign Irony and a Noble Task

John A. Broadus Memorial Chapel (Southern Seminary, Louisville, KY.)

 "The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task.Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God's church? He must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil. Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders, so that he may not fall into disgrace, into a snare of the devil."  1 Timothy 3:1-7

When I was a wee lad, my mother would drag my brother and me to church every so often.  It wasn't exactly our favorite thing to do--it was early in the morning, it was boring, and it was the weekend so we should do things we actually want to do.  We went to a very traditional Lutheran church (where my mother still works to this day), with hymns sung out of a hymnal to a pipe organ, multiple Scripture readings (typically one from the Old Testament, one from the New Testament, and one from a Gospel), communion with a wafer and real wine, wooden pews with cushioned kneelers that flipped down, and a pastor in a robe with a hood colored to corresponded to the liturgical season, who delivered a 10-12 minute sermon.  The pastor I grew up with was Pastor Karl Schmidt, a very tall, slender, and gentle man who always shook my hand firmly and greeted me happily.  Despite being 6'4", he chose to drive a tiny red Mazda Miata, which he constantly had to stumble out of.  I remember standing in the hallway outside of his office when I was maybe 7 years old and thought to myself, "Why would someone want to be a pastor since no body wants to come to church?"  Almost two decades later, the sovereign irony of my Lord came to fruition, and I am slated to become a seminarian at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in the fall to train to become a pastor.

This is not a surprise to some.  My mother, for some strange reason (or prophetically), knew from a young age that I was going to be a pastor one day.  While raising support for a mission trip, my aunt's father (not my grandfather--I don't know what you would call your parent's sibling's spouse's parent; I just call him Mr. Morris), who is a very devout Catholic, sent me a large support check with a note, saying, "It looks like we have a future minister on our hands!"  I wrestled with this notion: I was falling in love with Christ more and more, falling out of love with every secular career idea, and I didn't want to do something I didn't enjoy or compromise my convictions just to land a job that paid very well.  I thought I had settled on becoming a Christian counselor which seemed to be the best of both worlds.  Then, I sat down with a professor that I had for two classes at OSU who was both a Christian and a Ph.D. student in their counseling program to discuss what a Christian counselor looks like.  She felt that she had a hard time, since she was counseling in a secular arena, that she was relegated to "managing people's sin."  After telling her that is something I didn't want to be bound by, she said, "It sounds like you have a heart for ministry."  Then, after one look at Southern Seminary's Master's in Divinity program with a focus on biblical counseling, and their surprisingly low price tag, my mind was made up.

All this is exciting--I am moving to a different state, attending graduate school, getting closer to my "career", and I am answering a call into pastoral ministry.  I get to sit and study the Bible day in and day out; I get to read Calvin, Luther, Spurgeon, Edwards etc. not just for fun; I get to attend classes taught by world-renowned theologians who truly love the Lord; I get to write and speak about the Gospel, theology, culture, etc.  Then, once I graduate, I get to preach the Gospel from the pulpit on Sundays and get to point people to the Cross in a more personal setting throughout the week.  That is awesome!

Yet, that is an ideal that, if I buy into, will come crumbling down.  Seminary is hard--there wouldn't be a book called How to Stay Christian in Seminary sitting on my bookshelf if I thought it would be easy (or if it were in fact easy).  It is a place that could turn a young man with zeal for the Lord into a proud robot with a vast yet superficially academic knowledge of the the Bible.  Pastoral ministry is rated one of the most stressful jobs that pay badly, which is followed by marriage and family therapy, which is what I will hopefully be doing during the week.  I've heard horror stories from pastors about the amount of sin their congregants bring to them day in and day out.  I heard one pastor mention that he had to sit down with one of his most beloved congregants to discuss what he was going to say the man's funeral once his cancer finally took his life.  Pastors oftentimes get burnt out, and some delve into adultery, pornography, alcoholism, or other sins to try and revive themselves.  Or, in a couple of instances that I've heard of, a pastor couldn't take it anymore and killed himself.  This is what I am getting myself into.

It is no wonder why Paul laid out such detailed instructions in his letter to Timothy as he appointed pastors.  If I am honest with myself, the list of attributes that Paul gives is quite convicting, as I do not have a whole lot of those things down pat (I may not be a drunkard, but I sure do a lot of things that numb myself like alcohol does).  The office needs to be held for good, faithful men--not just because he will be the face of the church to outsiders and a competent leader inside the church, but because he will see so much Hell on earth that he will need to cling to the Cross, lest he die.

As I think about the pastorate more and more, I fear that I am going into this with an arrogant and cavalier attitude and that I will fail, either academically or morally.  Graduate school is hard by itself, but (call me strange for thinking this) Satan will be gunning for me more than he is now (and I think life is hard enough as it is!).  I'm already sensitive to criticism as it is, and soon I will have my every word scrutinized and entire life examined.  I am also someone who is thankfully empathetic, yet with all the brokenness I will be confronting in the Body, it can either dry up and leave me cold and angry or lay such a burden on my own shoulders that I cannot bear the responsibility.  This job will not make me "happy."  Happiness is sporadic, fleeting, and whimsical--to base your entire life on its presence would be foolish.  I am after Joy--which is to me something much more deep-seeded in one's heart than mere happiness.  I am happy when my Buckeyes beat that school up north; I am happy when I get a convenient parking spot.  I am joyful when I watch two of my friends get married; I am joyful when I watch people get baptized; I am joyful when I see someone break down in tears of repentance; I am joyful when I feel God's hand pressing down on my firmly in Fatherly love.  The Psalmists write of Joy.  It was for the Joy set before Him that Christ endured the Cross (Heb. 12:2).  That is what I will have to find if I am going to thrive as a pastor.

These are the things I've been wrestling with as August comes closer and closer.  There is so much that I am excited about and yet so much that intimidates me.  This is not where I expected to be four years ago--I didn't concern myself much with my future (or anything really important for that matter).  There are times when I really think about what I'm signing up for and say to myself, "Am I really going to go through with this?"  Yet, today, I am resigned to it.  This is where the Lord has called me, either to prepare me to shepherd His flock, or teach me a lesson of infinite value by calling me elsewhere through "failure" (and, of course, prying what I covet from my rebellious hands as I try to hold onto it for as long as I can).  The Lord has been good to me in every aspect of my life to this day despite me realizing it or not.  He will be good to me here, despite me having no real clue of what I am getting myself into.