November 16, 2014
The Church We’re Called to Be:
“A GENTLEMAN’S GUIDE TO
KILLING A PASTOR”
Rev. Gary Haller
First United Methodist Church
Birmingham, Michigan
Scripture: Ephesians 4:1-8, 11-16
I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to
which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience,
bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the
Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were
called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God
and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.
But each of us was given grace according to the measure of Christ’s gift.
Therefore it is said, “When he ascended on high he made captivity itself a
captive; he gave gifts to his people.”
The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some
evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of
ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the
faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the
full stature of Christ. We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown
about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in
deceitful scheming. But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way
into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit
together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working
properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love.
Bishop Will Willimon was the Bishop of the North Alabama Area of the United Methodist
Church. Elected ten years ago, Willimon says most of what bishops do is mundane. He quotes
the great Christian leader, St. John Chrysostom, who decided he didn’t want to be a bishop
because he wanted to serve God in more creative ways! In an article in the Christian Century
journal, Willimon tells about two older women who visited his office in Alabama after he’d had
a long day of dealing with the many problems of his churches.
“We’ve come to Birmingham from Cullman to tell you about our ministry,” they said. “Gladys’
grandson was busted, DUI. We went over to the youth prison camp to visit him. Sad to say, we
had never been there before! We were appalled by the conditions. Those young men are packed
in the youth prison like animals. We got to know them. Are you aware that only 10 percent of
them can read? An illiterate 19 year old and we wonder why he’s in prison!”
“Well, we began leading reading classes,” the other one said. “Sarah taught school before she
retired. Then that led to a Bible study group in the evening. We’re up to three Bible study groups
a week. Two friends of ours who can’t get out bake cookies for the boys. We’ve also enlisted
two wonderful nurses who help with VD. Some of the boys said those cookies are the first gift
they’ve ever received.”
“And you want the Annual Conference to take responsibility for this ministry?” the bishop
asked. “Oh no!” one of the women said. “We don’t want you to mess it up!”
“Then you need me to come up with some money for you?” Willimon asked. “Don’t need any
money,” they said. “If we need something, we get it from our little church.”
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“Then why have you come down here to tell me about this?” Bishop Willimon asked. “Well,”
one of them said, “We know that being a bishop must be one of the most depressing jobs in the
church. Too many things that we are not doing that Jesus expects us to do. Too many people
sitting in the pews expecting others to take care of them. So Gladys thought it would be nice if
we came down here to tell you to take heart. Something’s going right, that is, up there in
Cullman, Alabama!”
There are many excellent ways to kill a pastor, none of which involve sharp instruments, extreme
force, poisons or guns. Some of the ways to kill a pastor are very, very nasty and debilitating.
I’m not going to tell you what those are! There are also those methods that just sort of slowly
leech the joy out of pastors, like a form of Chinese water torture. I had a colleague in another
denomination who let the constant complaining of people finally get to him. He said, “Being a
pastor is like dying of 10,000 paper cuts!” That’s what Bishop Willimon feared those women
were about: “We’re in a mess! We’re over our heads! We can’t do this! Why can’t you fix things
for us? Take this over! Give us money!”
That’s one of the ways pastors become dispirited – especially young pastors – when half the
people expect you to fix things and the other half blames you. There’s the complaining and
irritability that go on, but then there are the things that really tear a pastor’s heart out, when
people cease to be Christ-like at all. And that’s what the Apostle Paul is speaking to with his
people in Ephesus.
The first thing we need to see is that Paul is begging his people to lead “a life worthy of the
calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing
with one another in love.” It doesn’t take much imagination to see that people in Ephesus
weren’t trying to grow in Christ’s spirit. They were short-tempered, prideful, unloving,
contentious – in Paul’s eyes, they had abandoned the way of Jesus Christ.
This Epistle is so interesting because Paul talks about his understanding of Christ and of his
particular view of salvation. Lofty topics. But more than anything else, Paul addresses hostility,
division, and self-interest more than any other topic in the letter. Paul was being torn up because
people were being so un-Christ-like.
The second thing Paul clearly says to the Ephesians: they were acting like immature children!
“We must no longer be children!” writes Paul. He tells them to be mature, to grow into the full
stature of Christ. Rev. Eugene Peterson paraphrases Ephesians this way: “No prolonged infancies
among us, please! We’ll not tolerate babes in the woods, small children who are an easy mark for
impostors. God wants us to grow up!”
Paul writes that we can either be blown about and changed by every stray wind of doctrine, we
can be tossed to-and-fro by the wickedness of this world, or, he says, we can grow up in every
way into Jesus Christ, and we can be built up in his love. Maturity, he is saying, is the ability to
remain grounded in Christ’s love when the world is doing its worst to us. We can either change
the world by Christ’s love – or we can allow the world to change us in the worst ways.
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A young woman went to her mother and told her about her life and how things were so hard for
her. She did not know how she was going to make it, and she was angry. She was tired of
fighting and struggling. As one problem was solved, a new one arose. And she told her mom she
felt herself becoming bitter.
Her mother took her to the kitchen. She filled three pots with water and placed each on a high
fire. When the pots came to boil she placed carrots in the first, eggs in the second, and ground
coffee beans in the last. She let them sit and boil without saying a word. In about twenty minutes
she turned off the burners. She fished the carrots out and placed them in a bowl. She pulled the
eggs out and placed them in a bowl. Then she ladled the coffee out and placed it in a bowl.
Turning to her daughter, she asked, “Tell me what you see.” “Carrots, eggs, and coffee,” she
replied.
Her mother brought her closer and asked her to feel the carrots. She did and noted that they were
soft. The mother then asked the daughter to take an egg and break it. She tried! After pulling off
the shell, she observed the hard-boiled egg. Finally, the mother asked the daughter to sip the
coffee. The daughter smiled as she tasted its rich aroma. The daughter then asked, “What does
this mean, Mother?”
Her mother explained that each of these objects had faced the same adversity: boiling water. But
each reacted differently. The carrot went in strong, hard, and unrelenting. However, after being
subjected to the boiling water, it softened and became weak. The egg had been fragile. Its thin
outer shell had protected its liquid interior, but after sitting through the boiling water, its inside
became hardened. The ground coffee beans were unique, however. When subjected to the boiling
water, they had changed the water.
“Which are you?” she asked her daughter. “When adversity knocks on your door, how do you
respond? Are you the carrot that seems strong, but with pain and adversity wilts and loses
strength? Or are you the egg that starts with a malleable heart, but became hardened by the heat?
Does your shell look the same, but on the inside are you bitter and callous?
“Or are you like the coffee bean?” her mother asked. “The beans actually change the hot water,
the very circumstance that brings the pain. When the water gets hot, it releases fragrance and
flavor. If you are like the coffee, when things are at their worst, you get better and change the
situation around you. When Christ is in you, child, you become like the coffee! Are you a carrot,
an egg, or the coffee?”
We who have known the love of God are called to be ones who follow the example of Christ. In
the pain and heat of life, we’re not to wilt or be hardened. We are called, in love, to positively
change the flavor of that around us and to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
In his biblical paraphrase called The Message, pastor Eugene Peterson puts it this way: you are to
“steadily pour yourselves out for each other in acts of love, alert at noticing differences and
having a spirit willing and quick to mend fences.” In other words, the church we are called to be
is meant to model for others, model for a broken world, becoming that Christ-like love that
changes the flavor of the world.
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Paul’s refrain can clearly be heard in Peterson’s rendering of his words: “I want you to get out
there and walk – better yet, run! – on the road God called you to travel. I don’t want any of you
sitting around on your hands! I don’t want anyone strolling off, down some path that goes
nowhere! And mark that you do this with humility and discipline – not in fits and starts, but
steadily, pouring yourselves out for each other in acts of love...”
Oh, there are many ways, painful ways, to kill a pastor. If that’s what’s in your heart, you’ll find
them. But there are also ways to build up one another in love. So let me give you a positive way
to put a pastor out of work! This one won’t kill a pastor – but it just may rob her of some of her
responsibilities. Again, I go to Peterson’s paraphrase: “Christ handed out gifts of apostle,
prophet, evangelist, and pastor-teacher to train Christians in skilled servant work, working within
Christ’s body, the church, until we’re all moving rhythmically and easily with each other,
efficient and graceful in response to God’s Son, fully mature adults, fully developed within and
without, fully alive like Christ.” In other words, you’ll likely put your pastors out of work, when
– in the fullness of Christ’s love – you use the gifts God has given you.
Dr. Robert Gorrell is the relatively new Senior Pastor at the Church of the Servant United
Methodist in Oklahoma City. As his new church was getting to know him, they learned that Dr.
Gorrell occasionally played in a small rock band in his churches. One of his new parishioners
said, “I didn’t know you played a musical instrument. Did you learn playing in your garage like
some kids do or did you have lessons?”
Dr. Gorrell said, “Actually, I was trained classically.” “Really?!” “Yes. I was trained classically
to play the bass violin. I still remember first big night playing with the orchestra. We were
playing for the ballet company. I wanted to be at my best. I got there early. I was in my place. I
got my instrument tuned and I’m standing there ready to go, everybody else still tuning theirs.
When suddenly I felt the neck of my instrument vibrating in my hand. And then I heard one of
my strings ‘speaking.’ And I was doing nothing to that instrument! I wasn’t even touching it!
“I learned something,” he said. “A cellist just a couple of feet in front of me was tuning her
instrument. And when one of those strings was perfectly tuned, that sound wave went to my
instrument and stirred one of the strings on my instrument. I learned that when it is perfectly
tuned it can cause another instrument to speak in kind!”
Paul is asking the Ephesians – and, in truth, he’s asking us today – whether we are perfectly
tuned to the love of our Lord Jesus Christ. Are we so in sympathy with Christ that the waves of
God’s love go from him to us and STIR us so that our hearts sing in kind? That’s the goal of the
mature follower of Christ!
When we resonate with Christ’s love – when that’s our goal! – we will be on the way to being
lovingly tuned with one another. There are lots of ways to kill a pastor, but the Godly way is to
simply render them unnecessary! Just be the Christ-like church God calls you to be! For you are
called to be shaped by God’s love, putting away childish and contentious ways, healing one
another’s broken souls, and steadily pouring yourself out for one another in sacrificial, selfgiving love.
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May we pray?
Gracious God, you know your children inside out. You know our brokenness and our need. But
you also know that we can shine like stars in the night when we resonate and resound with your
Holy Spirit, moving rhythmically and easily together in your love. It is then that we can be fully
formed in the image of your son Jesus Christ. Touch us again this day that we may be perfectly
attuned to you, gladly following in your way! Amen.
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