Proper 9 - O - 2012 - What Can You Expect From Your Pastor?

Sixth Sunday After Pentecost - Proper 9

July 8, 2012 - Pastor Adam Moline
Ezekiel 2:1-5               2 Corinthians 12:1-10             Mark 6:1-13

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Amen.  Our text today is the Old Testament lesson just read.  Thus far our text.

Dear friends in Christ. What can you expect from your pastor? My home pastor recently shared with me an email that he had received about what the “perfect pastor” did.  Perhaps you have seen it yourself:  I must admit, I am a little hesitant to share this with you, especially as I have just returned from a weeklong relaxing vacation. 

The Perfect Pastor preaches exactly 8 minutes. He condemns sin, but never hurts anyone's feelings. He works from 8 a.m. until midnight, and is also the church janitor.

The Perfect Pastor makes $40 a week, wears good clothes, drives a good car, buys good books, and donates $50 a week to the poor. He is 28 years old and has been preaching 30 years.  The Perfect Pastor has a burning desire to work with teenagers, and he spends most of his time with the senior citizens. He smiles all the time with a straight face because he has a sense of humor that keeps him seriously dedicated to his church. He makes 15 hospital and home visits a day and is always in his office when needed.

If your pastor does not measure up, simply send this notice to six other churches that are tired of their pastor too. Then bundle up your pastor and send him to the church at the top of your list. If everyone cooperates, in one week you will receive 1, 643 pastors. One of them should be perfect.

What do you expect from your pastor?  What is realistic to expect from the man God has given to you to be your undershepherd to the Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ?  We can talk about a lot of different things, social graces, or personality, or whether he cheers for Bison or Sioux, or even worse the Huskers.  We can talk about the right age and weight, sermon length, or all sorts of different expectations for a pastor.

But dear friends, our text today tells us that all of these things are not the key to what you should expect from your pastor.  All of these things are just the peripheral to the center of the issue.  Because according to our text, no matter how nice, or how good looking your pastor is, or which team he cheers for, if he doesn’t do one thing, he is not doing his job.  The Lord speaks to Ezekiel, “I send you to them, and you shall say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God.’”

What can you expect from your pastor?  Thus says the Lord God.  When you are faced with a difficult predicament, you expect from your Pastor the words of God – about sin, about guilt, about forgiveness, about (pause) Christ.  What can you expect from your pastor?  The Bible, the Truth.  When you talk to your pastor, expect him whoever he may be, to tell you “Thus says the Lord.”

It is not always easy.  Sometimes what the Lord says isn’t what we want to hear.  Just like the people in our Gospel lesson today, I hear only what I want to hear, and if I disagree, I am quick to judge the person.  We don’t want to hear about sin, or death, or guilt, or the consequence for our own disobedience.  And yet, what can you expect from your pastor?  Thus says the Lord God!  When it’s unpopular, when it’s difficult, when God’s word draws a line that we have passed way beyond, you can expect your pastor to point it out.  Your Pastor proclaims to you the full harshness of the law, that God expects you to be perfect, and that you blew it, you messed up, and that you can’t make it right on your own.   

No, not to rub your nose in it, but instead to lead you to repent of sin, to turn away from it as much as you can as a sinner saint.  And then when you realize that you have nowhere to turn, nothing to do to save yourself.  When you realize that you are a totally death deserving sinner, then your pastor can say boldly and truthfully – Thus says the Lord.  Then you can and should expect your Pastor to tell you the gospel as well.

Thus says the Lord – God became flesh to die for the sinner.  Christ the Lord went to the cross to suffer and die for the sinner who can’t save himself.  Christ came only for sinners, those who have no other place to turn – Thus says the Lord!  You can expect your Pastor to tell you that your sins are forgiven, that you are made holy in the blood of the lamb.  And now, Jesus has washed you in a baptismal font, to take away all your sin forevermore, and you can expect your Pastor to remind you of this forgiveness every time – ANY time – that your sin gets the best of you. 

Dear friends, there is an old Seminary professor who once told of a time over 50 years ago when a couple came into him – a couple that was the same gender.  They asked the pastor to bless their relationship before the whole church, to publically proclaim them to be united.  The pastor very calmly said “No.”  He kindly explained that marriage is between a man and a woman for life, and that anything outside that boundary, no matter what the circumstances was wrong.  “Thus says the Lord.” That couple cursed at him, they swore at him, they called him every name under the book, and broke a variety of commandments putting that pastor in his place.  Finally on the way out the door, they cursed that pastor to the fires of hell. 

The pastor prayed for those people.  Year after year that day came back to the pastor and he prayed for them.  Finally, one day one of these gentleman showed up at the pastors door, “Pastor, can we talk.”  They sat down and talked and talked, the man poured out his soul, the pastor was able to minister to him as he needed, speaking that same word, Thus says the Lord.  And finally the meeting was over.  The pastor looked at the man and said, “I just have to ask, the last time you were in here, you didn’t want to have anything to do with me.  Why did you come back today?”  “I am sorry pastor, but I knew there was one person who would speak to me straight, tell me the truth, and not tell me just what I wanted hear – and I needed that today.”

What can you expect from your pastor?  Someone who will speak the truth in love, Ephesians 4:15.  Not any truth, but God’s truth, THE truth, Jesus Christ, the way the truth and the life, who will speak the truth to you in good times and in bad.  Who will speak the truth to you whether he’s your buddy or not.  Someone who will tell you the WORD that unites us as one.  The word of Forgiveness, the word of our Lord Jesus. 

What can you expect from your pastor?  If you ask each other this afternoon, you will probably get as many different answers as people you ask.  Some might have to do with number of visits, some might have to do with what team he cheers for, some with how tidy his office is or isn’t.  But underneath all these things, the most important thing you should expect from your pastor is this:  To hear about Jesus, born of the virgin, suffered under Pontius Pilate, who rose again from the dead, and even today lives and reigns forevermore.  To hear about your sin, to hear that it is forgiven, to hear you belong to heaven forever.  To hear, Thus says the Lord.  Amen.