Through the Looking Glass: Reflecting on Yesterday, MLK Sunday

Fundamentally, being a pastor is not something that kids always dream of in the same way that, say, as a child I dreamed of being a firefighter or the starting first baseman for the Kansas City Royals (insert your own jokes here), or even better, a dinosaur hunter, since I came of age in the era of Jurassic Park. Regular parents have "Take Your Child to Work Day" every year, but for PKs--pastor's kids--"Take Your Child to Work Day" is every single Sunday, which can be as apt to warp a child's relationship with the church as it is to strengthen it.

In short, I have not, and do not, believe mine is a vocation that many children dream of. There are exceptions to every rule, and I know that is the case here as well. But ministry is not a glamorous profession--there are no prime-time dramas depicting the work life of pastors the same way as hit shows like Law & Order and ER have for years for lawyers and doctors, respectively (the most recent time the networks DID try to do that for pastors, the resulting show--The Book of Daniel--lasted half a season). You can argue that the culture of the megachurch means that people like Joel Osteen and Creflo Dollar are, in fact, the glamorous side of ministry, but I consider their interpretations of Scripture to be so heretical that I hesitate to even call them pastors.

Instead, we live in an era where pastors are increasingly distrusted, whether because of the child abuse scandals rocking the Roman Catholic Church, or the financial scandals of people like Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, or the simple reality that vast swaths of the world are still dirt poor and the church has been unable to fundamentally change that reality.

But on this day, the federal, state, and local governments shut down, schools close, and I work from home in honor of a pastor--the pastor who has posthumously become a gold standard in how preached words can change lives and how pacifistic resistance can change an entire nation. The other 364 days of the year, there is no greater formal honor given to any servant of any church who has ever lived (I am not counting Christmas because Christ does not serve the church, Christ IS the church).

So for my Scripture devotions today, I read the Isaiah passage that King used for his "I Have a Dream" speech--Isaiah 40. I remember that chapter more for how it ends--"They who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up on wings as eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint." King used the beginning of the chapter, which reads in part, "every valley will be raised up, and every mountain and hill will be flattened."

Out of that chapter of 2,500-year old prophecy, King created words that have since become immortal. I tried my sacred best to do that legacy honor and credit in my sermon yesterday, but I know that even my best effort will fall short to the likes of him. I know this because I know I tried too hard in making that sermon. For the first time since I began my pastorate here, I borrowed heavily from the theme of a previously successful sermon of mine in seminary (so great was my worry of falling flat), doubled up on the exegesis, and tried to cram everything I knew about Biblical justice into a 15-minute sermon.

But one day and many hours of sleep later, I am strangely grateful for how that sermon turned out, because it reminded me of what I fear the world has missed out most on due to King's assassination. I want for the world what King took with him when he was shot and killed that April day in Memphis. Many other pastors have tried, in their own individual styles, to be as inspiring and lofty as he was, but we are mere husks compared to him. Competent counterfeiters, but counterfeiters nonetheless. Without what King had, the pulpit of the best pastors, the ones most dedicated to their craft, has withered in size, the church has reduced in scope, and our relevance is now in question less than fifty years after African-American citizens were given the unmitigated right to vote after the leadership and action of many, many Christian parishes.

And so now we find ourselves today with our most famous pastors, instead of preaching justice and equality and inclusion, preach prosperity and wealth instead. It is an easier message, to be sure, to preach, but it will never stand a candle to the legacy of the man honored on this day.

And that is as it should be, for we reap what we sow.

Yours in Christ,
Eric