Pastoral Uniqueness

At the end of The Pastor: A Memoir (New York: HarperOne, 2011), Peterson concludes his book with a responding letter written to a young pastor. In the letter, Peterson replies in response to the phrase “finding my way as a pastor.”

“As we enter into conversation regarding just what goes into making up a pastoral vocation, one thing that comes to mind is the uniqueness—being a pastor is unique across the spectrum of vocations. Not better, not privileged, not anything special, but unique in society as a whole, also (but maybe not quite so much) unique in the company of the people of God…One aspect of that uniqueness is that we make far more mistakes in our line of work than other so-called professionals. If physicians and engineers and lawyers and military officers made as many mistakes in their line of work as we do in ours, they would be out on the street in no time. It amazes me still how much of the time I simply don’t know what I am doing, don’t know what to say, don’t know what the next move is. The temptation in that state of being is to determine to be competent at something or other. Unfortunately, there are many ‘ways of escape’ in which we can exercise and develop areas of administrative or therapeutic or scholarly or programmatic competences in the church and in so doing avoid the ambiguity of being a pastor.” (p. 315)

I can’t agree more with his observation because there are many “ways of escape” from dealing with pastoral ambiguity: its uniqueness and unprofessionalism. The way I understand the uniqueness that he describes is that we pastors deal with the word of God and the people of God. Both elements that we have to deal with are beyond human control. We can use the Bible by reading, quoting, interpreting, and preaching it. But once the Bible is used instead of being engaged with, this act of reading Scriptures no longer promotes maturity and formation. It’s an act of manipulation. Besides that, when we pastors treat the people of God as objects whom can be controlled, domesticated, and manipulated, we can certainly avoid a lot of those ambiguities. People, by nature, are ambiguous, complicated, and capricious. Whenever we try to objectify each person and make each personhood linear, we start “to be competent at something or other.” But the area that we develop and feel competent is the idol factory.

Israel built the golden calf (Exod. 32) because they didn’t want to deal with any ambiguity. They didn’t know how long it took Moses to communicate with God. They wanted to make something happened. They forced “God’s will” upon them instead of being waited and letting it fall upon them in God’s time.  They built the golden calf to get rid of their fear and doubt. Instead of not knowing what to do, they twisted, manipulated, and developed their own god with whom they can say, “Not your will, but my will.”

The title pastor doesn’t deal with failure primarily. Pastors deal with God, His Word, and His people. All these elements make pastors feel inadequate. We can say that we master this program, know a theory inside out, or have a good control of the driving wheel. But we can’t say that we master God, his Scripture, and his people. Pastors usually handle with things that are beyond them most of the time. In other words, it’s hard to have a sense of satisfaction. If we handle this reality well, we become humble. If we don’t, we suffer from making-no-difference syndrome. “When Aaron saw how excited the people were about it, he built an altar in front of the calf and announced, ‘Tomorrow there will be a festival to the Lord!’” (Exod. 32:5) I can imagine and understand his excitement. But his excitement led Israel to worship an idol, not the One who brought them out of Egypt. Dealing with pastoral uniqueness is pastoral theology. It is a unique formation for pastors.