October 21, 2008
Potter's Wheel
Retirement can be hard on everyone, but I think it’s especially difficult for preachers. Today’s congregations don’t want older ministers in the pulpit on a weekly basis and yet how do ministers stop doing what they’ve done their whole life. I think it would be similar to a prophet being told he was being replaced and would no longer be prophesying. However all of us, regardless of our gifts of service or how long we’ve been serving, are still clay in the Potter’s hands. The Lord retains the right to remake and reshape us for different areas of service. It shouldn’t come as a surprise when we find ourselves back on the Potter’s wheel.
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1 comment:
Gail;
-----The fact that today’s churches do not want older men in the pulpit on a weekly basis is a useful look into the heart of the Body. Barring an old preacher’s getting crotchety, stodgy, or in any other way overly attached to his own ideas or growing stale in his own overly worn expressions, I wonder what about his old age might make him an undesirable. As long as his heart and mind continues sharp in the Word, what else could become dull so as to make him dispensable? Could it be that he may not be hip in the latest surfing techniques? Or maybe he can not list and discuss the hottest new rock groups, movies, or TV sitcoms? Shoot. Maybe he will even suggest you not be entertained by these nasty Hollywood perturbations! Oh! We couldn‘t have that! Maybe it would be because the younger people just don‘t relate to the older people anymore. Well, now folks, that is more scriptural isn’t it! The scripture calls us to sincerely love one another from the depths of the heart. It does not make some division between young-others to welcome and accept and old-others to, well, not really reject, but, uh, well, you know. Yah, I know. And the relationship is scriptural, at least, I mean, it is referred to in the Bible, “For men will become lovers of self…disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, inhuman…” (II Tim 3:2-3) I think that is the scriptural take on the attitudes of today’s people towards their elders.
-----But once again, we speak with our lips the scriptural attitude towards the older generation when we call our spiritual leadership “elders” rather than “youngers.” Yet we want youngers to be elders because they make our walk more fun! And they package our spiritual diet up into easy to swallow little sound bites, too, that do not challenge us to walk very tall, because even all stacked up they are so shallow they don’t quite overflow from your boot top. Little tidbits like, “It’s not about you,” and “Now, go make a difference,” and “Come as you are.” I’ve always waited for the logical next sound-bite to follow that last one: “But don’t stay as you are.” Christianity is a new life of change and growth, yet we wish to maximize the “coming as you are” and hide the rest in the back room. For if it were truly known, the degree of importance the Word places upon growth and change of the individual would lead one to actually expect to find an elderly, finely tuned man in the pulpit.
-----But alas, it truly is all about packaging. It truly is about preferring the youngsters over the oldsters, for whatever reason, favoring them. The message isn’t “come as you are” as much as it is “don’t paddle the boat.” God placing a man again on His potter’s wheel I can understand. But a group of folk calling themselves a “church” slapping some capable, poor, old sole upon His potter’s wheel I dare say is simply arrogant. For if some old scutter pulled out His Word and actually paddled the boat somewhere, we all might come to learn too much about what God thinks of favoritism.
Love,
Steve Corey
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