Hello,
I am going to a new dentist.
My previous one retired.
The door opened to the waiting area and a cheerful woman, who was to be
my hygienist, called my name.
After a quick tour of the facility, she bid me sit down in her chair,
pulled out her picks and scrapers, put a bib around my neck, and went to work
excavating my teeth.
I suspect that hygienists are taught to talk to their patient while they
are working, because they all seem to do it. I understand that the conversation might ease the anxiety of
the patient. After all, silence
can be a rather awkward thing. But
no less awkward, it seems to me, is to try and carry on a conversation with
someone while they probing and scraping with sharp instruments in your
mouth. Deep, gurgling “uh huh”
(i.e., yes) and “uh uh” (i.e., no) is about the limit of what I can add to such
a conversation.
Just before she began her exploration into my mouth, she asked me, “And
what do you do for a living?”
“I am the pastor at First Lutheran Church, downtown.”
“Oh,” she said, and as she asked me to open my mouth, she began to talk
about the church that she goes to.
And then after filling the time of her scraping and probing with details
about her church, she reached over and grabbed the “vacuum” and spray, sprayed
my teeth with water, and then put the suction tube in my mouth, and gently pulled
my lungs out of my chest as she said, “Please, close.”
As I was recovering from my lung extraction, she said to me, “Is your
congregation large?”
That isn’t the first time that
question was asked of me. I find
it often asked of me when someone finds out that I am a pastor. Over the course of it’s asking, I have
pondered why this particular question is of universal inquiry. I can’t say that I know the
answer. I don’t think it is
because folks wonder how hard I work, after all, everyone knows that I only
work one day of the week.
My guess is that the question comes from a deep seated value in our
society that is the measure of success and importance. Bigness. Big houses….big buildings….big companies….and…..big churches
are given a judgment of success and importance. That is the way the world thinks.
But having been a pastor in all sizes of churches, from one of the
biggest in Lutheran circles to one of the smallest, I find myself thinking
differently. The reason that I
find myself thinking differently is that I find God thinking differently. The Bible says that God is one who
measures success not by the 99 safely in the flock, but by the one strayed
sheep that has been found. The
Bible says that God is one whose heart did not beat in unison with those who
valued themselves myopically fixated on their power and wealth. No, the Bible says that God feels the pain
tearing through the hearts of those whom the world of Jesus’ day had deemed
worthless: lepers, prostitutes, and tax collectors. The Bible says that though the world’s mighty lord their
power over others, but Jesus said that in his kingdom the one who is mightiest
is the greatest servant of all.
In truth there is a danger in measuring success by the works of our
hands, because such success then rests in the feeble strength of our
hands. I am quite willing,
therefore, to measure success by the measure of strength of God’s hands….hands
that were stretched out on a cross, hands that took the nails of death, and
hands that took hold of me in an unyielding baptismal grip.
The judgments of the world are powerful judgments, and I find myself
prey to listening too carefully to the world’s evaluation of my success and
importance. But when I turn my
ears to God’s judgment of me….finding me worthy of his dying love and mercy…I
say to myself that if God uses me to bring new life to even just one person who
has been likewise burdened by the world’s judgment of them…..then I consider
myself very successful and important.
Of course, I hope that I am of use to more than one in God’s work of bringing
new life, but if it is only one…….one is enough. A congregation of one….that is big enough to be a success
Have a great week.
God’s grace and peace (ggap),
Pastor Jerry Nuernberger
No comments:
Post a Comment