This Nonsense With Titles
When you stand before God, and, you will,
He’s not going to ask you what your title is.
He’s not going to care about your advanced degrees. Your
honorary degrees. How many letters are before or after your
name. He’s not going to care if you call yourself “apostle” or
“prophet.” It will make absolutely no difference to Him if you
have an MDiv or a MACM or a ThM. He won’t care what board you’re
the chairman of or that you’re the vice-moderator of
thus-and-so-convention. God won’t be impressed by your head
count. It won’t matter to Him that you have x-hundred or even
x-thousands of people calling out your name. Worshipping you
instead of Him. Following you instead of Him. People who lose
their faith and ultimately their salvation because of your
smugness, your corrupt fascist self-absorption. You don’t get a
special entrance to Heaven because you’re a bishop. There will
be no Bishops Only express line. No Pastors Only luxury suite.
When
you stand before God you will stand before Him absolutely naked.
No fine clothes. No Lexus. No rings and Rolexes. No gold
crucifixes. No intricate robes. No socks. And He won’t care
about that degree you worked so hard for. He won’t care how much
you have in the bank or what your pension plan is. None of the
things we, in our tradition, strive for. Things we value above
all else: these ridiculous positions within the church hierarchy
and the titles that go with them.
God won’t care anything about that. All He will care about is
our work. What work have we done? How has it fed people? Clothed
people? How have we invested ourselves in their lives? Long
after you’re dead and gone, only your work will be able to speak
for you. Far too many of our pastors have enormous salaries and
generous benefits packages but no work. They can preach like
anybody’s business, but no work. They have advanced degrees, all
these letters before and after their names. And we foolishly
genuflect and get nervous when these men come around because of
their standing, because of their position and offices.
But
too may of these men leave nothing behind. No work. No
investment. Maybe they built a huge church. Maybe the built
several huge churches. But the work is not in the building, not
in the revenue or resources. The work is in *people.* What is
the quality of the *people*, of their lives, of the fruit they
in turn bear? Powerful men, with TV shows and books, celebrated,
admired, feared. Worshipped. But no work. Standing naked before
God, who can they point to and say, “There is my investment.
There are the souls I’ve impacted for You and for Your glory.”
Far too many of our pastors, of our Bishops, our “apostles,” our
“prophets” and “prophetesses” simply have no work. Nothing to
show for themselves. They have titles. They have offices. They
have money and power and fame and respect. Many have our fear—we
fear them more than we fear God. And our investment is in them,
not in God. This is the sad ignorance of our black church
tradition: this foolishness with titles and positions. All of
which will be burned away as we stand before God with nothing,
offering Him nothing. Bringing Him nothing. Having created
nothing. Having nurtured nothing.
CONTINUES BELOW
There’s far too many people running around demanding to be
called
Pastor who are not, in fact, doing the work of a pastor. In my
experience, far too many of these men desire the title of pastor
but know little or nothing about a pastor's purpose. Church
hierarchy, as formalized by the Catholic Church, "connotes the
care and control of holy or sacred things, the sacer
principatus. The Hierarcha, it is here explained, is
he who has actual care of these things; who, indeed, both obeys
and commands, but does not obey those he commands." —Catholic
Encyclopedia. But, church elders exist to serve moreso than
command [James 5:14-15], to love morseo than to administrate. "[Christ]
established His Church as a visible, external, and perfect
society; hence He conferred on its hierarchy the right to
legislate for the good of that society." Our black church
tradition has inherited from Catholicism three grades of the
hierarchy of order: the episcopate, priesthood, and diaconate.
None of these offices exist to advance or prosper the
individuals who seek them, but exist, "For this double purpose:
the sanctification of souls and the good or welfare of religious
society..."
There’s
this great line in Martin Scorsese’s bril-
liant The Departed where Mark Wahlberg asks Leonardo
DiCaprio, “Let me ask you: do you wanna be a cop, or do you just
wanna seem to be a cop? There is a difference.”
When I was a kid, I used to dream of being a cop. In high
school, I wanted to apply to the New York City police force, but
my eyesight is poor and I couldn’t pass the physical. Over time,
I met a few cops and I learned a lot about cops. Cops don’t make
a lot of money. Cops get spat on and cursed out, often for no
reason. Cops are lied to each and every day by almost every
person they encounter. In bad weather, in emergencies, cops have
to come in on their days off. Rookie cops get the worst shifts
in the worst neighborhoods. And, sooner or later, a supervisor
is going to send a cop down a dark alley to arrest some jittery
tweak with a gun. As I matured, I realized, I never actually
wanted to be a cop. I just wanted a badge. Not even a gun, I
just wanted to carry around that piece of tin, maybe flash my
lights and siren and scare the tar out of somebody.
In my life, I’ve met pastors—a lot of them—who don’t actually
want to be pastors. They want to be seen, they want to stand up
and gas on for hours about whatever. They want applause and
people to love them. They like the money. And, frankly, they’re
not very good at much else. But, like me and the NYPD, these
guys don’t actually want to be a pastor. They just want
that title.
Real cops aren’t overly concerned about people knowing they’re
cops. I wanted to flash a badge at people and have power over
them. Most real cops I know—the last tihng they want to do is
flash a badge. Because, the minute the public knows they are law
enforcement, it attracts the nuts, the liars, the spitters. It
attracts people looking for a frivolous lawsuit against the
city. Real cops, off duty and minding their own business, are
not Batman. They’ll get involved if they have to, because that’s
their duty, but most real cops I’ve met leave it in the locker
room when it’s time to go home.
I’ve met a lot of pastors who insist, often violently, on being
called “pastor.” But they never visit the sick. They never see
to the lonely. They’re impatient. They're cheap. They whine about money.
They’re selfish. One pastor came here to preach a four-day
revival. He spent three of those nights in bed with one of the
sisters from the church. Do you wanna be a cop, or do you
just wanna seem to be a cop.
Pastoring is not and never has been about a title. God’s most
faithful workers tend to not call themselves anything. They just
do the work, quietly and often in complete secrecy. Many of us have this thing all twisted, where we
are sitting idle, waiting for our shot in somebody else’s
pulpit—somebody else’s vineyard—waiting on our ministry. Waiting
for the day God (or, more likely, some guy who thinks he’s God)
anoints us “pastor,” so we can go and do the work. But God told
us to go do the work first [2 Tim 4:5]. He never said sit on your
hands until somebody else—some mere man—gives you some paper
that says you’re thus-and-so. Jesus never told anybody, ever, to
call him “pastor” or even “rabbi.” They called Him “rabbi”
because he was a teacher. There is no scriptural evidence that
Jesus had much of a formal education or that he held any
degrees. He did the work. And that’s what people called him.
Do
the work. Stop fretting over these insipid and moronic titles.
Even more important: do not allow people to worship you. Pastors
are in a dangerous place when they start eating burnt offerings
left for God, when they start taking God’s praises and worship
to themselves. Most of the time, we can see it happening—the
pastor becoming an asshole—right in front of our eyes. It gets
harder to get an appointment with him. He invests way more time
in judgment, in fire and brimstone, than in compassion and love.
The tip-off is, usually, the pastor becomes increasingly more
isolated and, as a result, increasingly more secretive. He stops
pouring himself into the lives of his people, but instead allows
himself to be carried on their shoulders. On their bank
accounts. Their wallets and checkbooks. The corruption is easy
to spot. It is glaring and obvious. But most of us have drunk
the Kool-Aid to the point where we fear the pastor more than we
fear God. And then we’re useless to both. We do not serve God
because we give what belongs to God to the pastor. And we’re no
friend to the pastor because we don’t hold him accountable.
Isolation is a sure sign of a pastor’s moral degradation if not
outright corruption. Gross moral failure on the part of so very
many of our pastors has diminished the respect many of us have
for these men. The pastorate is an office [Eph 4:11], but many of us
transfer our respect for that office to the person sitting in
it. Pastoring is, ultimately, a temp job. God moves you by
inspiration, and sometimes by a lack of it. And he takes us
where He will. A pastor who digs in, who stubbornly refuses to
make himself available to the move of the Holy Spirit, is just a
guy hanging on to a good hustle. Most sincere pastors I’ve known
have themselves known both feast and famine: the struggle of
twenty members, the rewards of two thousand. Letting go of the
two thousand to return to the twenty is a sacrifice only the
rare servant of God can make. God won’t always ask you to do
that. He will, however, always demand your obedience, your
willingness to do so. That is the essential lesson of Abraham
and Isaac: a lesson lost on so many of our pastors who, rather
than make themselves truly available to God, dig in. “I built
this,” they might say. “I opened these doors.” The arrogant
foolishness of arrogant men. Without God, we are nothing. We
create nothing. We accomplish nothing. And who is to say God
won’t move you from the two thousand to the twenty only to give
you ten thousand. Twenty thousand. Numbers mean nothing to God.
Faithfulness, love, is everything.
Jesus never used a title. He referred to Himself as the “Son of
Man,” but that’s not a title in the sense that “elder” or
“Superintendent” or “Prophet Apostle” are. Jeremiah never
insisted on people calling him “Prophet Jeremiah.” Jeremiah not
only reluctant to be a prophet, he tried talking God out of the
whole idea. People called Samuel a prophet because he
prophesied. They called Jesus “teacher” because He taught.
Putting the cart before the horse, with all of this titling, is
simple vanity. It reveals an egregious and life-threatening lack
of understanding of Who God is and what His qualities, His
values are.
The
new trend among Baptist churches is to adopt a kind of
militaristic title-based hierarchy where how much juice you
have, how much respect people have for you, is based on what
title you have. This nonsense is borrowed from the COGIC church
whose hierarchy is, in itself, modeled heavily upon Catholicism.
My thought is the COGIC structure was intended to provide
broad-based support for churches and to encourage spiritual
growth and accountability. However, to my observation, much of
the COGIC structure has encouraged pettiness and inappropriate
competitiveness among the brethren. Many COGIC ministers simply
have wrong motives for advancing their careers, a sad mix of ego
and money. Elders are more respected than ministers. Pastors
more than elders. District superintendents more than pastors.
Bishops more than superintendents. And, sadly, now much of this
un-biblical hierarchal nonsense is being adopted by many Baptist
churches. Ministers are unlicensed ministers. Reverends are
licensed ministers, who outrank unlicensed ministers. Ordained
ministers outrank licensed ministers. Assistant Pastors (or,
just as often, First Assistant To The Pastor—a semantic hedge
against political challenges) outrank ordained ministers. The
pastor is, essentially, king of the city-state. And, for far too
many of our pastors, even the title “pastor” is no longer
enough. We now elevate many of these men to the title Bishop,
mostly because many of them simply find the title “pastor” not
big enough for them. And, unlike the COGIC church’s
accountability structure, in many black Baptist traditions, a
“Bishop” is whatever he says he is. Having two churches hardly
makes you a bishop. “Bishop” and “pastor” or “overseer” are,
biblically speaking, interchangeable titles taken from the Greek
epískopos, overseer, It is through Catholicism that we
garner our current tradition of hierarchal rank [see sidebar].
A usual and reliably true rule of thumb is that people who
insist on titles are simply insecure. Enormous egos are simply a
cry for help, an outward sign of an inward emptiness and
pettiness. People with honorary degrees—many whom deliberately
pursued an honorary doctorate by donating money to some cause or
school—who insist on being called “Dr.” or what have you, are
wearing their insecurity on their sleeve. It is an outward sign
of an inner emptiness and disconnect from God. As Christians,
regardless of what you think people should call you, your
connection to God should satisfy totally. Should fill you up to
the point where it just doesn’t matter how folks—especially
Church Folk—see you. After all, if they don’t have respect for
you already, forcing them to call you “apostle” or whatever will
only make things worse. Do the work of an apostle, and that’s
what they’ll call you. Put your hand sin the dirt. Do your
ministry. The title will come.
When
we stand before God, God
won’t want to hear about how many people are in our
congregation. Won’t want to know how many Annual Days we’ve
coordinated and organized. How many banquets we’ve attended. God
won’t care, not one bit, about our stupid titles. He gave us a
talent. He gave us, all of us, every single one of us, unique
and special gifts. All God is going to care about, on the day we
stand naked before him, is what we did with those gifts. He
won’t care about the title, He will care about the work.
This stuff is so deeply ingrained in our DNA, the damage so
severe and so cancerous, we may not get past this in our
lifetime. Most especially if pastors aren’t preaching against
it, aren’t warning their own church members that the worship of
the pastor offends God. That it doesn’t serve God and it places
the pastor himself at risk. If you love your pastor, hold him
accountable. Give praises to God alone.
If you stop and think about it, some of our most successful
ministers don’t even need titles. TD Jakes is so huge, he hardly
needs a title. He has one, but, my guess is, when he shakes our
hand he doesn’t call himself “Bishop” or “Dr.” I’m quite sure he
smiles and says, “Hi, I’m TD Jakes.” The title and all of that
is less important than who the man actually is and what the man
actually does. Because, at the end of life, that’s all he will
have: who we are, what we’ve done. Far too many of the rest of
us, with our twenty or two thousand, are putting the cart before
the horse, investing time and energy in stupid titles and petty
fiefdoms while lives hang in the balance. Beloved, do the work.
The rest of that stuff will come later.
Christopher J. Priest
7 March, 2010
editor@praisenet.org
Speaking Of Titles: Why Priest Uses His Middle Initial
Lest anyone accuse me of calling the kettle black, I tend to
insert my middle initial not out of vanity but because I've been
asked to. The British science fiction writer, Christopher Priest
(author of the hit film The Prestige), is
constantly being confused with me and I with him, for which I
sincerely apologize. I include my middle initial only to
differentiate myself from Mr. Priest.
MORE
This Nonsense With Titles
When you stand before God, and, you will,
He’s not going to ask you what your title
is. All He will care about is our work. What
work have we done? How has it fed people?
Clothed people? How have we invested
ourselves in their lives? Long after you’re
dead and gone, only your work will be able
to speak for you. the title and all of that
is less important than who the man actually
is and what the man actually does. Because,
at the end of life, that’s all he will have:
who we are, what we’ve done. Far too many of
the rest of us, with our twenty or two
thousand, are putting the cart before the
horse, investing time and energy in stupid
titles and petty fiefdoms while lives hang
in the balance. Beloved, do the work. The
rest of that stuff will come later.
The Request of
James and John Mark 10:35-45pp —
Mt 20:20-28
Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee,
came to him. "Teacher," they said, "we want
you to do for us whatever we ask." 36 "What
do you want me to do for you?" he asked. 37
They replied, "Let one of us sit at your
right and the other at your left in your
glory." 38 "You don't know what you are
asking," Jesus said. "Can you drink the cup
I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am
baptized with?" 39 "We can," they answered.
Jesus said to them, "You will drink the cup
I drink and be baptized with the baptism I
am baptized with, 40 but to sit at my right
or left is not for me to grant. These places
belong to those for whom they have been
prepared." 41 When the ten heard about this,
they became indignant with James and John.
42 Jesus called them together and said, "You
know that those who are regarded as rulers
of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their
high officials exercise authority over them.
43 Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants
to become great among you must be your
servant, 44 and whoever wants to be first
must be slave of all. 45 For even the Son of
Man did not come to be served, but to serve,
and to give his life as a ransom for many."
The Parable of the
Talents Matthew 25:14-30Ref — Lk
19:12-27
"Again, it will be like a man going on a
journey, who called his servants and
entrusted his property to them. 15 To one he
gave five talents of money, to another two
talents, and to another one talent, each
according to his ability. Then he went on
his journey. 16 The man who had received the
five talents went at once and put his money
to work and gained five more. 17 So also,
the one with the two talents gained two
more. 18 But the man who had received the
one talent went off, dug a hole in the
ground and hid his master's money. 19 "After
a long time the master of those servants
returned and settled accounts with them. 20
The man who had received the five talents
brought the other five. 'Master,' he said,
'you entrusted me with five talents. See, I
have gained five more.' 21 "His master
replied, 'Well done, good and faithful
servant! You have been faithful with a few
things; I will put you in charge of many
things. Come and share your master's
happiness!' 22 "The man with the two talents
also came. 'Master,' he said, 'you entrusted
me with two talents; see, I have gained two
more.' 23 "His master replied, 'Well done,
good and faithful servant! You have been
faithful with a few things; I will put you
in charge of many things. Come and share
your master's happiness!' 24 "Then the man
who had received the one talent came.
'Master,' he said, 'I knew that you are a
hard man, harvesting where you have not sown
and gathering where you have not scattered
seed. 25 So I was afraid and went out and
hid your talent in the ground. See, here is
what belongs to you.' 26 "His master
replied, 'You wicked, lazy servant! So you
knew that I harvest where I have not sown
and gather where I have not scattered seed?
27 Well then, you should have put my money
on deposit with the bankers, so that when I
returned I would have received it back with
interest. 28 " 'Take the talent from him and
give it to the one who has the ten talents.
29 For everyone who has will be given more,
and he will have an abundance. Whoever does
not have, even what he has will be taken
from him. 30 And throw that worthless
servant outside, into the darkness, where
there will be weeping and gnashing of
teeth.'
Related
The First Commandment
The worship of the pastor offends God, which
places the pastor at great personal peril.
Pastors who do not realize this, who do not
actively discourage such hero worship or who
actively encourage it, are simply lost. Many
of our pastors require obeisance because
they’re not doing the work of a pastor. They
are, in fact, the church CEO. Many of these
guys are simply insecure. As a result, we
have an epidemic of lousy pastors who allow
biblically inconsistent practices to go on
on their watch. But these are the guys who
get passed on from church to church because
they do not or cannot properly equip God’s
people to make better selections.
The Black Church: An Outsider's Guide
The good news is, if you are not black, most
black churches give you a kind of waiver on
these do's and don'ts. We do not expect
people who are of other cultures to know
these things. But black worshippers who
transgress these unwritten rules are
considered barbarians. People who wipe their
mouths on their sleeves and pass gas in
crowded rooms. African Americans are simply
required to know these rules, all of them,
in great detail.
The Pastor: The
First Commandment
In the black church, the pastor is always
spelled with a capital “P.” This is not
proper English, but it's what we do. The
president of the United States is not
spelled with a capital “P” unless we are
using “president” as part of his name
(“President Obama”), but in the black
tradition, the Pastor (capital “P”) is the
ultimate object of respect. Moreso than even
the president (small “p”). The Pastor is
always Pastor Jackson, never “Ted.” And, more
often than not, the Pastor, in the black
church, has a huge formal name, including
all middle names and add-ons and letters of
scholarship, The Reverend Dr. Theodore Ellis
Randolph Jackson, Sr., Senior Pastor. Many black churches have
adopted the “Senior Pastor” elder-led model,
even when there are, in fact, no “junior”
pastors serving under them. In the tradition
of many white churches, ministry leaders are
typically called "Pastor." Worship Pastor.
Teaching Pastor. Most often in the black
tradition, there is only one person named
"Pastor," which makes the "Senior" Pastor
title confusing.
Many successful churches have become
insufferably corporate, with a snobby,
haughty tone of voice bristling with icy
informality. The Reverend Dr. Theodore Ellis
Randolph Jackson, Sr. The prosperous pastor,
usually the white prosperous pastor
across the way, is Ted. Ted Jackson. Though
he may have an advanced degree, his measure
as a pastor is not based upon it. The degree
helps, but his pastorate is based upon his
being surrendered to God’s will for his
life. He doesn’t have folks bowing and
scraping around him. He doesn’t need the
overlong, formal title, and his name rarely
appears painted on the side of buses or on
every piece of paper with the church’s name
on it.
For Ted, the church is the important work.
For many if not most of our black pastors,
their own vanity is key. Pastors, even those
with only five members, insist on listing
their name, in egregious formality, all over
everything. The Reverend Dr. Theodore Ellis
Randolph Jackson, Sr. But Ted is not
concerned about his ego. Ted knows that,
when God lifts him up, everybody will know
who Ted Jackson is. He won’t need to tell
them. He won’t need to plaster his name all
over everything. Everybody knows Ted and
everybody knows Ted is the pastor of Grace
Fellowship. Ted is not insecure or
ego-driven.
You'll frequently get a call from Ted. Ted
wants to borrow a wrench. Ted's pulling
together a posse to go bowling. Ted saw
something funny on TV last night.
More than leading the
congregation, Ted is, in fact, a member of
it. A leader, yes, but also a trusted
friend. With extremely rare
exception, this conduct simply does not
exist within the Imperial Black Pastorate.
Our pastors, by contrast, are more like rap
stars. Separated from us by a veneer of
celebrity and social status, our pastors are
always and under pain of death to be called
“Pastor” at all times. The bowling alley.
The ball game. The barbecue.
They remind us, at all
times, that they are not us. That
they are somehow above us and we, therefore,
are somehow beneath them. Many of our
pastors go overboard in excess of flashy
clothes and expensive cars and material
wealth. Pastor Ted often drives a Volvo
Wagon or a minivan. Our pastors, nearly to a
man, drive luxury cars exclusively.
But, see, Ted also comes from a different
tradition. Ours is a tradition of oppression
and abuse, society stripping black men of
the simple dignity of being human, entitled
to the same inalienable rights as white men.
The formality of The
Reverend Dr. Theodore Ellis Randolph
Jackson, Sr. is steeped in that tradition of
black men needing to underline themselves
and demand respect of those around them.
While I understand the roots of this
tradition, the tradition itself is not
biblical. And many, if not most, of our
black pastors conduct themselves in
egregiously unbiblical ways, starting, first
and foremost, with such sinful and
unnecessary self-promotion; the haughty
formality, acceptance and even encouragement
of congregants to worship the pastor more
than they actually worship Christ.
The
worship of the pastor offends God, which
places the pastor at great personal peril.
Pastors who do not realize this, who do not
actively discourage such hero worship or who
actively encourage it, are simply lost.
The Purpose of
Church Hierarchy
Hierarchy (Greek Hierarchia; from
hieros, sacred; archein, rule,
command). in the Catholic church has been
used to denote the totality of ruling powers
in the Church, ever since the time of the
Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagita (sixth century),
who consecrated the expression in his works,
"The Celestial Hierarchy" and "The
Ecclesiastical Hierarchy" (P.G., III, 119
and 370). According to this author and his
two commentators, Pachymeres (P.G., III,
129) and Maximus (P.G., IV, 30), the word
connotes the care and control of holy or
sacred things, the sacer principatus. The "Hierarcha",
it is here explained, is he who has actual
care of these things; who, indeed, both
obeys and commands, but does not obey those
he commands. There is, consequently, a
necessary gradation among hierarchs; and
this gradation, which exists even among the
angels, i.e. in the heavenly hierarchy (on
which the ecclesiastical hierarchy is
modelled), must a fortiori be found in a
human assembly subject to sin, and in which
this gradation works for peace and harmony
("S. Gregorii Reg. Epist.", V, 54, in P.L.,
LXXVII, 786; "Decreta Dionysii papæ", in the
Hinschius ed. of the Pseudo-Isidorean
Decretals, 195-6, Berlin, 1863; "Decretum"
of Gratian (Pseudo-Boniface), pt. I, D. 89,
c. vii). The hierarchy, therefore, connotes
the totality of powers established in the
Church for the guiding of man to his eternal
salvation, but divided into various orders
or grades, in which the inferior are subject
to and yield obedience to the higher ones.
It is usual to distinguish a twofold
hierarchy in the Church, that of order and
that of jurisdiction,
corresponding to the twofold means of
sanctification, grace, which comes to us
principally through the sacraments, and good
works, which are the fruit of grace. The
hierarchy of order
exercises its power over the Real Body of
Christ in the Eucharist; that of
jurisdiction over His Mystical Body, the
Church (Catech. Conc. Trid., pt. II, c. vii,
n. 6). Christ did not give to all the
faithful power to administer His sacraments,
except in the case of baptism and matrimony,
or to offer public worship. This was
reserved to those who, having received the
sacrament of order, belong to the hierarchy
of order. He entrusted the guidance of the
faithful along the paths of duty and in the
practice of good works to a religious
authority, and for this purpose He
established a hierarchy of jurisdiction.
Moreover, He established His Church as a
visible, external, and perfect society;
hence He conferred on its hierarchy the
right to legislate for the good of that
society. For this double purpose, the
sanctification of souls and the good or
welfare of religious society, the hierarchy
of jurisdiction is endowed with [specific]
rights.
READ FULL TEXT
Bible.Org: Understanding The Parable
In order to understand the meaning and
the application of the parable of the
talents, we must take note of the crucial
terms and their meanings. Let me call your
attention to the most important elements of
the parable, as I now understand it.
The element of time.
Time has been a significant factor in our
Lord’s teaching concerning His coming and
the end of the age, beginning in chapter 24.
Jesus made it clear that His return would
not be immediate, but after much trouble and
the passing of a considerable period of
time. While there would be sufficient
evidence for His followers to discern the
general “season” of His return, neither the
day nor the hour would be known (Matthew
24:32-36, 42). Beyond this, His return would
come at a time when it was not expected
(Matthew 24:44). In the parable of the
talent, there are two clear references to
time. First, the master stayed away for a
long time (Matthew 25:19). Second, the
faithful servants immediately went to work
to increase their master’s money (Matthew
25:16-17).
The element of money.
It is indeed unfortunate that the term
“talent” means something very different
today from what our Lord meant when He told
this parable. The talent was the largest
measurement of money in those days. Since a
talent was actually a measurement of weight,
it did not have a constant value. A talent
of gold, for example, would be worth a whole
lot more than a talent of bronze. While
commentators differ somewhat over the
approximate value of a talent in today’s
economy, all would agree that it was a large
amount of money. Some say that it was the
equivalent to 20 years’ wages for a common
laborer.275 We must remember, then, that a
talent is a measure of money; it is not a
reference to abilities. The talents were
distributed on the basis of ability, not as
the bestowing of ability.
The element of work.
This is the reason I was critical of the
translation of verse 16 (see footnote 1
above). The original text is quite clear
here – it is the first servant (and we
assume the second, as well) who immediately
sets to work with his master’s money. It is
not the money that goes to work, as such,
but the worker. When the third servant’s
excuses are set aside, it becomes evident
that this man is lazy – he didn’t do any
work. He didn’t even hand the money over to
bankers,276 to let them go to work with it.
The element of profit.
I have often been puzzled over these
words, repeated several times in the New
Testament:
“For the one who has
will be given more, and he will have more
than enough. But the one who does not have,
even what he has will be taken from him”
(Matthew 25:29; see also 13:12; Mark
4:25; Luke 8:18; 19:26).
How is it that the one “who does not have”
has something taken from him? How can you
take something away from a person who has
nothing? I now see the answer, which appears
to be consistent with all of the places
where this principle is set forth. The one
“who does not have” but yet does “have”
(because what he has is taken away) is the
one who has his master’s money, but has made
no profit from it. The third servant has no
profit, no gain, to give his master, so his
talent is taken away and given to the one
who went to work with his master’s money and
made great gains for him.
READ FULL TEXT
Casting Crowns
There was once this barbaric tradition,
here, of Church Folk gathering at a crowded
little buffet place after church. This
restaurant, Furs, was crowded not because
the food was so great (at times it reminded
me a high school cafeteria) but because its
process were so low. Low enough that the
chain vanished from Ourtown a few years
back. But, during its heyday, most Church
Folk could be found congregating there after
Sunday service, services they often groused
about going too long, only to then spend
hour upon hour gossiping at Fur’s.
In this mix, you could always tell who the
pastors were. They were the guys, most often
the pot-bellied guys, wearing their hats.
These men would get out of their fancy cars,
just a s often ungracious, stereotypical
Cadillacs and so forth, who would then don
top coats and hats for the twenty-foot walk
to the restaurant door. Being a guy who’d
die naked if they’d let me, I could never
understand why these pastors insisted on
bringing these heavy coats and gregarious
clown-pimp hats into a restaurant only a few
feet from their car. It’s not as if these
men had to march across the frozen tundra to
get there. The wives would, just as often,
put on mink and ridiculous gold lame “crown”
hats, a quizzical display of prosperous
bling considering going to Fur’s on a Sunday
usually told the world what a cheapskate you
were.
Inside, many of the pastors would remove the
heavy coat—which they wore just to show it
off—and go through convolutions of finding
an empty chair or such they could park their
folded armor into before seating
themselves—with their gregarious hats on—to
eat dinner. Many, to my direct observation,
did not even remove their hats when they
prayed over the table. It was like a
convention of Insecurity Anonymous, these
people behaving like ten-year olds in
desperate need of external validation. And,
I’m not talking ball caps. I’m talking
large, gregarious fedoras, some with bands
and feathers and such. Pimp hats. Some of
these men having removed their top coat and
even their suit jacket, rolled up their
sleeves, and dug into fried chicken and
mashed potatoes while still wearing a large
eyesore of a felt Fedora. Those were the
pastors.
I suppose it's
tribal. And maybe somebody can drop me an
email in defense of this nuttiness. But,
form my chair, gazing across the expanse of
the cafeteria, I could get a probable sense
of people who knew God and people who
didn’t. To know God is to be in touch with
something so pure and so fulfilling that
there’s really no need to embarrass yourself
like that. Here, in Ourtown, the major
effort of church resources is for pageantry.
Anniversaries and Annual Days. This is what
we budget for: the show-off. And I indeed
question the spiritual walk of men and women
so desperate to be noticed and/or validated
that they dress like circus clowns.
I, on the other hand, have a giant head, and
thus do not wear hats because hats make my
giant head look even gianter. As a matter of
preference, I prefer the simple clergy shirt
to the loud, fancy suits many pastors seem
to gravitate toward. Only, here, in this
mirror universe, the clergy shirt is often
seen as a sign of vanity. It’s one of those
reverse psychology things, the folks so used
to the dog food that they accept the loud
suits and pimp hats as the norm, and my
plain, drab clergy shirt is often viewed as
pretentious. I love wearing it. I love what
it means. I love what it represents. I love
what it reminds me of. In white culture, a
man wearing a clerical collar is respected
and admired. In our wretched, backward,
ignorant fashion, a man wearing a clerical
collar is often snickered at and ridiculed,
“Who does HE think he is?”
What I like about the collar is not that it
make me look important, but that it is
simple. It is plain. It is humble. It gets
right to the point. It is a simple smock
that diverts attention from how fancy your
suit and tie are. A pastor friend of mine
said he only wears the shirt for special
occasions and treats it with a worshipful
deference, to which I politely disagree. The
clerical shirt is a work shirt. It is
designed for everyday use, not to be held in
abeyance for special occasions. It is
supposed to get dirty, to be used and reused
and discarded.
What I like about the shirt is it tells
people Whose you are. When I am wearing it,
nobody has to guess what I am about. I
cannot hide or melt into the crowd the way
these pastors in the loud suits can. Nobody
mistakes me for a pimp, and I can get away
with absolutely nothing because, once
someone has seen me wearing the clerical
shirt, I have become a marked man. They know
I am a minister of the Gospel, and my life,
my everyday walk, must now reliably support
the simple cloth shirt I wear on Sunday as
the Church Folk snicker at me.
Maybe if I wore a hat.
I've never cared much for academic snobs.
Like graduates of 12-step programs,
Jehovah's Witnesses and work-out freaks,
academic snobs tend to look down their nose
on anybody who doesn't have an advanced
degree. Well, fact is, most ministers I've
encountered who hold advanced degrees can
also be dumb as a bag of hammers. No vision,
intellectually lazy, ignorant. Invested in
their title, hitting people over the head
with their doctorate, with their ThM. But no
work. None. These men display absolutely
none of the qualities of God, the fruit of
the spirit. They are petty, jealous, haters.
The scornful of Psalms 1. I'm thinking of one
pastor in Appalachian territory who
ministers to thousands and yet whose vision
statement reads like a child's nursery rhyme,
completely nonsensical and completely vacant
of even reasonable doctrinal foundation. So,
far be it from me to lord it over the Hat
Police here in Ourtown, as barnyard
country-ism is part of the black church's
DNA and hardly exclusive to this city. But
the disconnect between what these men claim
to be, this nonsense with titles, and how
these men conduct themselves is so vast and
so wide that it makes me stop and wonder if
these men truly know Christ, or if they've
settled for simply being part of the
fraternity of the ignorant. I mean, in every
situation, I try and imagine Christ behaving
this or that way, sitting there gossiping in
shirt sleeves and a gregarious felt hat.
Look, if you actually know Christ, some of
His love would show through you. if you
don't actually know Him, at least read a
book—say, the bible—and learn how to fake it
better. And, on the off-chance your drill
sergeant or your mama never taught you (and
I'd find that hard to believe): gentlemen,
take off your hat when you're indoors. You
want to stand out among your peers, try
doing the actual work of a pastor. That
seems to be increasingly rare these days.
—cjp
POST REPLY
Except As Noted, Text Copyright © 2001-2010 PraiseNet
eMedia. All Rights Reserved.
TOP OF PAGE
ABOUT CHRIST
PRAYER
CONTACT US
WEBLOG
CLOSE THIS WINDOW
