Another Paradox

“You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.”
-- Annie Lamott

I love our pastor.

Of the people I've heard preach during my lifetime, Pastor Mark -- my current pastor -- would definitely rank as one of my favorite three.

Regular church attenders have no doubt heard pastors of all kinds -- the mediocre, the preachers who speak the standard 3-point sermon, those who preach things that actually aren't true. Even the gimmicky and the flashy.

My pastor is none of these. The way I've best heard his preaching described is this: "All I can say is when he speaks on Sunday, God shows up." My friend Jason said that, and I think it's a great description. Pastor Mark has his own preaching style, his own mannerisms, but none of these really matter. What counts is that the congregation he's speaking to hears truth in a fresh, bold new way, one that is thankfully uncomfortable, sometimes difficult, but always true.

Today's sermon started with an explanation of how we all see things through a set of lenses, a set of perspectives, unique to each of us but nevertheless a list we're all born with. Not necessarily a particularly novel idea, but even so a great reminder that in case you've forgotten, we have our own biases that paint the way we see the World. I am white, from an evangelical conservative background, middle-class (by American standards), a Midwesterner, etc. All of these are comfortable boxes to stay in, and all are what I believe I am called to try to escape from, for whatever period of time necessary, if I am to live to my fullest potential. The actual sermon was on evangelism -- bringing the message of the Gospel to the World -- and to do this, we are required to understand the perspective of the person we're trying to help (if we don't do this, who are we really helping?)

Anyway, what does any of this have to do with paradox? My pastor opened his sermon today with a list of pre-set conditions that he was born with. Many were the same as mine, of course. So the paradox for me here is this: he's the only pastor I've ever had (in 40 years!) who was willing to be so personal about himself, so honest and vulnerable, in this way.

And he's the best pastor, hands-down, I've ever had.

And I love that fact! That the pastor I admire most is the one who's been most willing to say 'I'm as imperfect as any of you'; but truthfully, I've had other pastors who did even that -- so what's different?

Mark makes it personal. It's one thing to throw out quotes from the Bible about everyone sinning (aren't pastors supposed to say that, after all? to put everyone at ease?) and it's quite another to say 'these people were my parents, and they were good, decent people, but their perspective, the way THEY were raised, gave me a different colored lens I now have to look through for the rest of my life.' He had a whole demonstration I won't get into here, so I'll just say it was powerful.

It's that way with Mark's preaching a lot. I especially like the weeks he takes the church to task for its hypocrisy, but it's never been in a way that makes people think he isn't guilty of the same sin himself, or that he hasn't been part of the same problem. It's a little difficult to explain without actually hearing it, so if you're ever interested you can listen online at: http://www.springarborfm.org/

I know this won't be my only post dealing with the paradox, but that's it for now --

All of this makes me wonder how many lenses are painting our vision that we don't even know are there...