1. The Holy Bible (NRSV), Genesis 5:24.

      Pastoral Formation in the Congregation

      The Elders are gathered in their Meeting Room,

      Eight of the twelve of them.

      Sunday worship is due to start soon.

      At five minutes till, the Pastor comes in.

      As he enters the room, they all rise

      In a decades-old greeting tradition.

      This Pastor is new here, still ill at ease,

      Made more so by this old-fashioned custom.

      “Is it me you guys are standing for?” asks he.

      “You men don’t need to stand up for me.”

      He graduated in the Eighties from Seminary,

      And is more comfortable relating casually.

      But he gives off an air of superiority,

      A self-centeredness of which he’s not aware;

      Unable to acknowledge his insecurity,

      He compensates with a casual flair.

      But almost all of these Elders are farmers,

      They’re quite used to smelling manure.

      A certain amount of it is harmless,

      But a big pile of it is hard to ignore.

      After weeks of these same protestations,

      The discomfort increased on both sides.

      The Elders respected his education;

      His disrespect of their wisdom was not wise.

      They sensed that he was caught up in himself,

      That his modesty was actually a disguise

      For inner doubts about his spiritual health,

      And a willfulness he wouldn’t recognize.

      Unresolved tension continued to increase;

      And everyone began to fear an outburst.

      Then one Sunday they heard a still small voice,

Verifying the trope that the last shall be first.2

      “It’s not you that we’re rising for, Pastor;

      It’s for the role that you’re sent here to fill.”

      The Spirit was speaking through Arie Lanser:

      The whole room became profoundly still.

      The tension immediately disappeared,

      But Arie continued to speak;

      The Spirit was empowering each word,

      Through Arie’s voice, which was otherwise weak.

      “You’re the one who leads us in worship,

      You preach the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ,

      You’re set apart and ordained to God’s service;

      That’s the reason—not just for you—we all rise.”

      Arie was a thin, diminutive man,

      Not a man with a big booming voice.

      We’re often much clearer that the Spirit’s at hand

      By the irony of the Spirit’s human choice.

      Wise is suspicion of a charismatic man;

      He appeals to the ideal in us all.

      We can lose ourselves in his animation,

      And forget that the Spirit’s in us all.

      Pastor’s ordination had been self-ordination:

      At the center was his ego, not God;

      But he was haunted by his own imperfection,

      Which he tried hard to deny but could not.

      He believed God wanted him to be perfect

      Before using him, so he tried hard to hide

      His inadequacies, but then all he had left

      Was false modesty and a self-deluding pride.

      He’d thus set himself up to be desolate,

      Cut off from other humans and God.

      The real God didn’t expect him to be perfect,

      But to be humble and empowered by God.

      What Arie offered him was the gift of new life:

      God’s presence as mediated through words,

      And a roomful of men channeling love,

      Reassuring him he could serve as he was.

      So the Pastor was freed from his prison,

      Learned the distinction between himself and his role.

      He could accept that he was a fellow fallen human,

And that a Leader is servant of all.3

      The whole tone of that Meeting Room changed:

      There was camaraderie and mutual respect.

      He learned to welcome their greeting of him,

      To receive their blessing like a robe round his neck.

God’s Word is indeed a sharp two-edged sword;4