Must "Pastor" = Power + Paycheck?

Sue over at Heart Soul Mind Strength went on a rant the other day about "Either/Or" dichotomies.

A few of the either/ors she pointed out: Democrat or a Republican? Liberal or a Conservative? Calvinist or Arminian? Feminist or Traditionalist? Nominalist or Realist? Old Earth or New Earth? Cessationist or Charismatic?

Why, she asks, must we be one or the other? Why, indeed.

I'm sorely tempted to talk about one or the other of those false dichotomies on Sue's list (feminist/traditionalist, for one), but that'll have to wait for another time.

Instead, I'd like to add to the list what I personally believe to be one of the most bothersome "either/ors." This one (again, my opinion) has plagued -- and if I may be so bold to say, has been a plague on -- the church for a long, long time. Not just the PWAPM2UMCE/C (predominantly white, American, Protestant, middle-to-upper-middle class evangelical/charismatic) church, but much of the Western and Eastern church in all its varieties throughout the Northern Hemisphere.

The offending either/or? Clergy/Laity

This particular dichotomy carries with it, like a plague of locusts, a host of other dichotomies:

Paid/Unpaid
Official/Unofficial
Leader/Follower
Initiator/Receiver
Visioner/Visionee
Teacher/Pupil

I could go on, but you get the idea.

The divide represented by that "/" is wide, and it can be very difficult to cross. In fact, though most people would think first of the difficulty of going from right to left (seminary or other formal training, an ordination process, etc.), and I do mean to imply just that. But I want to make clear that I also believe the gap is difficult to cross from left to right. The divorce rate and burn out/drop out/moral failure rate among clergy attests to the loneliness, isolation, depression, frustration, discouragement and sometimes outright despair that can accompany those who aspire to and attain the position.

Worse yet, in most official church bodies (even the one's who don't officially admit it and some who officially have the welcome mat out), the divide is especially wide and deep if you are a woman.

If there was anything about the church that I'd like to see deconstructed, the clergy/laity dichotomy would be at the top of the list.

I know. Fat Chance.

So I've set my sights a bit lower. I'd like to try to rescue a perfectly good God word that has gotten mangled to a fare-you-well in the PWAPM2UMCE/C church clergy/laity machinery and badly needs ironing out. That word is "pastor."

"Pastor" needs saving?? Well ... yea-ah! If we're honest, we'd admit that what pops into our mind when the word is mentioned is "The guy who runs the church."

There is so much wrong with that, its hard to know where to begin. So let's begin with the easy one: "guy." It rolls so easily of the tongue of the shadow side of my mind, it's frightening. But equally difficult is the notion that pastors "run" things. For many, in fact, the position of "Pastor" is synonymous with the wielding of power and the expectation of a paycheck.

I was reading in Ephesians last night, where it says, "It was He (meaning Jesus) who gave some to be to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists and some to be pastors and teachers ...." "Pastor" is mentioned, along with apostle, teacher, evangelist, prophet in a list that may not indicate an order of highest to lowest, making apostle better than pastor, but certainly does NOT raise pastor to the top spot. We tend, today, to view these as roles, or sometimes even offices entitling the occupant to put a capital letter in it. (He's an Apostle. She's a Prophet.) But I wonder if Paul had in mind only descriptors. Ways to picture differently gifted folks?

I certainly don't dispute that apostles, teachers, pastors, etc., were, in some sense also leaders. But in what sense? And how did they get there?

John Frye (one of the "Emerging Churchers" out there in the blogosphere) is doing a fine job of reimagining how Jesus intended the term "pastor" to be taken. I won't belabor his point except to say the Good Shepherd's image was not based on a profession to which many aspired: A shepherd, in Israel, ate with, slept with, lived with the master's sheep. Shepherds "ran" nothing. They were, in fact, among lowest of the socially low. There were not high admission standards for the position. King David was a shepherd because, as the last-born brother in a rather long familial pecking order, he got the job no one else wanted. He became king because he first loved his father's sheep. He protected them. He fed them. He nurtured them. He found them when they were lost. Doctored them when they were hurt. The only criteria for judging a shepherd "good" was, in fact, the health of the sheep.

If we're going to take "pastor" and make it a job, then the requirements need to change. Seems like they'd be simple: When the prospective pastor leads, do others follow? And when they do, do they get healthy? That's got little to do with power and money, and everything to do with a quality of heart that cannot be conferred with a graduate degree and does not automatically come with the keys to an office.