Dan's Thoughts

Pastor Hardwick #5 - August 10th, 2005

Last night, in our “Town Hall” meeting, pastor Hardwick spoke of the three kinds of spiritual leaders that God uses in his kingdom: the prophet, the priest and the king. In a later email, perhaps I can write more about the office of “king” or “governance.” Today, I was struck by the differences between the priest and the prophet.

The priest and the prophet often seem to be at odds with one to another. In fact, entire denominations are usually organized around promoting one of these and ignoring the other. (Haven’t you ever heard of a non-prophet organization? Sorry!) However, the health of God’s people requires that these different ministries function in freedom and honor toward one another.

The difference between a “prophet” and a “priest” struck home to me a couple of years ago. Trish and I had spent the night trying to console friends of ours who had lost their newborn child. This couple had earnestly sought God for a child for many years. They had gone to the hospital in great joy, ready to deliver the long-expected child. However, the doctors quickly discovered that the infant had died the day before. So, that Saturday night, after a beautiful, baby girl had been delivered and a weeping father had rocked her lifeless body until dawn, I drove home to get ready for church. As I drove, I discarded the sermon I had prepared for that morning. I then begin to vent my frustration and pain to God. At one point, my passion was so great that I feared I might have crossed the line into disrespect and impiety. So I shouted out: “God, how do I speak for you today after all of this?”

Then I heard a voice deep within my heart, “sometimes people don’t need a prophet speaking to people on God’s behalf. Sometimes they need a priest, speaking to God on the people’s behalf.”

Suddenly, I understood. I had not really realized before that sometimes being a pastor is about voicing the questions and emotions of a flock to God. (In ancient times, such a prayer was called a collect, because it “collected” the bits and pieces of prayer that the people of the congregation wished to present to God together.)

Well, that morning as I stood to preach, I rambled through pieces of thoughts and emotions. I told the people that I didn’t understand. I cried. If one were expecting an articulate, thoughtful sermon, I had made a mess of things. That’s why it amazed me when so many people told me that I had expressed exactly what they felt. Had it been written down, it would have been nothing but a rambling trail of confusion. So what had happened? I had served that morning as a conduit for what the people were feeling but had neither words nor forum to make those feelings known. A “priest” collects these feelings and offers them in the assembly up to God. (That is what many of the Psalms are about.) This makes the “priestly” function essential in the life of a church.

So a pastor must learn when he should allow his heart to speak, even if it comes out in unguarded bursts of unedited emotion. Sometimes, of course, doing that would be highly inappropriate. (No one wants the pilot of the plane they are riding to begin weeping and wailing!) But sometimes the best prayer we can offer on behalf of suffering people is a lament. (There is another book in the Bible of laments!)

In the last few years, Christians have become used to “prophetic” prayers and preaching. That’s when the minister makes proclamations, expresses confident faith and confesses victory in a powerful, forceful voice. Sometimes that is exactly what the church needs. However, sometimes a church needs a priestly prayer or a priestly message. Usually such a priestly function gets carried out in more halting, unsure steps than the prophetic mode of delivery.

Two days ago, I watched our pastor minister to a dear woman who grew up in our church. She has cancer and her future is under a cloud. After listening to her pain for a while, he asked us to gather around her. Then he gently placed his hands on her head and began to weep. He did that for some time. It would have been impossible for Kelly not to realize at that point that her pastor loved her. She could see clearly that her pain was breaking his heart. Then, after a while, he began to pray. He spoke faith and healing into her spirit and body.

After the prayer, as we were leaving, she began laughing. I had opened the door to go outside but had opened the wrong one. I was standing in her laundry room, confused and bewildered. For a few seconds, she could laugh at a clumsy and absent-minded friend. Cancer got smaller for a few minutes.

Sometimes our strengths comfort God’s people. Sometimes our weaknesses can comfort them even more. Though we love the stories our Lord told and the miracles He performed, when we are in great need and when we want to depict Him in art and song, we so often think of Him in His vulnerability, bleeding for us, helpless on a cross, the Great High Priest, carrying our needs to the Father.

This congregation and Christian leaders in many denominations and in many places love Pastor Hardwick. He is bewildered sometimes, I think by the depth of feeling that people have toward him. He thinks of himself as a flawed and ordinary person. What we all love about him though is not primarily because he has done great exploits, though of course he has and we are proud of him for it. No, our love for him is about something far deeper. It’s about having a pastor who has carried the needs of this people in his heart. He has preferred being a representative of broken people before an Almighty God than to be an impressive representative of Almighty God to the people. He has been a priest to us. And, as a Protestant who believes in the “priesthood of all believers,” he has tried to teach us how to be priestly toward one another.

I wish we could bottle this quality and distribute it among pastors everywhere. It is sorely needed. However, we can all get it at the same place he got it – from the broken body of the High Priest who hung upon a tree that we might have life more abundantly.

(All the previous emails are available at christchurchnashville.org . Just click on Dan's Thoughts!)

Dan