TEE - The Pastor is Not the Boss

Christian servanthood is perhaps one of the most counter-cultural teachings of the faith.  This weekend as we taught about servanthood we learned a lot about Ugandan culture and about the expectations our students have of clergy.  Their perception of who a pastor is has been shaped by the pastors they see in Uganda.  In the Anglican church, a man must be fairly well off if not wealthy before he is eligible to be an Anglican priest according to one of our students who was formerly a lay leader in the Anglican Church.  The other prominent pastoral figure in Ugandan society is the preacher at the churches we would identify as pentecostal in leaning although they are more appropriately associated with those who preach the prosperity gospel - the message that if you give your money to the church God will bless you for your generosity, lifting you from poverty and liberating you from the oppression under which you struggle.  It's a message that preys on the weaknesses of desperate people - the worst kind of lie - that holds only empty promises and false hope.  As you can imagine, though, these prosperity gospel preachers are very wealthy.  Some of the Miracle Center churches which preach this message have more than 5,000 members attending every Sunday.  So when a Ugandan thinks of a pastor or priest, these are the people that spring to mind, men of wealth and power and influence, men of secular success.  An individual of such wealth and financial security, a business owner, an individual who employ others, is known in Uganda as a "big man" or a "boss."

And I'm sure that this is the image many of our students have of what it will be like to be a pastor in the Lutheran church here. For maybe as long as 10 years some of our students may have had their eyes on the financial security they would have once they became pastors.  So as we walked together in our TEE class this weekend and learned from each other we wrote this startling message up on the whiteboard: "The pastor is not the boss."  We walked through Scripture, from Isaiah to the Gospels to Paul's letters and together we investigated this Christian servanthood, this way that God has turned things upside down, using those who are weak so that His strength may be made known, taking those who are least and making them greatest.  And together with our students we all struggled with this difficult teaching.  As our presentation began to wind down and the students began leading the discussion, over and over again they spoke of money.  For half an hour they talked one after the other about money and funding and how a church can make money.  Finally, Rev. Gillard stopped the discussion and pointed to "The pastor is not the boss" and asked, "What does money have to do with Christian Servanthood?"  So we struggled together.

Students approached me individually during sessions or at breaks to talk to me about how difficult this is - how we are in essence deconstructing their image of a pastor right before their very eyes.  One student even told me, "this is against our culture."  Well, of course it is.  It was against Jewish culture at the time of Christ and against every human culture before and after, including American culture, and of course including Ugandan culture.  It wasn't that they didn't believe us - we walked through the Scripture together and they attest to the integrity of what we were learning.  It was just a struggle to see what should be in contrast to what is.  In the Lutheran Church here, no congregation has had the privilege of having its own pastor - no congregation has ever had opportunity to financially support a man dedicated to serving them.  But in the next few years almost 20 men will be graduating from Seminary and returning to serve in the Lutheran Church Mission in Uganda.  These servants of the Word will need congregations who embrace them and provide for their work.  We hope that, starting with these men in TEE, the Lutheran church here will see and embrace Christian servanthood - we are none of us the boss, we are all but servants.