Don’t Confuse the Pastor with the Master

If you happen to look at the categories I picked for this blog, you may be thinking…contradiction. Cheating/Infidelity with Religion/Spirituality? You might query. If bearing false witness and hypocrisy were available categories, I’d be forced to exceed my limit for this one. It’s gonna be a goody!

You see, where I live there’s a GRRREAT BIIIIG Baptist Church and anyone who is anyone in this town goes there to see and be seen, oh, and to worship God of course. And over the years this church has been watered like a little sappling (except with lots and lots of money instead of lots and lots of water) until it has grown and grown and now it’s a big church, kind of like an auditorium–a very huge auditorium with a giant stage and lots of seats for all of the people and all of their money.

The pastor, a very educated man with a very polished exterior, has a great big polished smile and perfectly coiffed silver hair, just enough of a southern accent to get the job done, and a big booming voice, all the better to condemn you to hell with.

I have a friend who was a devoted member of this church once. Her son was a good friend of the pastor’s son and he dated the pastor’s daughter. The daughter became pregnant and the pastor and his wife were furious. They told my friend that she and her family were not welcome in the church. The daughter miraculously became unpregnant and my greatly saddened friend respected their wishes and stopped going to the church. Life went on.

My husband’s family members attend this church and many of them have been married and baptized there. In their eyes, it seems, a person is just not quite up to snuff without the influence of this particular spiritual venue.

I’m getting to the good part. It seems, over the past few weeks, a situation has developed involving Pastor Big Teeth and his secretary. This particular situation, rumor has it, was filmed by the secretary’s suspicious husband. A “thou shalt not” or two may have gotten swept under the bed they were sharing and things got really, really tacky.

As far as the secretary goes, she probably just got confused and thought it said, “He maketh me lie down with pastors.” A simple matter of misinterpretation. Could happen to anyone.

Regarding the shocked congregation, maybe there’s a lesson here. We all tend to be sheep at times and God had the extremes covered when it was proclaimed that we’re not to place false idols before Him. One of the things I don’t like about organized religion is the way God gets lost in a sea of people, competing for spiritual status and attention from a human or humans they’ve placed on a pedestal. It becomes about people, self-righteousness and pious prestige. This is a perfect example of a huge congregation of people confusing a mere man with God. His actions tell the real story. We’d all do well to remember that these people should be regarded as nothing more than conduits to be appreciated for their service, if they’re performing it in humility and sharing God’s message and His grace. Nothing more.

My poor sister in law is reeling from this. She’s appalled that this man baptized her husband and her grandchildren. She’s wondering what’s going to happen to the guy now that he’s left town, jobless. She said, “What do you do if you’re in a situation like this? You have to reveal why you left your last job.” 

Restraint had been on my side up until this point. But the temptation to seize the opportunity was too great for this sinner. I said, “Well, he could just say he was laid off.”