Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Only Lazy Pastors Work Hard

Preparing to do nothing last week in Cancun.
In The Contemplative Pastor Eugene Peterson subversively quotes C.S. Lewis as saying "only lazy people work hard." Peterson is especially referring to pastors: only lazy pastors work hard. Why?

Lazy pastors become "busy" and work hard for two ignoble reasons:



  1.      I am busy because I am vain. I want to appear important. Significant. What better way than to be busy? (Kindle Location 156)
  2.       I am busy because I am lazy I indolently let others decide what I will do instead of resolutely deciding myself. I let people who do not understand the work of the pastor write the agenda for my day's work because I am too slipshod to write it myself. (Kindle Locations 161-163)
When God calls you to do something so that your doing is relevant because it emerges from your being-with God, then be relevantly busy and hard-working. But...

... re. #2 Peterson writes:


"By lazily abdicating the essential work of deciding and directing, establishing values and setting goals, other people do it for us; then we find ourselves frantically, at the last minute, trying to satisfy a half dozen different demands on our time, none of which is essential to our vocation, to stave off the disaster of disappointing someone…

… How can I lead people into the quiet place beside the still waters if I am in perpetual motion? How can I persuade a person to live by faith and not by works if I have to juggle my schedule constantly to make everything fit into place?" (Kindle Locations 166-171)