“Pastoral
work devoid of eschatology declines into a court chaplaincy — sprinkling holy water
on consumerist complacency and religious gratification.”
— Eugene H. Peterson, Under
the Unpredictable Plant
Eschatology for the uninitiated is about the end; ultimately
death, judgment, destiny of soul and humankind.
But there’s a nuance of eschatology in pastoral work that Peterson
identifies as crucial in the journey beyond the grips of ‘religion’ that
stifles all spiritual progress. We have to
get beyond legalism, but we also need to get beyond a comfortable
never-comes-the-end spirituality.
As Jonah advanced into Nineveh he was steeled in his approach:
the people were shortly to be overthrown if they didn’t repent. And his rebuke was heard even by Nineveh’s
king. He repented. As did the whole city. That didn’t make Jonah happy, but that’s a
story for another day.
It should make every pastor’s day when he or she witnesses the
repentance of a person with which they have some influence. The Holy Spirit has convicted the person,
sometimes with the pastor’s help, sometimes without. Any change amid repentance is a miracle of
God’s willing and working grace.
The people of Nineveh had forty days to mend their ways. Purpose at the forefront. The end in sight. Suddenly there’s an imperative. A cosmic size nine boot. Immediately there’s attention given to the
enormity of the work at hand. It’s the
pastor’s dream that people around them are caught in the full beam of God’s
headlights — stunned from frozenness into action.
Many pastors abandon their calling because they find themselves
ineffective in changing people’s lives, when that’s the Holy Spirit’s job
alone. They get burned out doing
anything in their power to give the Holy Spirit a leg up. They finish frustrated, because they still
took on too much. That’s why pastoral
work can seem to be a mystery. It’s not
our effort that brings results, but we must certainly do all we can to biblically
position a person’s thinking.
Peterson suggests that “Without
eschatology the [fishing] line goes slack and there is nothing pulling us to
the heights, to holiness, to the prize of the high calling in Christ Jesus.”
(p. 144, Under
the Unpredictable Plant)
Pastoral work must have some urgency about it. The Christian journey is impelled better by
no other force that by thought of the imminent end.
***
The end will come eventually; of our careers, our lives, of
life. We have now the choice. To do God’s will, His urgent will for now,
not for tomorrow.
Spiritual progress is about being uncomfortable without feeling
forced; relying on God without becoming bound by rules. That’s a balance the pastor is trying to
facilitate in lives within their influence.
© 2016 Steve Wickham.
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