Out Our Way: The Gospel according to Goliath

Jesus began to teach by the lakeside. A very great crowd collected to hear him, so great that he had to get on a boat and sit in it on the lake so they could all see and hear him. And he began to teach them with parables.

- Mark 4:1-2

Out our way, we value knowledge, but we don't necessarily equate it with mere book learning. Real education is not limited to the classroom but takes place in a variety of settings and from a variety of teachers.

When I was in college and seminary, I was impressed with the degrees and diplomas earned by the faculty. To have a Ph.D and be granted a full professorship was clearly a wonderful thing. And being an ignorant fellow, I had lots of room for new knowledge, for which I was grateful.

Indeed I am grareful to the professors who attempted to open my tiny brain and pour some knowledge in. These were great men and women to whom I owe a very real and sincere debt. But they were not my only teachers and the classroom was not the only place of higher learning.

I confess, when I had managed to pass all my courses in seminary with fairly high marks, managed to pass all my ordination exams on the first try, and even managed to pass my oral exams without totally messing up - I was pretty full of myself.

I was, after all, a graduate of a prestigeous university - a bona fide biblical scholar with a masters from another well known and prestigeous seminary - and was now an ordained Presbyterian Minister. Wow! Was I impressed with me!

I wore my academic robes - with the master's academic hood - with great pride. Imagine my shock to discover no one else was that impressed. Greenhorn pastors come and go out our way - often badly infected with professional pride and only too quick to demand everyone recognize their authority and power. And then they wonder why no one respects them. Some never learn what everyone out our way knows - "respect has to be earned."

That I could read Greek and Hebrew was interesting, but what they really wanted to know was did I care about them? I recall some seminary professors suggesting that pastors should work specific hours and limit their availability to the congregation. Tell that to the farmer or rancher who doesn't punch a time clock. Nobody cares how many hours you already put in when the storm clouds filled with hail are coming and you have just enough daylight to make a few more sweeps during the harvest. Nobody cares what time it is or how inconvenient it is when your cows are calving and the sheep are lambing at 3 a.m. in the middle of a blizzard. Nobody cares how much time the pastor already put into sermon preparation or administration when Aunt Sally is in ICU and may not make it through the night. Maybe I missed that class, but that sort of thing is not something I learned from biblical scholars and professors - it is something I learned from ordinary, everyday people who understood life doesn't revolve around time clocks but around people.

Jesus understood the ministry is not a profession but a life style. And he also understood that academics are fine and wonderful things, but the true test of the man or woman of God is love. He taught in the synagogue where the scholars and Bible students were, but he also taught at the lake side under the open air where everyone else was. He could argue from the scriptures with the best of them, but he also could put it in plain ordinary stories that everyone could understand.

Like Jesus, another rabbi, when asked to explain the scriptures said,"You shall love the Lord your God with all your soul - and care for your neighbor as you would care for yourself. The rest is merely commentary." Man, if I could just get that part right, everything else would fall into place. God is not impressed with diplomas and academic honors, but with faithul loving hearts. You don't need a Ph.D. to be a true "professor" of that!

(John Bruington, Scout and Goliath can be found at http://www.havrepres.org. The book "Out Our way: Theology Under Saddle" is available at Amazon.com.)