The downfall of another evangelical superstar, in this case Ted Haggard, seems to bring glee to the media and occasionally a little smirk to the ordinary pastor who has been laboring under the silent judgment that somehow he or she doesn’t measure up to the media darlings. Yet I would suggest that the whole Christian Body is diminished when these type of events occur. There are few events that damage the body more than the apparent betrayal of a pastor in a congregation. Even more than a politician with his constituency or a CEO with his shareholders, there is a special relationship between a pastor and the congregation.
Like it or not, as pastors we symbolize something far greater than the office that we hold. When you walk into the room of a sick person or offer a listening ear to a troubled parishioner, or rise to proclaim the word on a Sunday morning there is some mysterious sense in which we represent a hoped for connection with the divine. Oh, of course, most members would say that you are not supposed to be more than human and small idiosyncrasies are often tolerated as the necessary crust of the bread. Many would be reluctant to suggest that the pastor is more holy than the rest and yet, he or she represents something greater than the individual person. We might be more intellectually stimulated by the speech of a learned professor or the essay of a columnist, but there is a reason why people continue to gather and by guided in worship by this person called to be pastor. In some way that is hard to explain, people keep coming because they yearn to make contact with the divine. And the pastors keep urging people to prepare the soil for that encounter by the improved living of their lives.
Perhaps the closest analogy can be that of marriage. However cynical we become in our society, when two people marry, they express a yearning for a deep love that can help fulfill the aching loneliness within them. Genesis is right when it records God saying, “it is not good for the human to be alone.” We find our humanity enhanced by our relationship with others. And the covenant relationship between two people provides the possibility of a deep fulfillment made possible by love. That is what makes the betrayal of such a relationship so painful. I think there is a similarity with the betrayal of a pastor in a congregation. In both cases, the effect of the betrayal also spreads beyond the immediate relationship. The rampant occurrence of so many divorces in our society weakens all our marriages. The betrayal of a pastor that is publicly exposed weakens the trust level in all of our congregations.
It is not time to gloat. It is time to weep.
