Peterson

December 5, 2018

“So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.”

“I’m speaking to you out of deep gratitude for all that God has given me, and especially as I have responsibilities in relation to you. Living then, as every one of you does, in pure grace, it’s important that you not misinterpret yourselves as people who are bringing this goodness to God. No, God brings it all to you. The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what he does for us, not by what we are and what we do for him.” —Romans 12:1-3 MSG

This past October, the Church lost one of its often unsung heroes. Eugene Peterson passed away at 85, having pastored for 29 years the same Presbyterian congregation he founded in 1969, retiring in 1991. He is best known for his translation of the Bible known as “The Message,” but also wrote a number of solid and worthy books on the practice of pastoral ministry. 

In one of them, he wrote that too many pastors don’t really believe their own theology. We say we believe in Original Sin, but when Christians act like the sinners they are, we get angry. “It’s impossible to minister out of anger,” he mused. “If we actually believed our theology,” he surmised, “we wouldn’t be surprised when Christians behave like sinners, and would be pleasantly surprised when they actually acted like Christians.” 

Those words breathed life into my soul at a time when we were dealing with a lot of angry people, many of whom were acting in decidedly unchristian ways. His wisdom helped me navigate some very turbulent waters back then, and although I usually prefer more time-proven and literally translated versions, his Message cuts through some of the religious jargon we tend to throw around willy-nilly. Romans 12:1 he translates as, “Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering.” It’s hard to get much plainer or poignant than this. 

Verse 3 reads, “The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what he does for us, not by what we are and what we do for him.” We have tried psychology, we’ve defined ourselves politically, sexually, racially, none of which has been particularly effective at helping us live meaningful and grace-filled lives. We are more at odds with one another than ever before, more out of touch with our own inner selves, and as a result, more depressed, more addictive, more isolated than ever before. I’ve told people for years, “Don’t let anyone tell you who you are. That’s God’s job alone.” If we truly understood who we are in light of the love of God and the gift of Jesus Christ, many of our problems would resolve themselves. 

Tonight I am thankful for God’s gift to the Church of Eugene Peterson; his wisdom and scholarship, and his heart for pastors and the Church they serve. Never having met me, he blessed me greatly, and hopefully through me, many others as well.