Stir and Season to Taste

The other evening in Bible study, we were commenting on St. Paul’s instructions to husbands and wives in Ephesians chapter 5. Speaking mostly with older couples who are veterans of marriage and who have made the deliberate choice to make the marriage relationship work, even in difficult days, is always an interesting time. After all, last week marked my 21^st wedding anniversary – I’m no wedded rookie. But being in the same room with couples who have been married twice or even two and a half times as long as we’ve been married is quite humbling. Their stories, with their lives intrinsically intertwined like a decades-old mustang grape trellis, mark significant milestones of 40, 50, or more years of marriage as husband and wife. To God the glory!

In the midst of what had been a rather fun and freewheeling discussion for the past hour, I paused to ask for questions. One woman jokingly interjected, “Where have you been my whole life?” As the room erupted in laughter and then subsided to a few titters, she added that these are things that each couple needs to hear – not just those preparing to be married. Given the length that some of these couples had been married, I was quite humbled she thought highly of my teaching.

But, having just celebrated my 17^th ordination anniversary on Sunday, and then my 21^st wedding anniversary, I thought about the journey the Lord leads each of us on from day to day, from place to place, interacting with different people each day. The Lord daily uses each event, each place, each person we deal with, each vocational challenge we face helps to shape, to mold and teach us for what we face next. All of those “little things” – seemingly so unimportant in the time and moment in which they take place – add up to become the tapestry with which we live our lives and our faith in daily events.

Seventeen years ago, I thought I had every theological answer in the bag. Freshly ordained, minted, pressed, folded and squeezed into the clergy roster of the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod I thought I was ten feet tall and bullet proof. I was Super Pastor, better than the preceding pastor in the parish I served and, probably, I thought I was better than most pastors around, too. That lasted about six weeks. A couple came to me with concerns about their adult son’s eternal salvation; a widow spoke with me about missing her husband who had been dead for a decade; a young man was concerned about his relationship with his girlfriend. I wasn’t ready for these questions. Perhaps I skipped class the day those were discussed; maybe I didn’t read those Bible passages that would have been helpful; I suppose I could have forgotten what was covered in pastoral theology class.

And, then again, perhaps it wasn’t that I didn’t skip, or read, or forget: I simply wasn’t yet “seasoned enough” to be able to answer those questions well.

If you’ve ever used cast iron, there is a trick to it. Do not, under any circumstances, go buy a cast iron skillet and plan to use it the same night. It just won’t work. You’ll wind up ordering from Lee’s China Inn as you deal with a baked on, caked-on, burned-to-a-crisp mess in your cast iron skillet and a pledge to never use it for anything other than an outdoor chime to call the kids home from the neighbor’s house. No – cast iron needs to made ready to return to you wonderful deliciousness that can only be achieved in a well-seasoned pan. Briefly, you massage the cast iron with shortening and, low & slow, bake the oiled pan in your oven. Leave it alone and let it cool, sitting quietly and undisturbed overnight with the excess shortening pooled in the pan. The next day, wipe out the old shortening and re-grease it with fresh shortening and do the process again. And again, one more day, maybe one more time after that if you want. The point is to get the pan well-oiled – “seasoned” – so it will become a handy instrument for cooking and baking. There’s no “buy it today, cook on it tonight” here, folks – it takes time to turn that cast iron pan into your friend.

Pastors also need to be seasoned, although – as a general rule - we prefer not to be coated in oil and slow roasted. Save that for the Sunday dinner of pot roast and ‘taters that you want us to help eat. Pastors are seasoned with the difficulties of the people in our parishes: the marriage conflicts, the children who are in trouble in school, the work-related issues, the unemployment office, the job transfer, the infidelity, the infertility, the twins (or triplets!), the loan shark, the growing debt, and leaking roof, and even the mother-in-law. Yes, we approach each situation – hopefully – with the Word of God and with prayer, but there are some things that just can’t be taught in a Seminary classroom or in a textbook or even by reading the Bible. Some things only come with the seasoning of experience accumulated over the years of seminary preparation and parish experience, and finally with a dash of sanctified common sense.

Martin Luther described the pastor’s life as one of prayer, meditation and “tentatio” – the struggle of the office of the ministry. That’s what I am describing here: the seasoning. Sometimes, the seasoning is salty, sweet, or spicy hot depending whether the lessons sting, encourage, or burn. And, just because it stings or burns, it’s not necessarily bad; likewise, just because it’s encouraging doesn’t mean it’s always the most helpful thing at the time.

If you’ve read this blog, you know I’ve recently moved to my 3^rd parish. I hope I’m more seasoned than I was 17 years ago. To the saints of Grace Lutheran in Crockett, TX, I offer my thanks for your patience with a bland, flavorless seminary graduate and the many insipid and flavorless things I said and did there. Yet, your interaction with me helped shape me and season me in ways you never got to see. After 13 years in Crosby, as I was gleaning and cleaning out old files, I discovered my initial sermons from 2004. While the theology was good, it was like I was only cooking with salt and pepper – the seasoning wasn’t quite right, yet, although it started to taste better. As time went on, and as the events and interactions continued to season me, my pastoral practice became more flavorful, leading me to what I am today as a parish pastor.

Lest any reader think this is about me tooting my own horn – or, to continue the cooking metaphor, buzzing my own cooking timer – let me assure you, that is not my point. Any cook will tell you – the seasoning’s job is to enhances the flavor of the main ingredient, not to replace it. As pastors become more seasoned, the Holy Spirit uses us to help people more clearly see Jesus and His mercy and grace, delivered through Word and Sacrament, to the people. Suddenly, the flavors of God’s rich spiritual food begin to burst upon our spiritual palate. Well-seasoned pastors are able to dip into the pages of Scripture and apply, with wisdom and gentleness and insight, the truths of God’s Word to hurting, or grieving, or struggling, or questioning hearts and minds. Instead of simply a “by the book” answer out of a Seminary textbook, a well-seasoned pastor takes that truth, seasoned with his own life experiences and interaction with other saints of God, and melds those flavors into an essence of a God-given gift in that moment and time.

And that brings me back to the woman’s comment the other evening. “Where have you been my whole life?” I was where God had me, slowly being seasoned and prepared for a new place and time of ministry.  Sometimes the seasoning stung; sometimes it was rather sweet; sometimes the seasoning was so spicy that I was tempted to just give up and sell cemetery plots. Looking back, I wouldn’t want to do a lot of it again, but I am thankful for it all – even the dark days of my dumbassery (see previous post) – because it shaped me to who and what I am today as a pastor. With my ordination almost two decades in the rear-view mirror, a lot of the sharp edges have been worn away – that’s good. I’m no longer as sharply pressed as I used to be, my folds are a little deeper and it takes more effort to squeeze into my alb on a Sunday morning – I’m fine with that. And I am eternally grateful that youthful arrogance has been replaced with confidence that comes from experience and (thank God!) a keen understanding that Romans 8:1 applies to me, too (look it up…).

I’m not done being seasoned, yet. There’s more to come - I hope!. Right now I know I’m enjoying a time of sweetness – what we call “the honeymoon phase” of a new ministry. There will come a time when the seasoning will sting a bit or burn a while or even leave a scratch or two. That’s part of the tentatio. With God’s grace, the seasoning will continue to meld and shape me so that the Gospel that is preached continues to have new flavor and never be bland.