A Ramble About Kung Fu Pastors

This is a subject which, in my experience, most people really don't seem to understand or get. There is a profession which really requires years of study and hands on experience. The training for it often requires personal and financial sacrifices which can leave the student in financial debt in the many tens of thousands of dollars. The moral standards to which the student is held are absolute. When this professional level is finally achieved, the person is often asked to work for near minimum wage, or no salary at all, and they are expected to be fine with it. To top it off, just about everyone else who hasn't spent the time, effort and money studying and practicing generally believes they know more about this profession than the person licensed to practice it, and most disregard his advice and instruction when it suits them.

Do you know what this profession is? Talk to your pastor. He'll know exactly what I'm talking about.

Everyone seems to think they are able to interpret the Holy Scriptures, and instruct others in the path of Jesus Christ better than those actually trained to do it, and the less experience they have as a Christian, the more able they believe themselves to be. I know, I used to do it too. Chances are if you're reading this, so did you at one time.

It's not a new problem. St. Neilos writes about it in the early fifth century:

There is another thing which in my opinion is truly disgraceful, and for which with good reason we are ridiculed by all. When someone has just entered the monastic life and has learnt merely about the outward practices of asceticism – how and when monks pray, what they eat and how they dress – at once he claims to teach others concerning things he has not mastered himself. He goes about with a bevy of disciples, although himself still needing instruction; he thinks it easy to be a spiritual guide, not realizing the care of all men's souls is of all things the most difficult. … To master any art requires time and much instruction; can the art of arts alone be mastered without being learnt? No one without experience would go in for farming; not would someone who has never been taught medicine try to practice as a doctor. The first would be condemned for making good farmland barren and weed infested; the second, for making the sick worse instead of better. The only art which the uninstructed dare to practice, because they think it the simplest of all, is that of the spiritual way. What is difficult the majority regard as easy; and what Paul says he has not yet apprehended, they claim to know through and through, although they do not know even this: that they are totally ignorant. This is why the monastic life has come to be treated with contempt, and those who follow it are mocked by everyone. For who would not laugh when he sees someone who yesterday served in a tavern, posing today as a teacher of virtue, surrounded by pupils? … If such people realized clearly how much painful toil is required to guide others on the spiritual way, and if they knew the risks involved, they would certainly abandon the task as beyond their powers. But because they remain ignorant of this and regard it as a glory to be the guide of others, they will when the moment comes tumble headlong into the pit. (St. Neilos the Ascetic, c. 415 AD, pp. 215-216, The Philokalia The Complete Text, Vol. I, compiled by St. Nikodomos of the Holy Mountain, Palmer, G.E.H., Philip Sherrard, and Kallistos Ware, ed. and trans., New York: Faber and Faber, 1979)

What is truly exasperating is that when the educated and trained pastor tries to point out his education and training as actually qualifying him to do his job, the uneducated and untrained person uses that pastor's education and training against him as though it disqualified him completely! And heaven help the poor pastor if he makes a mistake like losing his temper!

Here's the thing, the Christian faith and rule of life is, first and foremost, a discipline of practice which has to not only be taught, but learned through experience and repetition like a martial art for example. You have to do it over and over again before it becomes ingrained to where you no longer consciously think about it but you just instinctively react that way. This cannot be acquired instantly or through a brief observation. It would be like the nine year old boy who goes to watch an action movie and comes away believing he knows kung-fu because he remembers more or less the movements which the actors made in the movie. When he attempts to show off his new found skills, the clumsiness of his movements demonstrate to everyone that he has no idea what he's doing. So it is with the “disciple” who merely observes or reads about how a Christian is to act and then believes he has arrived. There is also the added problem of the person only observing or reading about “Christians” who themselves are like that nine year old boy. The rule of faith and practice then degenerates into some kind of ridiculous farce which barely, if at all, resembles the original, “Grace”-ful art.

The nine year old who truly wants to learn kung fu will have his parents take him to a training center with someone who has spent the years necessary to master his art (which is actually what “kung fu” means). He will take his place humbly and patiently as a learner and go through the hard work of learning each movement by painfully repeating it over and over again, programming his muscles to respond without thought. He will make painful mistakes, and likely get hurt in the process. He will learn to heal and go right back into training. He will spend years doing this, disciplining his body and mind to where they act in concert. So it is with the person who truly wants to follow the path of Jesus Christ.

Pastors will make mistakes even though they may have been practicing for many years. This doesn't mean they don't know what they're doing. It means they're still under constant demonic attack from temptations and thoughts trying to insinuate themselves within them, and still haven't reached the full maturity of the resurrection yet any more than you or I have. Even St. Paul in Philippians 3 said he hadn't yet achieved this at the time he wrote it.

It is true that there are some pastors who's heads are filled with knowledge, have gone through all the seminary training, and still don't seem to know what they're doing. It is equally true that there are a few that don't seem to have gone through any formal training at all, and yet appear near Sainthood. From my experience (take it as you will), both situations tend to be in the minority.

Although many pastors today tend to avoid using the title “Reverend”, as a pastor friend of mine once said, there's a reason why it's there. It means that person has dedicated a significant amount of the latter part of his life to studying and practicing the faith of Jesus Christ in the best way he knows how, and has done so all so he can pass what he learns on to you through training and discipleship.

Even if he doesn't appear to have it all together, unless he's in known, serious sin, he deserves at least your respect and has earned the right through trials and testing to be thought of as knowing what he's talking about.