Flippin' Mad

The hope of starting a brand new story

Jul 24, 2023

Years ago a young woman who wanted to join our church hesitated doing so because she had been excommunicated from her previous church. She told me that she had run afoul of the church’s session (the ruling body in a presbyterian church) for not wearing a bra to a church Bible study. When I followed up with this church’s pastor, he told me that the session had attempted to meet with her to discuss what they considered her sin, but when she refused to do so, they excommunicated her. The “session” in this case, in very un-presbyterian fashion, consisted of just the pastor. That this young woman refused to meet alone with a man to discuss her choice of undergarments was the correct call. That a pastor charged with the care of Christ’s flock would not understand this and would further traumatize her by such a censure angers me still.

Much worse stories are all around us, and they should make us angry. We should be angry when shepherds harm the sheep. They not only harm the sheep, but in the process they malign the office they occupy. When a pastor goes off the rails, the stain of his misconduct affects not only his reputation, but that of us all.

So completely has the reputation of pastors and the church been eroded that we are hardly surprised anymore. An elder in a church in which I’ve worshiped was recently jailed for the admitted ongoing sexual abuse of his disabled daughter. We are to be angry for the evil this elder inflicted on his daughter. But as well, we are to be angry for the contribution such actions make to the ongoing crumbling credibility of Christ’s church. In a recent interview, Marcus Mumford of the band Mumford and Sons spoke about being sexually abused when he was six. Mumford, a pastor’s son, was quick to say, “Not by family and not in the church.” The now common association of abuse and the church in the popular mind required him to make that qualification. This should sadden us. It should also anger us.

Jesus had no room for shepherds devouring the sheep. We, it seems, do. If a pastor is successful and the church’s leadership fears the loss of income or influence, the pastor is often defended and propped up and not held to account. Rarely are well entrenched pastors removed. The more frequent narrative is that churches and leaders circle the wagons and excuse abusive behavior.

By contrast, the heart of Ezekiel

beat strongly in Jesus’ chest. Jesus’ anger, like that of the fiery prophet, was aroused by leaders who used the sheep for their own agenda. When Jesus found leaders mistreating his sheep, tables got flipped. It’s an easy trope, I know, to reduce the Bible to a question of “what would Jesus do?” But in this case I wonder if I’m really angry enough.

Anger, of course, important as it is, is not ultimately constructive. The true question is what we ought to do with our anger.

The temptation is strong in an internet world to broadcast our anger on Facebook or Twitter, or, closer to home, in a newsletter or a podcast, so that others will judge us properly mad. This may make us feel like we’ve done something,

and maybe we have. But it can’t be enough.

When there is a pastor who has done wrong, and when there are those supporting this pastor implying that he, or she, is too gifted or too impactful to face critical scrutiny, we need to summon all the courage we can to call this out as the mockery of Christ-likeness that it is. We need to break the circle the wagons cycle.

We have the opportunity in our ministries to create a new story of grace and transparency for the world to read. What authority do we bear as ambassadors for Christ if we reflect so little of the character of the King for whom we claim to speak? To nurture a more Christ-like church culture is a higher priority than that of growing in size or numbers or status or dollars or political influence.

And lest we become that which we abhor, our anger at all times is to be a flame that illuminates the dark corners of our own wicked hearts. Because the pressure to be noticed coupled with the loneliness of the pastoral call can misshape a pastor’s heart, we need to be critical of our own hearts and actions and not just those of others. When I heard many years ago that a young pastor, a seminary classmate, had left his wife for another woman, it scared me. If he could fall, how safe was I? Without scrutiny, appreciation slips into lust, leadership morphs into control, and caution becomes paranoia. Our hearts must always be in the crosshairs of critical judgment.

And we need to be alert to how easily our very proper anger can mask a very improper self-righteous disdain. It is too easy to share space with the Pharisee in Jesus’ parable, thinking if not saying, “God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, adulterers, or even like this abusive pastor.”

In so doing, we forget the gospel we all need.

For all of this, we need honest friends to help us keep our deck clear, our accounts short, and our acquaintance with grace fresh.

Our fundamental calling is to care for and protect the sheep before us. Paul pushed back, with anger I might note, against those who sought to undermine his reputation among the Corinthian church, driving this stake in the ground: “I seek not what is yours, but you.”

He would not use the sheep as a pathway to power, or as a platform for public influence. He would not use the church for self-enrichment or even self-validation. What he sought was the sheep, their good, their care, their safety.

Anything that hinders this should make us all flippin’ mad.

It’s good for us to read and re-read Ezekiel 34 now and then.

We may easily fall into the trap of the false apostles whose motive Paul exposes is that of wanting others to make much of them.
“They make much of you, but for no good purpose. They want to shut you out, that you may make much of them.” (Galatians 4:17)

Luke 18:11

2 Corinthians 12:14