Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

“Celebrate the Festival of Harvest with the firstfruits of the crops you sow in your field.
“Celebrate the Festival of Ingathering at the end of the year, when you gather in your crops from the field.
“Three times a year all the men are to appear before the Sovereign Lord.
“Do not offer the blood of a sacrifice to me along with anything containing yeast.
“The fat of my festival offerings must not be kept until morning.
“Bring the best of the firstfruits of your soil to the house of the Lord your God.
“Do not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk.

• Exodus 23:16-19

For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.

• Philippians 1:21

Who is first in your life?  If most people were honest they would say “ME” with several exclamation points.

My wife had such a servant’s heart that when she went for PTSD therapy, the doctor told her that he could not help her unless she could put herself in the top ten.

She looked at the doctor in anguish and said, “Jesus is number one.  Then comes my five grandchildren, in no particular order.  Then comes my two sons.  Then comes their wives.  Then comes my five sisters and three brothers (one passing away after this therapy session).  Then I have my close friends at church.”

He said, “Therapy will do you no good if you cannot put yourself first in at least one aspect of your life.”

She replied, “I guess I just flunked out of therapy, didn’t I?”

He laughed, “I would not put it that way, but then again, I guess you have.”

She walked out of the room and never went back to therapy.  She had started the therapy when she needed a licensed professional to sign off that she had PTSD in the first place and in his opinion, it started while in the military.  We were denied benefits due to her commanding officer, the head of nursing, doctoring the books to make it look like the PTSD was a pre-existing condition.  The “good” nursing colonel in return got her criminal activity, mostly abusing people like my wife, expunged and allowed to retire.

If you did not notice, she had eighteen numbered people on her list, a church group that probably had at least that many, and she never … never mentioned me or her.  But I made up for it by being the one she saw every day.  I might be forty-four on her list, but I had the benefit of being the one she could hug and kiss when she needed that.  With her now gone, I have to call my son and ask for his daughter to get on the phone.  We growl like we are giving each other a bear hug.  It’s not the same.

But why did this come up?

I was at a church meeting and a side conversation started that the pastor should do house calls.

I grew up with pastors doing house calls.  My children experienced it in their youth, but I do not know if they remember that.  The pastors did “pastoral care” but these days, a layman or two or three will do those calls, taking communion to shut-ins and such.

At the meeting, the reply was that the pastors are taught at seminary to not do that.  They are to put themselves and their family first.

Really?!  The first Scripture is the first and second mentions of firstfruits in the Bible.  Firstfruits is mentioned 32 times in the NIV.  Secondfruits is never mentioned.  In fact, second and fruit are only together in three verses of the Bible, one second son and two second years with an unrelated “fruit” somewhere else in the sentence.

Paul’s “to live is Christ and to die is gain” goes beyond that.  God is not One.  God is truly the only.

Now, I can see the issues here.  I am not blind, but I am reactionary in this regard.  We have gone too far from what I grew up with, but ministers who get divorced is on the rise because ministers, at least from my generation, spent hours visiting people in the hospital and the shut-ins at home.  If the wife is not prepared for that, she should have been informed while they were dating.

Then there is the PK problem, “Preacher’s Kids”.  They are taught to be little angels so that it does not reflect upon dear old Dad, or in some cases these days Mom.  But then the preacher is out doing pastoral care and the spouse is too busy feeling sorry for themselves all alone to exact the discipline that the pastor spouse expects, so the PKs misbehave on purpose to get attention or to just say, “See there, pastor parent, I can be bad too!”  Now, not all PKs are that type of PK, but having the pastor parent home to discipline the children and love on the children should cut down on the PK misbehavior, at least in theory, although I doubt it.

But I see the lowest common denominator that is always the sin nature.  Give someone low expectations and they will drive that expectation even lower until there is no expectation at all.

Is there a problem with divorce and PKism?  I am sure there is, but first the seminaries need to get their own theology right.  Jesus is always first.  Then, if the pastor is required to be a bit selfish, let him put himself and his family second with the church a distant and vanishing third.  Is it biblical?  Not for any of us, including pastors, but adopting a sinful worldview to be our guide is kind of stupid.

Then, if the pastor never pastors, is he or she a pastor?  They do not like being called “preacher,” now what?

But when I recently had a surgery that had failed, the layperson in charge of pastoring told the pastor that I had a bad experience and the pastor called on the phone and we talked for a while.  They do care, but even family doctors rarely if ever visit the hospital anymore.  Times are changing and not for the better.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.