Mount Hermon Baptist Church (Durham, NC) - Sunday, August 30, 2020
My wife has been the envy of
gardeners in our neighborhood because of her success with sunflowers. From where our house sits, right on the
corner, these tall, yellow blooms signal to all who walk by that this soil has
been cared for and loved. Beauty has
come from this good soil.
I know nothing about gardening. When I help in the yard, she needs to tell me
which ones are the weeds to be pulled and which are the plants to leave in the
ground. One year for her birthday, I bought
my wife a cherry tree sapling. I dug the
hole and planted it for her. I don’t
think that pathetic thing ever sprouted a single green leaf. Why did it
fail? My wife explained to me that the
soil wasn’t right. Maybe we could have
done some things differently, maybe planted it in a different spot. She had not had much experience with cherry
trees. But sunflowers and tomatoes and
basil; like I said, the envy of the neighborhood.
This is my prayer. I ask God to stir in your hearts, you, the
people of Mount Hermon Baptist. I ask
God to make you good soil. I know this
prayer has already been answered in a sense because you’ve been with Rich
Goodier for a long time. I have seen him
grow as a person, as Christ follower, and as a minister of the Gospel in the
course of his time with you. In you,
good soil, Rich has flourished.
Now, the dynamic changes
significantly. Rich is not just
Rich. It’s Rich and Elizabeth. That’s three new entities you have to deal
with. The soil will need to be ready for
the change. First, Rich is not the Rich you’ve
had for a decade. He’s going to be
different. Newly married, he’ll
prioritize his life differently. You’ll
have to adjust to your “new pastor” with grace, love, and welcome. You’ll get the best out of your pastor when
you give him room to grow into his new identity: husband.
Second, you’ll have a new member,
Elizabeth. Small churches like yours and
mine get excited with new members, but we have to be gentle with them. We don’t want to smother new members with
expectations. This is especially true
when the new member is the pastor’s new wife.
Maybe you have an idea of what a pastor’s wife should be like. Probably, that idea you hold comes from a
pastor’s wife you remember, someone you respected and loved. Definitely, your ideal of a pastor’s wife is
different than the ideal someone else in the church holds. Elizabeth couldn’t possibly live up to
every single Mount Hermon member’s ideal of what a pastor’s wife is, and she
shouldn’t have to.
She will be the very best she can be
as a Christ-follower, as a wife, and as a member of the Mount Hermon family
when she is given space and grace to discover how she fills the role. Maybe you remember a pastor’s wife who taught
children’s Sunday school. Maybe that’s
not Elizabeth’s thing. I have no
idea. Maybe she also likes children’s
Sunday School, but does it differently than the beloved pastor’s wife you
remember. Let Elizabeth be who God
created her to be, God’s image-bearer, gifted by the Holy Spirit, and called to
serve Him. Encourage her, love her, and
discover who she is. Don’t meet her with
expectations and then become disappointed when she fails to live up them. If
you give her space and grace and if you patiently wait to discover her, you’ll
be amazed at what you find. You’ll be the
soil in which her beauty flowers in full bloom.
I mentioned three new entities,
Rich, as a new man in a new role, and Elizabeth, a new member with a very
unique role in your community. What’s
the third entity? It is their marriage. The Goodiers as a family becomes a unit all
to its own. That unit needs to be
respected. Boundaries around that unit
need to be honored.
That means no showing up unannounced
at the parsonage at any time, day or night.
Call first. And make it clear to
Rich that unless it is an emergency, he is allowed to say, “Now’s not a good
time.” He should be able to have dinner
with his wife. Elizabeth should have the freedom and space and breathing room
to make the parsonage her home.
Rich
will still respond to emergencies. It’s
something we Pastors do, and it is something Elizabeth signed up for, although
she won’t fully “get it” until she has lived it for a while. But her living of it can be a time of
beautiful growth, if her new family, you the people of Mount Hermon, give her
space and love and welcome and grace.
My remarks are rooted in my
understanding of Paul’s words toward the end of 1 Thessalonians 5. He encouraged the church by promising
resurrection for members who have unexpectedly died. He has talked about Jesus’ return. Now as the letter nears its close, it seems
like he’s trying to cram in as much about community as he can. Listen to the rapid-fire succession.
“Respect
those who labor among you.”
“Be at peace.”
“Encourage the fainthearted.”
“Help the weak.”
“Rejoice always.”
“Pray without ceasing.”
“Give thanks in all circumstances.”
These snippets of truth, taken
together, undergird a sense of joyful, faithful community. The pastor’s sense that his family is stable
and secure is an important element in developing the church as a joyful,
faithful community. Mount Hermon wants
Pastor Rich to be the very best pastor he can be. At his best, he will lead the church to be
the best it can be. If he gets the sense
that the church loves and cherishes his wife, he will be devoted with a fresh
energy that will bless everyone.
Everything I have shared is rooted
in my reading of 1 Thessalonians and my life as Rich’s friend as a pastor. Rich and I have been in book clubs
together. We support each other in the
Yates Baptist Association and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. We watch NFL
games together. We always go see the
latest Marvel superhero movie that comes out.
He has had my kids over to play video games and look at his chickens. I love him and my family loves him. I will always be “for Rich.”
Mostly that’s true because we just
connect as pals, but it is also true because I can empathize with what his life
has been to this point. I was single and a senior pastor for 6 years. I was 27 when I started, and one or of our
older members called me the “boy pastor.”
It was said with affection, but it certainly was not a compliment. More than once, I was compared to my
predecessor, who retired at 65. Of
course, I couldn’t do it the way a 30-year ministry veteran did. I didn’t even know what I didn’t know.
I was so thankful for the way that
congregation accepted my flaws and lovingly helped me grow into greater
maturity as a leader, a preacher, and a pastor.
Aside from conflicts with a few members, I know the church loved me and
it was never more apparent than the way they welcomed and loved my new wife
when I finally did get married to Candy, six years into the pastorate. They gave her space to figure out how she fit
into her new church family.
One of the ways she found a home,
was her tireless work ethic. Many
pastor’s wives are musicians; not my wife.
Many are in children’s ministry; she will do children’s ministry, but
she’s better as an administrator and as a worker bee.
Right
around the time we married, a woman who had left our church started coming back
around. She was about 70 or so, but a
very old, cranky, bossy 70. Cranky and
bossy hit my young, aggressive personality like a lit match to a bucket of
gasoline. Boom! Some of the most shameful moments of my
career came when she and I argued publicly.
She finally got sick of it and left our church for a few years.
When
I got married, she found her way back into the church, and when Vacation Bible
School time came that summer, she ended up working right alongside my new
wife. She and Candy served hot dogs
together to all the children who came for Bible school. Through the course of that week, this old
lady’s irritation with me evaporated and because she loved my new wife, she
decided to love me too. Of all the ways
I thought my wife might bless my life, I never would have predicted she would
be the catalyst to reconciliation between me and members I had royally ticked
off.
Will
Elizabeth lead some of you who might be mad at Rich to get over it and love
him? Who knows? Elizabeth doesn’t know what her role in this
church family will be. You don’t. Rich doesn’t.
It is something that gets discovered.
It is a dance between church, pastor, and pastor’s family. Toes will get stepped on. But if that happens in an atmosphere of
grace, where everyone is striving to encourage everyone else, it will be
laughed off as a part of the joy of discovering one another.
That’s
what is happening at Mount Hermon. This
is the beginning of a journey of discovery.
We’re in the midst of a politicized, mask-wearing pandemic that has made
the world weird. How wonderful, that
you, God’s church get to welcome a new member in and get to encourage the
pastor you love as he steps into a new season of life.
We
did the reading of Proverbs 31 earlier.
That’s an ideal. No woman
perfectly lives up to the ideal of the Proverbs 31 woman. But if Mount Hermon is gentle, nourishing,
encouraging soil, Elizabeth will come close.
She’ll grow as a disciple of Jesus.
You will grow along with her and with Rich. And you’ll all experience God in this place.
AMEN
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