Eugene Peterson

Just back from a three day conference. I’m exhausted since the middle day ran from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., but it was a great time. The presenter was Eugene Peterson–pastor, professor, author–of whom I have written before. He is without doubt one of the most important teachers of Christian Spirituality in modern America. Almost everything he says gives you enough to think about for a month or two. I won’t go into any depth because for those of you who attend Our Saviour Church, I will be speaking on Peterson the first Wednesday in Lent, February 24. But here are a few golden nuggets from his talks.

“Birth receives more attention in our society than growing up. For parents growing up in marked by work and anxiety. Birth is easy. Growth is endlessly complex. . . . American churches know everything about being born again and nothing about growing in Christ.”

Comment. This is something I have felt for a long time. When I was confirmed, the pastor laid his hand on my head and said: “The Father in Heaven, for Jesus' sake, renew and increase in thee the gift of the Holy Ghost, to they strengthening in faith, to thy growth in grace, to thy patience in suffering, and to the blessed hope of everlasting life. Amen” Growth in grace is an important idea, but there isn’t a lot of growing that goes on in church. I don’t have time to help people grow in grace. I’m too busy keeping squirrels out of the church building. Maybe I should try confirming them. Most of the time after you confirm a teenager, you never see them again. Maybe if I confirmed all the squirrels they’d disappear, too.

“We pay attention to the good and the true, but not the beautiful.”

Comment: this is a continuation of the growth theme. Peterson thinks the church dwells on dogma (truth) and morality (the good), but ignores the beauty of holiness. This is the hardest concept to grasp for any church. It’s fairly easy to talk about what people ought to believe. We have creeds for that. Although it is controversial nowadays, we can tell people how to behave. It’s hard to get across to anyone (myself included) that there s more to the Christian life than just believing the right things and acting the right way. There is a undefinable, mystical quality of being “in Christ.”  But what exactly is that like? You can’t say exactly. According to some common sense philosophers, if you can’t say exactly what you mean, you don’t mean anything at all. I prefer to say there are something you just can’t talk about precisely, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t important.

Not a quote this time but an invitation. Go through the Gospel stories of the Resurrection of Jesus and note the reactions: fear, joy, wonder, amazement, hearts burning. That’s what an encounter with the risen Christ is like. Now ask yourself if church is like that.

“The most important thing to do on a Sunday Morning is to give people one hour for doing nothing.”

Comment: this reminds be of Marva Dawn’s book on worship A Royal “Waste” of Time. (Marva Dawn has collaborated with Peterson on the book The Unnecessary Pastor. I will also be talking about Marva Dawn this Lent. Worship is an odd event in our goal-oriented society. What does it produce? What is the outcome? Nothing. Worship is worship of God and that is its purpose. Doing it is an end in itself. People have sometimes said to me: “I don’t get anything out of worship.” My reply is, “You’re not supposed to. This leads to another remark by Peterson.

“People are not called to church to be entertained, but to pay attention.”

Comment: Boy, this really seems to take a slap at the so-called “entertainment evangelism” where Sunday worship is supposed to be entertainmening. This is one of the dividing issues within Christianity today. Peterson isn’t saying that worship should be boring or poorly done, but that entertaining the gathering is not the purpose. One of by professors, Frank Senn, once remarked that the problem with entertainment evangelism was that it burdened worship with evangelism because people wouldn’t actually evangelize others. All my life I have been told we should invite people to church, meaning invite them to worship. I have told people to do that. But worship doesn’t make any sense to the non-believer. What we ought to be doing is inviting people to Christ. When they encounter him, worship makes sense.

Peterson is a great advocate of contemplation which requires silence. Does silence have a place in worship? He certainly thinks so. A member of the audience raised a question about this. The questioner remarked that he had been trained in theater where they were taught that there must never be any silence. He followed that practice in his contemporary worship services. Peterson commented:

“I love the theater, but the theater is not worship.”

Comment: I have often looked at worship as a performance–theater, dance, music, art. There is a lot of thought that goes into planning worship as if it were a performance. But in the end Peterson is right. It is not a performance. It is not being done for the sake of the audience, but for God. That means that unlike the theater, sometimes everybody has to shut up so that God can be heard. It was one of the things that drove me crazy during the conference worship. There was never any silence, none whatsoever. Every second was filled with someone making music or talking. It seemed to go on forever.

Finally, Peterson recommended one book as a must for all Pastors: Diary of a Country Priest by Georges Bernanos. I agree completely. I first read the book in seminary at the recommendation of Pr. Richard Neuhaus. I have read it several times since, once a few years back along with Peterson’s own book, Working the Angles. Diary is a great corrective for those who expect the pastorate to be a joy-filled, rewarding experience.

Well, that’s all–from Eugene Peterson’s first presentation. There were five more like it.

May the Lord bless you on your journey and greet you on your arrival.

Wayne










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