I Peter 5

I was the reader at service this morning 1 Peter 5:1-10. Even at my first review I noticed in verse 2 one of those lessons we look at and groan or sigh. Oh no, not that again.  That hurts a little. "Be shepherds...not because you must, but because you are willing." I tried to hit it just a little more forcefully in the reading, operating on the principle that what hits hard for me will likely be important to others as well.  Yet i did feel as if I was clubbing them a bit.  As the pastor settled into his lesson, it didn't get any better.  He used the word obligation to contrast with joy and willingness. I feel accused.  A great deal of my life has been lived in obligation.  The willingness and joy parts have been there, but they last for a season at most, and sometimes are fleeting with the hour.  I resent God telling me this, because obligation, duty, faithfulness are about all I can bring most of the time. One of my heroes is Puddleglum who will be faithful even when doubt has nearly overcome him. Or more deeply Frodo, who soldiers on for days even when hope is distant and strength is almost gone. Duty is powerful, and when even God seems to slight it my weariness is even greater. I have heard Christians pull this verse when they don't like a particular job and so decline it.  "I didn't want to just do it out of obligation," as if they are somehow the more spiritual ones, while the job itself remains undone.

So after the introductory humorous parts to loosen up the brethren, we're only a few minutes into the serious work of this teaching, he introduces the word obligation just to drive the point home,and I've got kind of a chip on my shoulder already. Yeah, what about those people who don't meet the obligations, God?  Are you saying you like that better?  I don't think so.

A good preacher convinces you to try again at what you already knew.  A good teacher of the scriptures opens a deeper understanding to you. When we ourselves are new, sometimes teachings are brand new and can be exciting. But something brand new would have to bring good credentials to me at this point.  Brand new things that come my way now are likely to be old heresies repackaged or details about obscurer passages that i fail to see the importance of, even after the explanation is given. 

So too today. He spoke immediately about moving from obligation to willingness. It was not rejecting obligation as wrong, but as inadequate.  I saw in a flash that this is not an either-or method of doing work, but three points along a continuum: 1.) Not working at all, 2.) Working out of obligation, 3.) Working in willingness and joy. He took what I knew and added a clarifying piece. The people Peter was writing to were already (mostly, hopefully) beyond Point 1. They were now living in the world between points 2 and 3, and needed to keep moving to 3.  We vary from day to day where we are on that chart, but always should be moving forward. We are not to be condemned for working out of obligation - sometimes that's all we have even at a task we like. 

I loved being a father of young children and embraced it willingly, but lots of that just becomes another load of laundry, or enduring another meltdown. I have had a few years of willingness and joy in my career, usually after moving from a difficult situation, in which I was operating almost solely from duty, to a happier one. I am in one now. The nature of the job is that boxes have to be checked to provide good care. We do a comprehensive assessment, box after box; we do a treatment plan, intervention after intervention; there is an art to these and it is good to do them well, but everyone in my position knows we are going to first be required to makes sure they are done, that all boxes are checked.  Yet I am coverage.  No one is paying that much attention to whether I checked the boxes, because the caseload is not mine. For me it's all joy.  I enjoy taking a checklist and seeing how many of them I can knock off for the person I am covering for, because I know it will bring them joy - or at least, relief. It looks like obligation from the outside, but from the inside it's willingness.