My Pastor Husband, Part 2

So remember last week when I told you about that time when someone scream-curse-flirted with my husband, the pastor? I suppose it shouldn't have given me so much joy, BUT IT DID. It was hilarious, and in a world of carefully scrubbed conversations (“Oh sorry man, I forgot you were a pastor”), it was strangely centering. People tend to worry they might get their sin on him or something. There’s already sin on him because, you know, he’s a human, but people tend to forget that about people in ministry.

People expect a lot out of a pastor. He’s supposed to be closer to God or something, have a happier marriage than others, have better behaved children, have infinite capacity to pour into anyone and everyone in need, be willing to sacrifice any amount of time or money for the sake of a church member, have wisdom for all situations, visit every person who has been in the hospital, take every phone call. 

I know the expectations well because I used to carry them, heavy in a backpack, nervously, because I had a hunch that if I unpacked it, nothing would fit. Once we were married, I became more aware of the bag’s contents: pastors should speak like this, be available like this, dress like this, spend their time like this. As I looked over each item, I knew they wouldn’t fit him (or maybe anyone), but expectations have the same allure as that gorgeous, too-small dress from college: Maybe with enough hustle, it’ll work.

So I got to work, spending the early part of our ministry together following along with the backpack, trying to make him carry it, nervously examining the elements and sacrificing anything, everything on the altar of expectations. This is serving Jesus, right? We will keep them happy. We will keep hustling.

As a reward for their hustle and sacrifice, pastors often get to live on a pedestal. They get to be regarded with admiration and complete trust. They get to be spoken to with words carefully scrubbed, lest our sinfulness offend them.

Sometimes I can hear people building a pedestal for my husband. My ears have become attuned to the faint sound of hammering. It’s a sound I’ve come to associate with fear.

Because I know this is just a man. A wonderful man who loves Jesus with his whole heart, but a man nonetheless. A man, who, like all men, is not equipped to live alone on a pedestal, seen and analyzed but not known. 

Have you ever felt like everyone is looking at you, but no one knows you? It’s terrifying. It provokes us to pretend that we’re okay, that we’re not afraid of the pedestal, that maybe if we try hard enough and smile big enough and pretend successfully enough and show up every time they ask, people will believe that we are closer to God, that we somehow are able to meet the needs of hundreds of people in all the ways they expect without compromising that happy marriage, the well-behaved children, and the wholehearted pursuit of God.

Luke doesn’t belong up there. No one belongs up there. But that’s not the only thing that scares me about the pedestal. I know that pedestal building is but a precursor to pedestal smashing. To riff off something I once heard Beth Moore say about ministry, they love him now, but they will loathe him later. They will smash the pedestal he never asked them to build, and the fall will nearly kill us.

So sometimes people wonder why I write silly stories about my husband, why I tell people about times when we’ve fought or times when things have been hard, why I intentionally invite people into what I know about his personality and quirks and tendencies. It’s because I want him to be known, not just seen. It’s because I love him. Because it’s one way I know to remind people of his humanity, to extend my hand up to the man on the pedestal, and gently help him down. 

I do not want you up there, my love. I want you here with me. The pedestal builders want to believe that you are unusually holy, and the pedestal smashers want to believe that you are unusually flawed, but I know neither is true. You are a man who desperately needs Jesus, who is deeply loved by him. The pedestal, whether it is being built or smashed—it is not safe for you.

That backpack I carried around early on is now long gone. Now I work to take away the hammers when I can, to keep my love safe by wrapping him up in the gospel message. I’ve learned that ultimately he’s safe inside it, no matter what happens on the outside.

Because do you know what God is gracious to do for us and will do for you whenever an anti-gospel is practiced? Within the pain, he hides the most beautiful hope: “I am not like this.” He does not demand impossible righteousness because Jesus’s righteousness is enough. He does not assault us with a list of our sins because Jesus’s blood has covered them. He does not expect omnipresence because he has made is so only he, Emmanuel, can do that. 

Precious Church, we love you. We are committed to you. Many of you have wrapped us both up in gospel truth over the years, and we are unspeakably grateful. This is not a cry for help, just a gentle reminder of the gospel that we all so desperately need: God in his unexplainable love for us let his son Jesus die in our place, to pay for the sin that corrupts us so deeply, to make a way for righteousness we could never obtain. May all glory, credit, and pedestals be for Him alone!

To the guy who can make me so mad but who is forever directing my gaze up to the only one who deserves a pedestal. You keep me looking at Jesus, and I am so proud to be your wife. Please do not leave the peanut butter jar on the counter.