Regional Synod of Canada - Reformed Church in America

Pioneer Christian Monthly

Date - May/69

Contributor - T. Hogerwaard

Title - Pastoral Care- Pagan, Legalistic and Christian

Topic -

A few weeks ago, on a Monday, when I was enjoying "the minister's Sunday", I watched for sometime a television program called "Doctor's diary". Several cases were presented. The first showed the medical doctor as a self-appointed pastor. A girl, not yet 20 years of age, had come to see him. She was disturbed in her mind and consequently her monthly periods had become irregular. That's why she had come to see the doctor. He started to try to find out what caused her distress. By means of careful and shrewd questions, which at first she evaded, the doctor was able to get the story out of her.

She had been engaged for some time, but then the engagement was broken off. She told the doctor she had become pregnant. Subsequently she had undergone an abortion. As she herself plainly told it, at the time she had this done, she was concerned about only one thing: to get rid of her unborn child. But the last few months what she had done increasingly bothered her. She felt that she had killed her baby, she was often awake at night thinking of what she had done. Then the doctor, looking intently at her told her that she had to learn to live with that fact. After all it belonged to the past, she had to think of the present and of the future. He would put her on the pill for a few months in order to make her monthly periods regular again. He would also provide her with tranquilizers and assured her that after some time she would be "normal" again. He told her to come back in two weeks' time to have another talk with her. The girl left. The TV program presented the next case, a strictly medical matter: a fracture.

Before the program ended that afternoon, the doctor told the TV watching public that the difference between the specialist and the G.P. is, that the first man specializes in difficult cases, but that the G.P. (that is the medical doctor, non-specialist) is concerned about people, he wants to help them. Obviously not only as a medical doctor, but as a pastoral counsellor as well. No doubt, many of the watchers of this TV program will have been, impressed with the priestly role which this medical doctor had taken upon himself. But when ministers venture an opinion about home-sexuality or similar deviations, most medical doctors are quick to remind them that these are medical problems, so for ministers it is: hands off! Anyone who tries his hand at medical cases without being qualified to do so is called a quack. Again: doctors are quick to point out (and rightly so) that treatment by quacks often aggravates the illness instead of effecting any cure.

With these facts in mind, we, as ministers are perhaps entitled to call those who appoint themselves as dispensers of pastoral care without in any way being qualified for it: pastoral quacks. We may also repeat the doctor's well-founded opinion that mostly a quack is doing more harm than good. Here too the proverb applies: "Shoemaker, stick to your last!" For what has happened here? A tragic example of the misery in which a young woman finds herself by having disregarded the holy will of God which was expressed for our benefit and protection. She had been living with her boyfriend as if they were married, which they were not. That was already bad enough, debasing the expression of love between two people who share life together in all aspects of it, to brief periods of gratification of lust. The consequences were even more serious: a young life was wantonly destroyed because the girl refused to accept the consequences of her own deed. At first, according to her own testimony, she did not even consider the question whether it was good or bad what she had done, but afterwards her conscience began to bother her. How many ministers of the Gospel would have thanked God if that young woman in her deep need and misery had turned to them, so that they could have pointed out to her that what she had done was indeed totally wrong, totally evil, but that Christ, the Son of God had come to atone for our sins; that the liberating Gospel of God's grace was also for her. That she might start a new life in God's -strength, knowing that God Himself had wiped out her sinful past and that He would enable her to live as a forgiven and beloved child of God. But unfortunately she fell into the hands of a man, whose ability was limited to the medical field, a pseudo-priest, a self-appointed Incompetent pastor, totally unequipped to provide her with any help. He acted as a pastoral quack, seemingly sympathetic but actually exerting the utmost cruelty in his blindness. To treat a conscience, burdened by sin with tranquilizers and to leave her with unforgiven sin! Can anything be more cruel? Indeed, the compassion of the godless is cruel! When rightly applied there are many situations in which Christians can be thankful for the pill; in our hurried existence tranquilizers are very helpful at times, but to treat a conscience tormented by guilt and sin with the pill and with tranquilizers! What a horror! And we can be sure that this is only one case out of thousands, clearly showing where a person ends when there is neither recognition of God's holy will in our life, nor the message of God's willingness to forgiven of His grace for the sake of Him, Who suffered and died to take away our sin and guilt.

LAW WITHOUT GOSPEL

It is only fair to admit that especially in the history of the Reformed tradition of Christendom there have been many cases in which the Law as the expression of God's holy will was fully held up but without any trace of the Gospel. No joyful message of forgiveness. Even less any awareness, of the fact that everyone of us, no matter who he is, can only live by grace and by grace alone, whether his or her special weakness is in the field of sexual relationships or not. Many authors have had a field day describing this unchristian attitude in Christendom and indeed, as Christians we can only feel deeply ashamed that so many things have been done in the Name of Christ, actions which were totally devoid of His Spirit.

In the famous book "How green was my valley" by Richard Llewellyn we have a description of a young woman, (as always in such cases the male partner escaped) who was tried by the office bearers of the Church in Wales for trespassing the seventh commandment. It is a torture to read those pages, because we know only too well how many times this unChristian attitude has prevailed in the Church. "But then Mr. Parry turned his eyes so sternly and his voice was so sharp that the figures jerked from my head and I thought he was after me, but instead, I heard a girl crying behind me and then she passed by, and went up the steps to the platform. A girl from the pits she was. Tidy in her dress, not good, but very tidy, and a good little bonnet with her, and her poor face so red and risen with weeping that I could have gone to her straight to give her comfort. "Adulteress, Mr. Parry shouted, and all the men, young as well as old, nodded and said "Ha" or "Hmm" and some of them shook their heads and wrinkled their eyes and foreheads as though a shocking hurt had been done to them. The priests and the scribes and the pharisees were in session, and bitterly enjoying themselves.

"Your lusts have found you out," shouted Mr. Parry, and thump went his fist on the handrail, "and you have paid the price of all women like you. Your body was the trap of the Devil and you allowed temptation to visit vou. Now you bring an illegitimate child into the world against the commandment of God. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Prayer is wasted on your sort and you are not fit to enter the House of God. You shall be cast forth into the router darkness until. you have learned your lesson. I am a jealous God, and the sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the children unto the third and fourth generation. Meillyn Lewis, do you admit your sin?" Meillyn Lewis coughed terror into a sopping rag and made noises to say: Yes, she did. "Do you wish to make your peace with the Eternal Father?" Mr. Parry asked her. Yes, Meillyn Lewis wished to make peace of any sort with anybody, even the Devil himself in a stink of sulphur, only to be out of that Chapel and running up the mountain away from those nodding heads of Ha's and Hmm's and the eyes of Mr. Parry and his voice. "But before you make your peace you shall suffer punishment," Mr . Parry said, dropping his voice down into the flowerpots, for at that level it did sound like the last Trump, and indeed Mr. Parry knew it. "Oh, there is sorry I am." Meillyn Lewis bled into the rag. "Have pity. I will never do it again, God knows." "Taking the Name of God in vain," Mr. Parry said, two tones up in surprise. "Be quiet, girl, and listen to your betters. You shall have nothing from the Father, and we are here to see to it."

And this is what happens and what has happened so many times, especially in the Churches of the Reformed tradition when the Law is applied without a trace of the Gospel, without acknowledgement of the fact that Jesus Christ came to save sinners and that there does not exist anyone to whom this term does not apply.

THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL TOGETHER

In the Gospel of John we find the following story (7:58 - 8:11): "And they went each to his home and Jesus to the Mount of Olives. At daybreak He appeared again in the temple, and all the people gathered round Him. He had taken His seat and was engaged in teaching them when the doctors of the Law and the Pharisees brought in a woman detected in adultery. Making her stand out in the middle they said to Him: "Master, this woman was caught in the very act of adultery. In the Law Moses had laid down that such women are to be stoned. What do you say about it?" They put the question at a test, hoping to frame a charge against Him..Jesus bent down and wrote with His finger on the ground. When they continued to press their question He sat up straight and said: "That one Of you who is faultless shall throw the first stone." Then once again He bent down and wrote on the ground. When they heard what He said, one by one they went away, the eldest first; and Jesus was left alone, with the woman still standing there. Jesus again sat up and said to the woman: "Where are they? Has no one condemned you?" "No one, sir," she said. Jesus replied: "No more do I. You may go; do not sin again." (NEB)

What is our Lord's attitude here? Does He take the will of God lightly, in the style of bishop Robinson, applying a bit of "situation ethics" here? Far from it! He agrees that the Law of God is right and just; at the same time He prevents the punishment which the Law demands in all its harshness, to be carried out. How? Simply by forcing the men, bent on destroying this woman, to face the holy demands of God, expressed in the Law, for their own lives. "This woman has transgressed the holy Law of God. She must die!" Indeed, yes. But what about the eager would be executioners? Have they fulfilled all the holy commands of God so that they are morally justified 'to carry out the Law's sentence? What about cheating in business, what about foul desires in the heart, what about the fact that the ninth commandment is sinned against daily on such an enormous scale? Are these trifles in the eyes of the holy God? Is the only sin the breaking of the seventh commandment or have all the commandments the same validity? The men left, reluctantly, one after the other. The eldest first, which is understandable for knowledge of one's own heart is mostly not acquired in the spring of life, but if and when it happens, more in the autumn period of life. Finally only the Lord and the woman were left. Then the Lord asked: "Where are they? Has no one condemned you?" "No one, sir," she said. Jesus replied: "No more do I." Most people stop at this sentence, to show that for Jesus compassion took the place of God's command. But that is a false presentation of the facts. For the last words were: "You may go, do not sin again!"

God's holy commands stand, forever. But we are not able to keep them and God knows it. Therefore what He demands is that we admit and confess that we have not kept His commands, in which His holy will is expressed, that we turn to Him in humility and sorrow, asking Him to forgive us, which, as Christ has assured us, He is willing to do. And then: by His Spirit He will enable us to start a new life, in which our endeavours to keep God's holy commands are the expression of our gratitude for grace received. The pagans do not know God's holy will nor His willingness to forgive; the Law, standing by itself, can only destroy us; in Christ the Law has been fulfilled and therefore forgiveness can be preached and grace can be given in His Name. This is a true word and worthy of all acceptance: That Jesus Christ came into the world to redeem sinners. We are saved by grace, by grace alone.

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