Yoke

A question that has been growing in my brain (much like a tumor) is this: why do pastors no longer have spiritual authority? 

Have you noticed that most Adventist pastors have, at best, suggestive authority over their congregations.  They preach a certain theology yet many people in their congregations still hold very contradicting beliefs.

I like to think of pastors as modern day rabbis who each have a slightly different take on scripture and have a slightly different influence in a community. I believe the unique teachings of a rabbi were called a yoke and the followers of that rabbi would be bound to that yoke.  So why are modern day Adventists not bound to the yoke of their "rabbi"?

I have recently seen two examples of this tension in my church:

#1 All three pastors at PC are avid coffee drinkers.  They speak about drinking coffee, they meeting with church members over coffee, and I believe more than one of them has achieved gold card status at Starbucks.  A few months ago one of our saints was horrified that we served coffee at a board meeting.  She believes coffee is unhealthy and is not part of the Adventist diet. So she was quite put out.  I spoke with her soon after the board meeting about another event she might attend and she made me promise that no coffee would be served and told me about how shameful it is for the pastors to be coffee drinkers. I was more interested in her attendance to the event than setting her straight on her confusion so I diverted the conversation.... but I ask myself, why haven't one of the pastors sat down with her and while affirming her right to have unique beliefs, told her that her coffee conviction is not biblical and she can't hold others in the community to it. I have a hunch that she would not respond well.  But why not?  Don't the pastors have spiritual authority?

#2 In a recent board meeting (where no coffee was served) Devanne and I were telling of plans for an upcoming event in the park for the homeless of Redding called Giving Back. For the past two years we have held this event during church on Sabbath and are planning the same for this year. One of our board members ask us why we do this and suggested we do the event on Sunday since Sabbath is our day to worship. A fair question until you know that for the past year, both our pastors have been almost weekly preaching the idea that our expression of worship has to be bigger than a church service and that it has to be so big that it affects our entire community. They are teaching this tangible spirituality where the kingdom of heaven is not some faraway fairytale and it's not just for those who dress up and gather in a nice cozy church every weekend, but it's for everybody. Part of our presentation to the board included our lead pastor recommending to the board that we actually cancel our normal church gathering for the day of Giving Back and encourage the church to worship in the park that day by connecting with the homeless.  Despite the past year of teaching and our pastors best effort (quite profound actually) to convince the board otherwise, the board decided that it would be best to provide a church service for those who didn't want to spend the day in the park. 

This second example is what got me asking these questions about authority.

And then I noticed a really big problem with my questions.

The rabbi system worked well for the people of the gospels because that's all they had.  But modern Christians are vastly different in that we all follow one Rabbi named Jesus.  Jesus was so significant with His easy yoke and light burden that we no longer need another rabbi.  Right? 

So now there is this tension where we all look to the authority of Jesus, but we still have these pastors.  A little awkward if you ask me.   Do they play the role of little rabbis who help us to follow the big Rabbi? Do we even need that? 

Obviously we do if we can't decide whether or not Jesus wants us to drink coffee or spend Sabbath with the homeless.