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Retired Methodist pastor and journalist. I like collecting quotations. (If I have to move they are easy to pack!)

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Referencing Mark 16:6-7, Eugene Peterson writes that he has learned to apply these words to every aspect of his work as a pastor. He writes: "In every visit, every meeting I attend, every appointment I keep, I have been anticipated. The risen Christ got there ahead of me. The risen Christ is in that room already. What is he doing? What is he saying? What is going on? In order to fix the implications of that text in my vocation, I have taken to quoting it before every visit or meeting: 'He is risen ... he is going before you to 1020 Emmorton Road; there you will see him, as he told you.' Later in the day it will be, 'He is risen ... he is going before you to St. Joseph's Hospital; there you will see him, as he told you.' When I arrive and enter the room I am not so much wondering what I am going to do or say that will be pastoral as I am alert and observant for what the risen Christ has been doing or saying that is making a gospel story out of this life. . . . always we are dealing with what the risen Christ has already set in motion."
-- Eugene Peterson, from "Under the Unpredictable Plant"

Mark 16:6-7 -- http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark%2016:6-7;&version=31;

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