A little respect...

Respect is sadly one of the many things that are our broken society (and I'm talking specifically about the UK) has lost over the past years: Respect for the elderly, our parents, authority, teachers and so on. Some of this may be considered justified, but not the total lack of respect for everything, even the sanctity of life, is not. This was highlighted even more for me when I witnessed the respect that other cultures possess when I was admitted to hospital a number of years ago in London. My nurse was from the Philippines and when she came into my room she immediately came over, took my right hand in hers, kissed it, and bowed her head against it. When she drew away I must have been looking at her puzzled because she explained that they always greet their pastors with respect and reverence in the Philippines and whilst she knew I wasn't a Catholic priest that didn't matter (she had noticed I was a reverend from my medical record at the time). I was a little taken surprised by her greeting nonetheless it really blessed me. The reason I start with this anecdote is I was thinking the other day about how we treat our pastors/ministers/priests is reflected I believe in the way we address them, it is fashionable to call them by their first names and it is probably what they prefer in most cases; I have recently been attending church where a dear and very close friend is pastor and when I refer to him as “Pastor” I can see him raise his eyebrows a little, not sure if I am messing with him or not, what I believe I am doing is showing his position respect and acknowledging the sacrifice he has made to get where he is. I remember when I was growing up in the 60’s/70’s one would never dream of calling an adult, especially a friends parents, by their first name, in fact for them to invite one to do so would seem very avant grade in those days, like the secondary school teacher who encouraged our class to do so, everyone considered him quite odd, a bit of a hippy. But familiarity is the order of the day so to speak so I guess we will continue to be encouraged to call those set apart for God’s work by their first name.

However, words are powerful things and I’d like to think that if in the church we started to buck the trend of society and started to demonstrate respect within our Protestant congregations by calling our ministers Pastor or Reverend that we might see a wave of respect returning to the UK.  How different it would be if we respected our parents (Exodus 20:12) and in return they respected their children (Colossians 3:21), that we could grow to trust and respect those in authority (Titus 3:1) and those in authority might be worthy of that respect (1 Tim. 5), that pupils respected their teachers and teachers recognised and respected the gravity of their position (James 3:1). What a very different society we would live in then…all I’m asking for is a little respect.



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