Eugene Peterson died today

From Christianity Today

Eugene Peterson has completed his “long obedience in the same direction.”

The Presbyterian pastor, best known for authoring The Message Bible, died today at age 85, a week after entering hospice care for complications related to heart failure and dementia.

Author Winn Collier first shared the news on Twitter. “My dear friend and pastor Eugene Peterson has died this morning,” he wrote. “The lantern is out, but the joy he carried with him to his final breaths endures. Eugene is now with the Triune God he has loved his entire life. Memory eternal.”

NavPress, publishers of The Message, confirmed Peterson’s death. His family released a statement on his final, joyful days earthside.

“During the previous days, it was apparent that he was navigating the thin and sacred space between earth and heaven,” they stated. “We overheard him speaking to people we can only presume were welcoming him into paradise. There may have even been a time or two when he accessed his Pentecostal roots and spoke in tongues as well.

“Among his final words were, ‘Let’s go.’ And his joy: my, oh my; the man remained joyful right up to his blessed end, smiling frequently. In such moments it’s best for all mortal flesh to keep silence. But if you have to say something say this: ‘Holy, Holy, Holy.’”

Eric Peterson had shared an update about his father’s health status a week before, describing the author’s “sudden and dramatic turn” and the family’s decision to offer palliative care for his remaining days.

“It feels fitting that his death came on a Monday, the day of the week he always honored as a Sabbath during his years as a pastor,” the family stated today. “After a lifetime of faithful service to the church—running the race with gusto—it is reassuring to know that Eugene has now entered into the fullness of the Kingdom of God and has been embraced by eternal Sabbath.”

Last year, in a Religion News Service interview about the end of his career in public ministry, Peterson told Jonathan Merritt that he was more curious than fearful of death.

“I have no idea how it’s going to work out. But I’m not afraid, I’ll tell you that,” he said. “I’ve been with a lot of people who are dying. I think those conversations are some of the best I’ve ever had. These are people who have lived a good life and who have embraced their faith. They’re not afraid.”

 

Another memoir, this one from LogosTalk


Eugene Peterson Was a Listener, and That’s Why We Listened
Matthew Boffey | Mon, October 22, 2018 |

Pastor and author Eugene Peterson entered the joy of his master this morning.

Peterson was a Presbyterian pastor for most of his adult life, though he’s best known for his writings—particularly The Message, a contemporary rendering of the entire Bible.

I was late to the game on Peterson. It only occurred to me a few years ago that he was the author of The Message, which years before I had regarded as a loosey-goosey handling of God’s Word.

That was before I read his memoir, The Pastor.

In it, I learned that the project came from a simple desire for members of his congregation to understand the Book around which their life was to revolve. (I also learned that the biblical imagination behind it came from years of careful original language study—before Peterson was a pastor, he earned a PhD in Semitic languages.)

Peterson discerned this congregational need from intense listening, a commitment I’d like to reflect on in his honor.

Peterson’s turning point
In The Pastor, Peterson describes a turning point early in his pastoral ministry that would shape how he pastored for the rest of his life.

His young church was growing rapidly and demanding much of his time, and Peterson could not keep pace. He writes:

One evening after supper, Karen—she was five years old at the time—asked me to read her a story. I said, “I’m sorry, Karen, but I have a meeting tonight.”

“This is the twenty-seventh night in a row you have had a meeting.” She had been keeping track, counting.

The meeting I had to go to was with the church’s elders, the ruling body of the congregation. In the seven-minute walk to the church on the way to the meeting, I made a decision. If succeeding as a pastor meant failing as a parent, I was already a failed pastor. I would resign that very night.

We met in my study. I convened the meeting and scrapped the agenda. I told what Karen had said twenty minutes earlier in our living room. And I resigned. I told them I had tried not to work so hard, but that I didn’t seem able to do it. “And it’s not just Karen. It’s you too. I haven’t been a pastor to this congregation for six months. I pray in fits and starts. I feel like I’m in a hurry all the time. When I visit or have lunch with you, I’m not listening to you; I am thinking of ways I can get the momentum going again. My sermons are thrown together. I don’t want to live like this, either with you or with my family.”

“So what do you want to do?” This was Craig [an elder] speaking. His father had been a pastor. He knew some of this from the inside.

“I want to be a pastor who prays. I want to be reflective and responsive and relaxed in the presence of God so that I can be reflective and responsive and relaxed in your presence. I can’t do that on the run. It takes a lot of time. I started out doing that with you, but now I feel too crowded.

“I want to be a pastor who reads and studies. This culture in which we live squeezes all the God sense out of us. I want to be observant and informed enough to help this congregation understand what we are up against, the temptation of the devil to get us thinking we can all be our own gods. This is subtle stuff. It demands some detachment and perspective. I can’t do this just by trying harder.

“I want to be a pastor who has the time to be with you in leisurely, unhurried conversations so that I can understand and be a companion with you as you grow in Christ—your doubts and your difficulties, your desires and your delights. I can’t do that when I am running scared.

“I want to be a pastor who leads you in worship, a pastor who brings you before God in receptive obedience, a pastor who preaches sermons that make scripture accessible and present and alive, a pastor who is able to give you a language and imagination that restores in you a sense of dignity as a Christian in your homes and workplaces and gets rid of these debilitating images of being a ‘mere’ layperson.

“I want to have time to read a story to Karen.

“I want to be an unbusy pastor.”*

Peterson was describing the pastor he wanted to be. Looking back, we read it as the pastor he was—to hundreds in person and thousands in print.