Ordination

I visited my family in Salt Lake this weekend and attended the funeral of a man who was very involved in my youth group when I was in high-school. I saw many of my old friends and youth leaders at the funeral. I had some great catch-up conversations with many of them. But there was a theme that kept creeping into the conversations. Most of these people haven't seen me since I've been ordained and became a pastor. They responded with a degree of intimidation and defensivness. My old youth leader, who I am greatly indebted to for raising me in the faith said half jokingly "I'm not as ordained as you" and then joked about speaking in latin and making the sign of the cross as a way to kid me about the formality of my church(which really isn't true anyway). Another friend of mine commented on her lack of training but how she simply trusted God instead. Still another leader shied away from me and has ever since I entered the seminary. There is such a strong distrust and distaste for the organizational aspects of religion in Utah, at least among many of my friends.

I don't know what the reason is. I hate the separation that it creates between me and my old friends. It's like we're doing this little dance to figure out how to treat each other now. Another aspect of this is that I take my education to be a gift that I want to share, but that proves so difficult when people have this distrust of me beause I went to school. I do think I contributed to this with my zealous/overeager desire to share what I learned when I came back. I've definitely had to learn how to tame my speech down and gently share when the setting is conducive. But I wonder what else is at play here. Why is there such animosity toward trained/highly educated clergy? Why do folks think that their ministry is somehow less when they're not ordained, or maybe more accurately why do they think that I would look down on them.

My answer to my old youth pastor was 'God works through the unordained much more commonly than the ordained, i'm just grateful He works through ordained people as well.' He liked that answer and the conversation continued. But I'm sad that his understanding of his own ministry would be threatened by my presence. Am I reading too much into this? I don't think so.