Pensees: Doctors, Lawyers, Pastors: They’re Much Alike

Doctors, Lawyers, Pastors: They’re Much Alike

Doctors, lawyers, pastors; they’re very much alike.

Awhile ago I was in the doctor’s office getting a routine check-up when I decided that I would refer to the young doctor by his first name. I am fascinated by the way Americans interact with the medical profession and their elevation of medical doctors to a class of titular separation from the rest of humanity that respectfully call each other by name. I have no idea why our culture requires us to call medical doctors “Doctor So-and-so,” but I’m not one to stroke egos just because we’ve always done it that way. So, my experiment on my physician – I’ll call him “Tom” — would be fun, I thought.

“So, Tom,” said I, “are you really going to make me experience the sharp end of phlebotomic sadism?” Or something like that. It was very funny (at least to me), but it doesn’t really matter what I said because Tom went stone deaf as soon as I mentioned his name. I could tell it vexed his ego. A mere peon was addressing him as a peer. Gasp! But what Tom doesn’t realize is that I think of him as just another human being that happens to have enjoyed biology and anatomy a lot more than I ever did and that I perceive my visit to be nothing more than a business transaction in which I am spending all my lunch money to acquisition information that I may or may not use depending upon my independent decision post-visit. I will hear nothing of “doctor’s orders.”

That’s all. I don’t see why he had to get his underwear all in a wad. And I should add that I am very grateful. Very grateful. After all, I’m willing to spend my wife’s shopping money for what he can offer. But I don’t think that means I have to obsequiously and reverentially refer to a dude three years my junior as Doctor.

Since then, as I have pondered on all the doctors, lawyers, and pastors that I know (and I know many of them), I have come to realize that there are not only lots of them, but they are not all equally good. Some are great, most are mediocre, and others are just plain lousy. I think that some things can be learned from doctors, lawyers, and pastors because they have much in common.

The major thing they have in common is that they are a dime a dozen. Doctors, lawyers, and pastors are everywhere. You can’t get away from them. There are scads of men and women in these professions. I think there are some reasons for this.

First of all, it’s an easy way to make money. Granted, salaries vary, and generally pastors make less than the doctors and lawyers, but nonetheless it is a sure-fire way to get a steady income. Studies show that the average annual income of pastors is somewhere in the $75,000 range (I should go on the record as saying that my own income is far below average – and that’s not a complaint!), and the average doctor and lawyer fares much better. One is a shoe-in for the immediate and unquestioning respect of the masses (or at least some paying portions of it) once one has the degree, the bar certification, or the ordination. And those are relatively easy acquisitions, I think, though – pathetically – the ordination is the easiest of all. A job of some kind is certain once you lay claim to one of these professions. Granted, one may not get to represent O.J. Simpson or Paris Hilton, but he can at least charge an arm and leg to write up someone’s will. He’ll never go hungry. The same is true for the doctor and pastor. Generally.

Second, you need only a slightly above average intellect to be a doctor, lawyer, or pastor. It’s sad, but it’s true. Do the math. Consider how many doctors, lawyers, and pastors are in the world. Obviously, it ain’t that hard. It’s not true that only nerds become doctors, lawyers, or pastors because there simply are not that many nerds in the world. I think the evidence is quite clear: you don’t have to be a brainiac to nail recognition as a doctor, lawyer, or pastor.

Third, as already alluded to, being a doctor, lawyer, or pastor is a guarantee of respect. You may only have twenty illiterate villagers with the psyche of your run-of-the-mill Kool-Aid drinkers who call you Pastor, but it’s gratifying to some egos. Your only patients may be the welfare-subsidized octogenarian amnesiacs who say “Doctor” as if they are uttering the name of God, but it ingratiates the small-minded soul that thinks that just because he took the Hippocratic Oath he is a superior breed. The lawyer differs only that his success hinges on his success at making enemies. The more enemies he has, the more respect. Pheh! Anybody can do that. But not everybody is willing to do it. Thus, the lawyer has our undying respect.

So, why these broad and somewhat disparaging generalizations?

Well, I think that if you had two doctors with the exact same training, the exact same GPA, and the exact same diplomas on the wall one could be exceptionally good and the other could be Dr. Dumb. The same is true with lawyers and pastors: same training, same positions, same titles, but not equal.

The good doctor loves people and love his field. He probably reads medical journals when he’s on the beach doing the obligatory family vacation. He’s probably the guy that shows up early and leaves late and gets emotionally invested in every medical challenge. He takes real pleasure in healing. The human body fascinates him.

The other doctor just wants to make a buck.

I have watched people in court suffer the consequences of low-life attorneys who once they cashed the retainer check literally forgot the names of their clients. It is clear that all they cared about was the money. They could care less whether they won or lost. They got there measly $3000. On the other hand, the lawyer that actually believes in his client and his cause and wants to win not only for the sake of his client, but for the thrill of winning, will obsess himself with the case, inspire creativity in his staff, and discover hitherto unknown loopholes, possibly provoking unprecedented adjudication even though he has the exact same degree as the sleaze-ball divorce lawyer with the bad suit.

The difference is passion. Passion moves a man from mediocre to worthy of his vocation. And you don’t get passion by taking Passion 101 in law school or seminary.

But it has to be the right kind of passion. Doctors, lawyers, and pastors may have a passion for their job because they love the paycheck but that is not the passion that distinguishes the good from the mediocre. The distinguishing passion that drives the good doctor, lawyer, or pastor is a passion for the higher ideal, the calling of his vocation, which is the foundation for his field. For the doctor, the ideal is healing and health; for the lawyer, it is law and justice; for the pastor it should be Christ and His Church. When a man is consumed with a passionate love for the calling of his vocation he is liberated to be original.

The hordes of mediocre doctors, lawyers, and pastors make life complicated for the good doctors, lawyers, and pastors. Doctors pay insanely high premiums to insure themselves against the bitter litigation of a society that has had enough with slap-happy, money-grubbing medical mediocrity. Society gets put out by surgeons operating on the wrong side of the head.

And lawyers have to listen to lawyer jokes, poor things. Of course, gentle ridicule is a merciful response to the many slimy two-bit ambulance-chasers and millionaire dirt bags that make their millions in frivolous lawsuits. Those are the bad guys. It is just plain irritating when a good guy is a mediocre lawyer just because he can be mediocre and still get paid. Especially if one’s custody, bail, freedom, or jail time is the issue at hand. Nobody cares for mediocrity when their lives are in question.

For pastors it’s frustrating that mediocre and bad pastors get respect just because they’re pastors. It is also painful that good pastors get no respect because of all the unrespectable pastors everywhere. The fact of the matter is that doctors’, lawyers’, and pastors’ worst enemies are doctors, lawyers, and pastors. The mediocrity of their majority has drawn derisive distrust toward their noble vocations.

But derisive distrust will not banish our vocations. Our vocations will not be abandoned career relics only to be recalled in museums and history books like the blacksmith or the town crier because people still need us.

Society readily witnesses to the daily need we have for doctors and lawyers, but in a sad way the need for pastors is poorly represented. I say “poorly represented” because I believe that there is still ample testimony from the world confessing its need for pastors, but that testimony shows the blind vulnerability of man even more than in their selection of doctors and lawyers.

The doctor that amputates the wrong limb, opens up the wrong side of the head, or bumbles too many times will pay the consequences, but people will still go to doctors. Weirdly enough, as dumb as people can be, they tend to have a sense of self-preservation and they cling to the stubborn notion that there should be some tangible improvement to their condition upon visiting the doctor. (I speak generally, of course. Dr. Kervorkian does have some clients.)

The lawyer too must live under the rule of an unwritten accountability: the accountability of measurable expectations. By “measurable expectations” I mean that winning and losing are fairly black and white. It’s obvious if a guy loses more than he wins.

But pastors, however, have an accounting that comes later. As Ligon Duncan so aptly said at the last T4G Conference, pastors get their report card in heaven; our problem is that we keep looking for interim reports here on earth. This is true, but there are still obvious indicators of a pastor’s superiority over another pastor even if the two share the same degrees and the same title. These indicators are biblically derived and both pastors and church member should be on the lookout for them as they sort through the gobs of pastors that clutter the religious stage.

It’s the intangibles that make the difference. The good doctor, lawyer, or pastor have in common a love for their craft; not merely the benefits of it. They are like the artisan that makes a living carving mahogany and cherry all day long and then goes home to relax by the fireside whittling a piece of wood.

The good doctor, lawyer, and pastor have in common a deep loyalty and constant obsession for the ultimate purpose of their vocation. The doctor loves health, the lawyer loves justice, and the pastor loves mature and equipped saints. They are not unlike Ignaz Semmelweis, the doctor who drove himself insane pleading the case of hand-washing in maternity wards. Though he was the brunt of jokes, the object of derision, and the focus of hostility from many other doctors, it is Semmelweis that we remember today as the champion father of antiseptic medicine. Though he couldn’t find a job in the medical profession, today he is one of the most respected doctors of them all.

The good doctor, lawyer, and pastor have in common courage and independence. The best doctors are willing to give an opinion differing from that of the brotherhood. They have the courage to keep the primary calling of their vocation at the forefront of their careers. John Adams courageously defended British soldiers of the Boston Massacre in spite of the scorn that was heaped upon him by his own people. Many people literally refused to talk to Adams again after he successfully defended the soldiers; soldiers who he knew would soon be fighting against him. Adams would say in his later years that the defense of those soldiers was “one of the most gallant, generous, manly, and disinterested actions of my whole life, and one of the best pieces of service I ever rendered my country.” It was a good service rendered to his country because, among other things, he proved that his vocation as a lawyer meant that he was passionate about justice.

This solid understanding of the fundamental goals of one’s vocation and an unshakable passion for the dignifying ideals of one’s calling is what sets one doctor, lawyer, or pastor apart from his counterpart even though they both share the same degrees and certifications.

Doctors, lawyers, and pastors are very much alike; they’re a dime a dozen. Choose wisely.