Mark Kelly lives in Japan where he teaches English during the week.
On the weekends he’s a fake priest.
According to a BBC report, many Japanese young people want their weddings to look like scenes from American and European films. So even though about one percent of the Japanese population is Christian, about ninety percent of weddings now use Western Christian traditions. To complete the picture the wedding venues use white Anglos that look like the priests in the movies. Hundreds of expatriates in Japan now officiate ceremonies as fake priests.
Kelly isn’t a Christian but he doesn’t mind playing the part since the bride and groom want the image and not the religious aspects anyway. “I give a good performance,” he told a reporter. “I use an Apache wedding prayer in my ceremony. It works very well, although I had to take out the part about the bear god in the sky. If people are touched and brought to tears by the end of the wedding, I’ve done a good job.”
One Japanese woman expressed surprise when the reporter asked her opinion about the use of fake priests. She said, “I thought the priests were all real and I think everyone in Japan thinks that.” And a real Japanese Christian priest who was interviewed said that’s the problem. He said, “They are not genuine and they give us a bad name.”
In John 10, Jesus warned his people to watch out for church leaders who are not genuine and who give Christianity a bad name. Jesus said, “I am the gate for the sheep. Any leader who does not come to the sheep through me is up to no good.”
It’s a passage about the Good Shepherd’s good shepherds. It’s about pastoral leadership. It’s about the need for shepherds, the task of shepherds, and the most important qualification for shepherds.
We’ll study the first ten verses of John 10 this Sunday. Read the passage now, and then join us at 10am on campus or online!
--Tom
Sign up here to receive Tom Goodman’s weekly devotional in your email inbox. Tom serves as pastor at Hillcrest Church in Austin, Texas. His sermons are available on YouTube and the HillcrestToGo Podcast and you can find him on Facebook and Twitter.