A thought about being the pastor...

Here's an "odd" thought about being a pastor: most people have NO idea what is involved, yes? I suspect this is true for every calling, but I don't know - I just know it is true for those of us who serve the local church as pastor. And in the 21st century, a time when fewer and fewer people are connected to a local church, the confusion cuts deeper, too. Over the years, writers far wiser than I have written some helpful descriptive works about what it means to be a pastor of authenticity, but they are not geared for the everyday, working person. 

I have, for example, cherished the insights articulated by William Willimon, Fredrick Buechner, Howard Rice, Nora Gallagher and Eugene Peterson:  these are faithful, sensitive and wise people who have actually served as a pastor. So the truths they share - about our highest aspirations as well as our more often wounded realities - ring true to me and have brought me encouragement and clarity during the 30 years of my ordained ministry. "Pastors are a battered breed these days," notes Peterson. "Images and impressions range from cheap to glittering to dogged... (but only some know that it is a calling) of dignity, but a dignity without a trace of pomposity... (only by remaining grounded in our) "baptismal, biblical, and theological foundations can we trump a demeaning culture and a trivializing church and restore honor to this vocation."

Small wonder I love Paul Simon's musical masterpiece - when I am weary and feeling small - these old and seasoned pros are a source of comfort. "Ordained ministry," says Willimon, "is a gift of God to the church, but that doesn't mean that it is easy. Always a difficult vocation, changes in society and the church in recent years have made the ordained life all the more complex and challenging. Is the pastor primarily a preacher, a professional caregiver, an administrator? Given the call of all Christians to be ministers to the world, what is the distinctive ministry of the ordained? When does one's ministry take on the character of prophet, and when does it become that of priest? What are the special ethical obligations and disciplines of the ordained?"

It is a good thing to have public resources like these that acknowledge and embrace the pastoral challenge. But the words of these prophets are mostly preaching to the choir: what to do about the ignorance, confusion, love and sometimes hostility that exists in every church?  I have come up with a few ideas - they are not original - but have helped me.  As one counselor said to me a while back when my life was coming apart at the seams, "Well, now we identified all the WRONG reasons for doing ministry; let's see if we can name the RIGHT ones."

+ First, I have come to think of my calling as a pastor through the words Peterson coined in his book, The Contemplative Pastor:  a pastor is unbusy, subversive and apocalyptic.  Not only do I need time for quiet and reflection for my own soul, I need to time to be present and available to my people when they show up.  In the 21st century, most people have neither time nor interest in the pastor popping into their homes for a spontaneous visit; today it makes most sense to make appointments. But that isn't where most of the listening and prayer happens. No, more often than not that happens when a person just shows up at church and wants to talk. Or wants "just a minute of your time" after choir practice. Or when unexpected tears come in the middle of a phone call. 

I know what it is like to be too busy to listen - or too frantic to have time to hang out and wait - so being unbusy in heart and mind is vital. It takes practice and time and a commitment to being counter-cultural to remain unbusy. It takes clear and effective professional boundaries, too so that time isn't devoured by those who may be emotionally stressed but are not really willing or able to grow in the Spirit. As Jesus told his first apprentices, "Sometimes you have to know when to shake the dust off our sandals and move on. Not everyone who cries, 'Lord, Lord" have any real interest in the kingdom of God."

Same too with the invitation to be subversive and apocalyptic. The subversive pastor doesn't pontificate - doesn't lecture - doesnt' even initiate connections. Rather, we wait until God's moment opens a door for us. And then, "with truth-telling and love-making (that is) prayer and parable" we meet a person with a word of God's grace. Waiting isn't something that our culture honors or understands, so this aspect of ministry is also a daily exercise in prayer. I could get strokes for running around, trying to be useful and helpful and all the rest. But I've been there and done that; it is not only exhausting, it destroys any space for the Lord. So, I try to wait.

I try to use ordinary words, too - not religious mumbo-jumbo - speaking clearly without the need to impress or win friends. In fact, it is essential for the pastor to remember that the people of any given congregation are NOT friends in the traditional sense. There is love and respect and trust, to be sure; but this is always a public relationship - a spiritual relationship - with clear boundaries.  Too many pastors get into trouble - and too many congregations get hurt feelings - when this is violated or misunderstood. I find Peterson's clarification helpful when he writes:

Pastor is a comforting word: a person who confidently quotes the 23rd Psalm when your shivering in the dark shadows. Pastors gather us in quiet adoration before God... Pastors build bridges over troubled waters and guide wandering feet back to the main road.  But I have a biblical reason for bringing the two words - apocalyptic and pastor - together. The last book of the Bible was written by a pastor - an apocalyptic pastor... who understood his job and St. John is the kind of pastor I would like to be... Pastors are the person in the church communities who repeat and insist on the kingdom realities against the world appearances - they must be apocalyptic... Sin-habits dulls our faith into stodgy moralism and respectable boredom... Apocalypse is arson - it secretly sets fire in the imagination and boils the fat out of an obese culture-religion and renders a clear gospel love, a pure gospel hope, a purged gospel faith.

+ Second, I have come to treasure Craig Barnes' rethinking of the pastoral role as one living as "a minor poet" in a spiritually illiterate culture.  His book, Pastor as Minor Poet, offers these important insights.  First, the work of ministry is more like poetry than science. "The ability to see below the surface, below the "text" of a given situation or even the biblical text to the deeper "meaning" buried between the lines, within, above, or under a given situation, is hugely important. It is important not just for survival (important in its own right), but to minister the Gospel in such a way that it meets the person's real need, not simply the presenting issue." (Sean Michael Lucas)

Second, Barnes reminds us that this ministry is NOT ours: it belongs to Christ. He quotes the curmudgeon, Stanley Hauerwas, saying the only way we will be delivered from being "a quivering mass of availability" to a broken but available person of depth and grace is to know and trust that all ministry begins and ends with the Lord. "The pastor lives by the belief that Jesus Christ holds all things together, and it is for this Savior that the harried souls in the pews truly yearn...So there they sit, frantic and frazzled, but daring to hope that there really is a sacred Word that can fill their deep yearning. The name of that word is Jesus Christ, and the minor poet gets to reveal his mysterious presence every Sunday."

I have reread Barnes' book twice - and look forward to rereading yet again this fall.  Same with Peterson's The Contemplative Pastor. They both speak to the challenges of this time - especially noting that the work of the pastor is NOT to run a church: it is the cure of souls.

+ And third I have discovered that I embrace the calling to be Christ's agent for the cure of souls best if I share my gifts and acknowledge my blind spots.  I can't do everything. I can't help everyone.  Not everyone will like me and I won't like everyone either. Some people will regularly find fault with my gifts and commitments and use of time - and will share that with me in ways that hurt.  So, I need a small cadre of pastor friends who will talk with me - and one another - about accountability to Christ.  I used to think I could do it all by myself - with prayer - but I can't.  I can never see my shadow.  I don't always hear what is being said in either compliment or complaint.  I need the wisdom and love of colleagues who will share honestly and with compassion. I give thanks to God that I have that group for it helps keep me grounded. It offers perspective and tenderness without ever "putting whipped cream on bullshit" (as a former spiritual director used to say!)

It is good to enter the Sabbath today at rest... I steadfastly DON'T read church emails on the Sabbath and make sure to spend time just being in my own skin.