There are many ideas out there of what a pastor should be, and most of them make little sense to me. For many, a pastor should be primarily concerned with managerial duties, with charisma and fundraising, with crisis management or motivation or chaplain care. As I understand it, a pastor is one who lives with God and with the people, one who knows their names and carries their hurts and reminds them that God has spoken love and goodness over them. A pastor does not throw out a ceremonious prayer before big events, like the mayor tossing the first pitch on Opening Day. A pastor sits bedside in the dark hours and begs God for mercy. A pastor walks into the ruins, fully aware of her own threadbare soul, and announces wholeness.
A pastor does not only tend to the big visions, the big ideas, the big people. A pastor knows his own lowliness and walks into the ordinary places and with the ordinary people. A pastor, with a voice steady and true, hallows the ground and the rain and the marriage and the purple blooms of Spring — because this one thing we know: God gives life, and this makes every inch of life beautiful and good.
Jim Casy, Steinbeck’s broken preacher in Grapes of Wrath, knows this terrain:
“I’m gonna work in the fiel’s, in the green fiel’s, an’ I’m gonna be near to folks…Gonna learn why the folks walks in the grass, gonna hear ’em talk, gonna hear ’em sing. Gonna listen to the kids eatin’ mush. Gonna hear husban’ an’ wife a-poundin’ the mattress in the night. Gonna eat with ’em an’ learn.” His eyes were wet and shining. “Gonna lay in the grass, open an’ honest with anybody that’ll have me. Gonna cuss an’ swear an’ hear the poetry of folks talkin’. All that’s holy, all that’s what I didn’ understan’.”
Michael Ramsay, former Archbishop of Canterbury, puts it together in a sentence. “The priesthood is to be with God, with the people on your heart.” We listen to God, and we listen to Mrs. Jenkins down the street. We pray to God, and we laugh with those who are struggling to ever say a prayer. We live love, and we live it with actual people who have actual names and who live in a specific place with very particular fears and hopes and longings. Some of it annoying. Much of it mundane. All of it the stuff of pastors.
more reading: (1) an intro to Good Ol’ Words (2) Good Ol’ Words: Blessing
image: Giotto
Yes….. Pastor lifeover, walker and friend in the “ordinary places with ordinary people”…,.. :o)
thanks, Adriana
Love these words Winn. Your folks are fortunate to have a pastor like you.
Is there a way to forward this to every pastor in the world? Yes, your “flock” are mighty fortunate people! And they need to pray for you and your family earnestly be cause sometimes this isn’t easy to do. God’s grace be with you.
I’ve got to toss out some kudos to my dad, Larry Thompson, who pastored many small congregations over the course of a 40 year career/ministry. He often shares how he never was “successful” as a pastor. But I know differently. He harvested corn, castrated pigs, fixed cars and the likes with hundreds of parishioners over the years. He hunted and fished, laughed and cried and generally “did life” with anyone who had an open heart. There are hundreds who would give the shirt off their back to help Larry Thompson. I don’t know whether that fits the mold of the successful pastor, but Its “all good” in my book.
Thanks for the article, Winn.
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Dave, I really love this vision of your dad. Now that’s a pastor.
Love this.
Thank you, Winn. Why do we so easily forget this and try to make pastors into something they were never designed to be? Breaks my heart sometimes. Thank God for lovely words like these to remind us all of the truth.