My rent-a-reverend days are over. When I joined the faculty of a seminary a year ago, I was curious what it would feel like to sit in the pews on Sunday. I never found out. I’ve been in a different city almost every weekend serving as the guest preacher. For the longest time I couldn’t figure out why I felt so clumsy in this important ministry.
The problem wasn’t the hassles of flying. Nor was my complaint that every hotel room in the country looks and smells like loneliness. I didn’t mind driving in strange cities, because at least the car was familiar. Every rental agency uses the same silver Taurus.
I finally uncovered the problem one Sunday after worship, when the host pastor stood about six feet away from me at the door of the church.
All the polite people were coming up to me to say something nice about the sermon. All the people who needed their pastor were lined up in front of the other guy. Some just wanted to hold his hand for a few seconds.
It hit me that it didn’t really matter how great the sermon was that day, I wasn’t speaking as one who had taken a vow to love and care for them.
I wasn’t their pastor.
One Sunday evening when I was somewhere, the pastor drove me back to the hotel after a long day of preaching. Along the way he said, “It must be nice not to have to worry anymore about trustees meetings, ornery parishioners, and staff problems.”
I surprised us both by saying, “I miss it all like crazy.”
I’m not the least bit sentimental about the pastor’s life, but after a year away, I have regained some perspective. No matter how stressful the grind becomes, it is possible to see that even the struggles of ministry are God’s way of preparing you to preach a sermon that really is God’s Word to this particular people.
That doesn’t mean that you get to use the pulpit to blast away at the members who are a pain in the neck. But it does mean that you have earned the right to be heard; because after all you have been through that week, you’re still a believer.
When the week has also been spent visiting the sick child in the hospital, burying the dead husband, praying with the single mother who has just lost her job, and writing a sermon from your heart that was already filled with all of this pathos—well, it’s no wonder that people line up after worship just to hold your hand.
It isn’t your hand they are holding. It’s grace they are reaching for.
Only a parish pastor knows that.
Early in my last pastorate, I was in a committee meeting that was going south in a hurry. When I tried to get us back on the agenda, the guy causing the problems called me a horse’s ass. Right in front of God and everyone else!
After the meeting, he took my hand and said that he and his wife were just so thankful that I had come to be their pastor.
I went home that night so confused.
Seven years later I sat beside his hospital bed while he slowly left this world. Unable to speak, he just reached out and took my hand. I held it until I knew he was gone. That guy remained a mystery to me to the day he died, but the part about holding his pastor’s hand I do understand. And I really missed it.
So I have turned in my frequent flyer card. While I continue to teach would-be pastors, I have also agreed to be a local pastor again. I don’t quite know how the time issue will work out, but I do know who I am and what I have to do.
I have to get back to the line where people don’t just shake your hand, but hold it.
Craig Barnes is pastor of Shadyside Presbyterian Church and professor of leadership and ministry at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. He is also editor at large of Leadership.He will be a featured speaker at the National Pastors Convention in San Diego, March 9-13. www.NationalPastorsConvention.com
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