Many years have passed since the congregation of the Mount Pleasant Baptist Church of Ambler, Pennsylvania, gave a reception for me and my family. I was their new minister, fresh out of seminary, eagerly pursuing graduate study at the University of Pennsylvania, ready to set the church and world aright.
While welcoming me during that event, the spokesman for the board of deacons, a Christian along in years, concluded with these words: “You have become our minister; so our Sunday bulletins and stationery state. While you are here, I hope you will also become our pastor.”
As a young man, I regarded the metaphor of “pastor” lightly. The minister as counselor? Excellent. Teacher? Superb. Administrator? Prestigious. But pastor? Quaint. We no longer lived in a rural world, but in a technological society. Shepherding imagery, I reasoned, was archaic.
How mistaken I was! Life increasingly has become dominated by things and those who make, fix, adjust, or destroy them. Many have a growing sense that people, too, are things to be used, played with, manipulated, changed, or cast aside.
Today I recognize the wisdom in the valedictory words of my grandfather Roddy, who, in the late summer of 1916, took my father to Grand Central Station to board a train for Boston, where he would begin his training for the Christian ministry. Embracing his son, he said, “Clarence, I hope you never become a great preacher. Rather, learn to bind up the wounds of the hurt, bring comfort to the bereaved, hope to the despairing, and strength to the weak.”
My grandfather went to his grave knowing his son had heeded his words, even though Clarence Roddy was also known as an extraordinary preacher and teacher of preachers at Fuller Theological Seminary.
Shortly after World War II, my dad supplied the pulpit at First Baptist Church of Portland, Maine, where he had pastored years before. Our whole family was there, and the church was full. After the benediction, Dad went to the vestibule and greeted the people. They formed a line down the left aisle and across the back, to the foot of the balcony stairs.
After the last person was greeted, we went to the Turners’ home for lunch. While Emma Turner prepared the meal, Dad and I sat in rocking chairs, looking out onto the beginnings of Portland harbor. At least, I was looking out. Dad was pensive, rocking back and forth.
Finally, he looked up and spoke softly, “Not one of those people mentioned a single sermon I preached.” After a long pause, he continued. “They reminded me of ‘the night you got up at 2 A.M. and drove me 200 miles up to the lumber camp where my son was dying of double pneumonia’; ‘the three days you stayed with us and helped during Father’s last illness’; ‘the day my boy tried to hop a train, slipped, and lost his legs’; ‘the day after my son died of polio and you comforted me by inviting me to give my allegiance to Christ.’ And they remembered the joys, even the little ones: ‘the time you made me bake an apple pie as big as your car wheel, and my husband had to peel apples all day.’ “
He said no more. But as he continued rocking, I realized that the foundations of life in First Baptist Church during the past half century were laid in that pastoral service.
So I’ve changed my mind about “pastor,” and I’ve told my congregation, “Even though I may disappoint you at times, you may expect of me service. I am Christ’s servant. Therefore, I am also your servant.
“When, you may ask, is the right time to call upon your servant? In the morning when I am well rested? At a more convenient time in my busy schedule? After more important matters of church policy and administration are considered? No. The right time is when you have a need. When you need to cry or to laugh, to mourn, or to exalt, to be instructed or to communicate, to be praised or to be admonished, to confess or to forgive, to be encouraged or to find peace-in the hard passages, in the joyful events.
“I, therefore, want to serve you even unto many deaths-some little, some great. Deaths of my own time, desires, expectations; deaths of my rights, ambitions, opinions, and ways. As our Lord said, ‘The shepherd is to lay down his life for the sheep.’ “
To give life-this is what it means to be a pastor.
-Sherman Roddy
Granite Presbyterian Church
Woodstock, Maryland
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