Caring about pastoral care

The arrival of a letter the other day created a host of conflicting emotions in me. It came from a woman whose husband had recently died. Here is a piece of the letter expressing the heart of this church member's concern: "Don* [the woman's dying husband] was a very depressed man and would not talk. The psychiatrist who was seeing him [in hospital] wanted him admitted to a psychiatric hospital. But Don wanted to come home to die. March 25* he came home and was placed on hospice ... [an organization for the special care of patients facing imminent death]. The hospice chaplain visited us and notified our pastor of Don being placed on hospice. The chaplain told me our pastor wanted to know what Don's physical condition was.... I found it so embarrassing to report each time we met for the team conferences that our pastor [not on vacation] had not called or visited.... August 9 we had our one and only visit from the pastor. Don died August 16."

As I read this letter, graphic memories of my own episodes of negligence as a pastor rose up to haunt me. I am well aware of the sometimes overwhelming barrage of needs and demands that come pulling insistently on the pastor's threadbare sleeve. I also know that as often as not, especially in a large parish, the pastor does not know that someone is in the hospital until after they have gone home. He or she only hears about the member's hospital stay in the form of a criticism that goes something like this: "You know, no one went to see Sister Smith while she was in the hospital, not even the pastor." It seems that there is no foolproof way of knowing who in the congregation is hospitalized. This is complicated by the fact that patient stays in hospitals are shorter than ever.

I also know that it is easy to become engrossed in countless legitimate and important projects and people, while in the back of the mind there lingers the troublesome consciousness that there is still that less conspicuous, less demanding, low-profile person who really needs to be seen, or at least called on the telephone. But they have not called, so it's easy to put off seeing them.

Then in many parts of the world there is the growing tendency to devalue the visit of the pastor. This trend can be traced in the preferences of parishioners and therefore in a matching trend among pastors. Some want to be visited and some do not... and is the sun of regular pastoral visitation setting ... and what do people want along this line anyway ... and what is expected of the pastor after all? So it is easy to take the less assertive course of action, especially if the parishioner tends to be a bit demanding or critical of the pastor.

But I must be honest and say that I also know that sometimes we pastors simply blow it. I know us well enough to say that often enough we and our people are subject to our own negligence as pastors. If this is true of you or me, we must simply and unequivocally admit our weakness and do something about it. We cannot afford to make this kind of pastoring a way of life. We must be honest with ourselves and without self-reproach, acknowledge openly to ourselves and to God that we want a full, rich, and genuinely helpful ministry, for such neglect is simply unconscionable. It is unconscionable because we are Christian pastors charged with the care of our flocks, who encounter the full gamut of suffering on this planet.

I recently watched my father coming to terms with the fact that he was about to die. He was brave and strong and had a spiritual arsenal full of the best weapons for just such an ultimate battle. But I noticed a pain and bewilderment I had never before seen in him. There was a silence and withdrawal, a restless detachment and preoccupation, and an understandable depression that uncharacteristically gripped him.

He was busy doing what anyone who is dying has to do concentrating on the battle with the inexorable presence of death and all that death brings with it. He was puzzling his way through it as best he could.

Some of this his family could help with, but we were going through our own battles right at his side, and it was awfully good for him and for us to have his pastor in on it.

When we are dying or when we are ill or when our teenage children are "experimenting" or when we have lost our job or are facing a spouse's infidelity... we are in need of the wise understanding of a truly Christian pastor, who holds in his or her heart the quiet comfort and strength of the Living Word of Christ and knows, even haltingly, how to administer it to us in our pain. It is exactly to this that we have been called. Of course there is much more to pastoring than just "visiting." Of course Christian pastoring is evangelism. Of course there are exciting interests and burgeoning ministries and fascinating specialities. And there are people much more interesting (and less threatening) to be with than are those who are in pain.

But real ministry is to touch the casket of a son whose widowed mother weeps in Nain and to journey out of our way to cry with the Marthas and the Marys. It is to come down to be incarnate in the sorrow and death of our people.

Here's a tried and true suggestion: Thoughtfully write out your deciding life principles and ministerial priorities. On the basis of these, take 10 or 15 minutes at the beginning of each day to plan the day. Write down the specific tasks you are going to work on that day. With your pastoral care challenges well represented, get a clear picture of what you want to accomplish that day, who you plan to see, and what your objectives are in seeing them. Enjoy the sense of focus and accomplishment that comes as you do this and carry through on it.

Be assertive in the best sense. We must be adaptable, watching for God's lead and people's need, but we must also keep a hand on the tiller of our lives and ministries. Let that control spring from what you believe in, who you are, and what your gifts are, but also let it come from what God has objectively called you to be as a pastor. This is a clarification we need to make in the presence of God every day. May I challenge you, as I challenge myself, to keep these things focused and normative in the everyday of the ministry we practice.