| In her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Gilead (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004, p. 6), Marilynne Robinson has the main character, a minister who is reaching the end of his pastorate, write the following in his journal: "That's the strangest thing about this life, about being in the ministry. People change the subject when they see you coming. And then sometimes those very same people come into your study and tell you the most remarkable things. There's a lot under the surface of life, everyone knows that. A lot of malice and dread and guilt, and so much loneliness, where you wouldn't really expect to find it, either." It is not surprising that the Rev. Ames' observations accord with a recent survey taken among contemporary preachers in which 63 per cent of them admit that they feel lonely and isolated in their work (Outlook, Sept 11, 2006 issue). This happens primarily because pastors are often distanced from their members as human beings and diminished in their fundamental existence.
In her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Gilead (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004, p. 6), Marilynne Robinson has the main character, a minister who is reaching the end of his pastorate, write the following in his journal: "That's the strangest thing about this life, about being in the ministry. People change the subject when they see you coming. And then sometimes those very same people come into your study and tell you the most remarkable things. There's a lot under the surface of life, everyone knows that. A lot of malice and dread and guilt, and so much loneliness, where you wouldn't really expect to find it, either." It is not surprising that the Rev. Ames' observations accord with a recent survey taken among contemporary preachers in which 63 per cent of them admit that they feel lonely and isolated in their work (Outlook, Sept 11, 2006 issue). This happens primarily because pastors are often distanced from their members as human beings and diminished in their fundamental existence. As Ames tries to leave an honest portrait of himself in his journal for his young son, he struggles with his weaknesses and strengths in ministry, and the nature of his relationships with his wife, friends, enemies, and church members. He also attempts to understand the ministries of his father before him and his grandfather (a man who ran with John Brown before the Civil War). As he looks at the yellowed pages of his own old sermons, he wonders if anything he has written or preached was significant and true. In her novel, Robinson suggests some universal aspects of what it means to be appreciated as a pastor, factors that square with my own secret thoughts during a long ministry (I was ordained in 1967) and the candid expressions of many of my friends and colleagues over the years. Most pastors long to be understood as real people not cardboard stick figures that are figments of their parishioners' imaginations. They want to be taken seriously as professionals who do try to serve their people and their God with energy, intelligence, imagination, and love. As one of my friends recently put it, they want to be faithful, not successful. They want to preach God's Word in a fresh and comforting way to people who have never heard it and disturb those who think they have it completely understood. Most pastors hope to make a difference in the world, they desire to help others in the name of Christ, whoever God places in their path. As the Rev. Ames puts it when he realizes that in spite of his own reluctance he actually has blessed one difficult one young man, "I'd have gone through seminary and ordination and all the years intervening for that one moment" (p. 242). At the end of his journal he sums up what it takes to prevent pastoral depreciation, and it involves the fundamental qualities of grace, acceptance, and forgiveness (p. 246). They are useful not only in appreciating pastors, but in relationships with anyone we might meet in the journey of ministry and life. "Theologians talk about a prevenient grace that precedes grace itself and allows us to accept it. I think there must also be a prevenient courage that allows us to be brave--that is, to acknowledge that there is more beauty than our eyes can bear, that precious things have been put into our hands and to do nothing to honor them is to do great harm. And therefore, this courage allows us, as the old men said, to make ourselves useful. It allows us to be generous, which is another way of saying exactly the same thing." Earl S. Johnson Jr. is pastor of First Church in Johnstown, N.Y., and adjunct professor of religious studies at Siena College.
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