pastoral ministry

Funerals foster friendships.

Bereavement opens doors into a person's heart and home that otherwise maybe are never that open at all. I'm privileged to get quite close to folk whom I'd otherwise maybe never really get close to at all.

And it is a very real privilege. I share with ordinary people the extra-ordinary moments in their lives. Those times which are in many ways among the most sacred times in their lives. Times when they sense, even through all of their sorrow and pain, that they're standing on holy ground. That God himself has drawn near.

I've had time today with three different folk whose grief and loss I have shared these past few weeks. Calling back to see these people again, and building on the friendship that bereavement has entailed.

Visits like this take time.

It's not a fleeting half-hour call, a token of my post-bereavement care. It's friendship being fostered, time being shared, memories being once more rehearsed. It's time being invested. It's love being extended. It's Christ being brought to a home.

Jesus was often in all sorts of homes. Sometimes eating meals with folk. Sometimes simply listening, chatting, laughing round the table or the fire.

But always spending time with folk. Investing time. Investing all the energy his holy heart could give.

And, of course, you simply cannot do that with a multitude of folk. There aren't enough hours in the day.

I could drive myself crazy, on the back of a day such as this, by reminding myself of all of the people I might have been with, maybe should have been with, and, if I'd somehow spread my time more sparingly, could perhaps have been with.

But that's the problem. If I spread myself that 'thinly' I could visit much more widely. But then it would only be tokens I was giving, not my time.

Tokens of God's care and understanding. Tokens of a genuine concern. Tokens of respect and recognition. A pastoral version of doffing my cap (if I wore one) as I walked down the street and passed by a whole host of folk.

But friendship takes time. Pastoral ministry always involves loads of time.

It can sometimes take hours to tease out the issues that need to eased to the surface before they can ever be dealt with. Doffing the cap will not do.

I choose depth, that is, not width in the pastoral work I do. And if I haven't somewhere missed the point, Jesus chose that too.

He didn't tour the world: he confined himself to a narrow tract of land. The bulk of his time was spent with a small group of twelve.

He only had those 24 hours every day, same as we do.

To give folk time, and therefore to give them the depth that their genuine growth in the knowledge of God would require - to give folk time meant there simply wasn't time like that for a lot of other things he might have done, nor, indeed, for a lot of other people whom he might have got to know.

His was anything but the doffing-the-cap-as-he-walked-down-the-street sort of ministry some maybe want from their pastor. His was the taking-my-coat-off-to-wash-all-your-feet sort of ministry which some still find too personal and probing for their liking.

He wanted to help folk know God, not just to help them feel good.

Jesus didn't wear a cap. And he certainly didn't spend his time in doffing it.