Call Me[1] Maybe
I called my pastor yesterday. Well, I emailed him, but we scheduled an appointment and I'm gonna talk with him on the phone next week.[2]
There's no urgent crisis in my life. I'm not in an existential panic, at least not now that most of the votes are counted. But there's a lot brewing. And I’ve got my therapist and my couples therapist and my clergy support group and my spiritual director and my role-playing group and my colleagues and my mentors and my acupuncturist and my nutritionist and my doctor and my friends and my spouse and my kiddo, but none of those are quite my pastor.[3]
There's a lot brewing in the world: maybe the most contentious election I can remember, plus a literal[4] global pandemic, plus the on-going slow-motion collapse of our ecosystems and economies… it’s a lot for my little heart and body and mind.
So I’m gonna call my pastor on Monday and we’re gonna talk. He’ll listen and ask thoughtful questions and laugh with me and maybe cry. He’ll offer to pray at the end, probably, and if he doesn’t I’ll ask him to. It’ll be space for me to say whatever is real for me, to testify and wonder about what the Spirit is up to with me, to name some of the work of discernment in my life these days. I think it’ll be tender and funny and sweet and challenging and well, great.
Friends, siblings, beloved- we love being your pastors. We love hearing what’s stirring in you, we love holding space for you, we love shedding a tear in solidarity with whatever breaks your heart. And sometimes that’s hard to do over the phone or a zoom call or a text message, but we still love it.
And I don’t know about my colleagues, but I’ve got this far in this profession by being good at getting a read on when folks might want to have a cup of tea with me. I notice something about their energy at worship, something about the way they’re chatting at coffee hour, something about the way they sigh when they sit down for a committee meeting. And one of the real griefs of this season for me (and I think for all of us on the pastoral team here) is that we don’t get those informal moments, those embodied connections, those moments when the Spirit can give us a gentle nudge or a swift elbow to go over and see who wants to schedule a time for a beer and a conversation.
So here’s this invitation, again and always: now is a good time to call your pastor, or more than one of your pastors, and see when is convenient for a conversation about whatever is real and loud and beautiful and profound for you.
And even if we do a bad job of hearing you, know that God hears you too, even if you decide not to ever talk to us- the Spirit holds space, the Spirit knows what stirs deep in you, the Spirit’s heart breaks with whatever breaks your heart.
May God bless you and your pastors in this strange and sacred season.
Take care,
David
[1] “Call me or Sharon or Sharry or whoever your pastor is, maybe” is the more accurate title for this note, but I went with the pop song reference. I’m on vacation next week but you can still call and leave a message or call someone who’s not on vacation, just saying.
[2] I’m delighted that the denomination that holds my ordination requires me to be a member of a local church that I don’t serve, in this case it’s Seattle First Baptist. I have multiple pastors at that church and they’re all great!
[3] Maybe you don’t need as big of a support network as I do, that’s cool. But it’s also cool if it’s bigger. All these folks and more are wonderful, but this note is about why you should call your pastor.
[4] See, this is why I like to save the word “literal” for things that are actually literal! Grammar nerds, unite and debate about the use of the comma in this sentence!
