What do pastors do?

Kids have different ideas about how the world works. Forgive me for being Captain Obvious for a few moments, but really, the world takes on a completely altered view for those who have fresh eyes. I try and recall, sometimes, what it was like to have young eyes. What were the colors like thirty years ago? Did the trees sway faster in the wind? Did the sun seem even a shade brighter, blinding me, but bringing such joy to a promising play day?

Children, it seems, experience life as a constant stream of exciting input. There is no such thing as an impossibility, only a challenge – even flying, if I remember my own pre-teen years. Jumping off the chicken house with strapped on paper wings was a hard challenge. The inability to fly that day did not defray my determination. Eventually I did fly off the chicken house, albeit on a sled. No impossibilities when young.

Young people also feel have an insatiable appetite for answers. Questions fly from their mouths – urgent, quick – the need for knowledge exceeds the need to restrain the vocabulary of the questions. Many of you have experienced the “Why’s” of youth or the “How come?” Young humans, in general, find old people (anyone above 25 years of age) as a menu for their appetites.
When ten years old (I still remember this) I asked the pastor at Zion Lutheran church in Rake, Iowa, “What do pastors do besides talk a lot? Do they ever get anything done?” Ah, sweet impudence.

Pastor Arlen, whom I still hold with great reverence to this day, although I’m not sure he discovered the same esteem for me, responded with great care. Squatting down, he looked me in the eye and spoke to me like an adult. “Reid, pastors are a different lot. We spend most of our time caring for people who are injured. Maybe not in a physical way, although some are. Most of the people we care for are people who are scared, or shocked, or even mystified (that’s my grown up word now) by the way the world responds to change. In the midst of every day change of life, pastors are shepherds leading sheep to still water to drink where the water never changes.”

I didn’t really get the analogy at that time, and I had a thousand questions mostly to the fact that I had never seen Pastor Arlen wear a shepherds robe except maybe that thing he wore on Sundays. How are pastors shepherds? What does that mean about everyone else? I didn’t feel like a sheep although I had really curly hair. My question was asked to a pastor, someone who held my great respect.

The question for the first few weeks of my blog I think well resonate with that young person’s question, “What exactly does a pastor do?” I won’t (and can’t) speak for all pastors in all denomination, but I can speak what it is for this pastor of Word and Sacrament. Next week, read again to see if pastors do anything but talk for 15 minutes (or longer if your name is Lee) on Sunday.