What most members and society do not recognize with respect to the role of clergy is the sheer loneliness that is part of a good pastor’s life. When our faith speaks of Christ bearing the sins of the world, it is identifying an often neglected aspect of the role of pastors of the Body of Christ. It is, of course, at a level far below that of Christ, but good pastors do absorb the wounds, pain, fears, angers, and sins of their neighbors. In a way that always astonishes me, people will entrust to a pastor some of the most private secrets in their lives. Even non-members will often come to a pastor of a church to bare their souls. Frequently there are no answers to the crisis, tragedy, shameful secret, or fear they bring to the pastor and often they don’t even expect a solution but they need to share it with someone. Sometimes that revelation reflects traditional definitions of sin but at others it simply reflects the brokenness of the world. It is not unusual for a pastor to look out at the congregation on a Sunday morning and be struck by the many forms of woundedness arrayed before him or her.
In many cases, we are entrusted with other people’s burdens but are not free to share them and process our own feelings with others. In that sense we bear the sins of the world in our own being. We are in the season of lent. It might be a valuable discipline for a pastor to meditate on the incredible loneliness of Christ as he traveled to the cross and how Christ handled that loneliness as a basis for reflecting on how we are to respond to our own sense of loneliness in the ministry.
In light of that loneliness, Matthew 11:28 through 30 might be a good passage for reflection. How can Jesus say, “For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
Over the next few days we will look at how pastors can cope with the loneliness and not let it defeat them.
