These past couple of weeks I have been watching rug cleaning videos on youtube.1 I understand this may sound like watching videos of paint drying! Why sit and watch a twenty minute video of someone cleaning a rug? Yet the experience is surprisingly satisfying. The rug cleaner begins by unrolling the rug. We see all the dirt and grime, grass and worms, oils and moss. Then we watch as the rug cleaner does his magic. Step by step he sprays the rug down, works in the shampoo, pressure washes it, squeegees out the water. It is a process of lather, rinse, repeat. Yet soon there is visible progress! The dirt and stains come out bit by bit. The water, once running black with dirt, begins to run clear. Over the course of 20 minutes, we watch the rug cleaner both begin and end the task (though certainly the actual job took a good deal longer than what we see in the video). When the video is over, the work is done.
I find these videos satisfying because of how dissimilar this is to pastoral ministry. God did not call me to the kind of job that has a clear beginning and end. In over ten years of pastoral ministry, I have never yet had that day when I got home and thought, “It’s done. The sinners are now saints. The dead are buried and awaiting the resurrection. The community is saved and sanctified. And, to top it off, the sermon is ready for Sunday!” No, most days I go home and am more likely to wonder, “What did I actually accomplish today?” I prayed. I studied the scriptures. I had conversation with neighbors. I completed a few menial administrative tasks. But what actually got done? Very little. The congregation is still filled with sinners – of which I am one. The sick are still sick. The dead are not raised. And the sermon is not ready for Sunday.
There are many days I wish God called me to be a rug cleaner – or a janitor, or a lawn care professional. Anything that would allow me to see a task completed! Yet this is not the work of ministry. The pastor, in all reality, does not accomplish much. This is not to say the work is not difficult – it is! But the central call of the pastor is to do a work that deflects attention away from themselves and their own work and to the work of God in the past, present, and future. Like John the Baptist in Grunewald’s painting,2 we stand to the side and point to Christ crucified. The pastor points people to God’s presence and God’s work. God does the saving and sanctifying. God cleanses hearts. God removes the stains of sin. God takes the sinners and by grace transforms them into saints.
The work of the pastor is to point to a work that they themselves do not and cannot accomplish: salvation.
There is no place I am reminded of this central task more than in the hospital. I learned early on in ministry that there is nothing I can do during a hospital visit. I cannot make the sick person well. There have been times I have walked into a hospital room or hospice facility knowing full well that the person I see will be dead soon. There is nothing that I will do during my visit to fix that. Nevertheless, it is just as important – essential even – that I am there. The presence of a “pastor” in a hospital room reminds the patient, family, and doctors of the presence of God. The pastor is the visible reminder of the invisible presence of God. In that short time in a hospital room as I visit and pray with the patient and family, they are reminded that God has not abandoned them. God is present and at work. God still has a claim on this life. In the work of showing up, being present, the pastor points to the presence and work of God. Sometimes the most important role of the pastor is to just show up.
It would be easy and tempting to run from this work to something a little more productive, noteworthy, and “useful”. Perhaps this is why many pastors have traded in their calling from being pastors to being CEO’s of churches. “Running a church” looks and feels more productive than being a pastor. Things get done and it is more satisfying than waiting for God to do a work that we cannot control or manage. But if everyone were to be a CEO or a rug cleaner or a teacher, who would there be to say, “No,” to all of our human work and efforts? Who would there be to point us to the work of salvation that we cannot do? Who would be left to remind us that all of our good works are like a filthy rug?3
It is not often sexy or satisfying, but this is the call of the pastor – to be the voice in the wilderness who is willing to say “No” to human work and efforts so that we can stop long enough to hear the “Yes” that comes from the Word of God.
“After all, what is Apollos? What is Paul? They are servants who helped you to believe. Each one had a role given to them by the Lord: I planted, Apollos watered, but God made it grow. Because of this, neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but the only one who is anything is God who makes it grow.”
1 Corinthians 3:5-7 (CEB)
The Local Pastor 