As a pastor, within the space of the same year, I once conducted the wedding of a young couple as well as the funeral of their stillborn child. I was called to minister to them with God’s Word, prayer, and blessing, in a time of exuberant joy as well as intense grief within a relatively short period of their lives. It’s hard to imagine many other situations that involve such a dramatic shift in emotion and experience, both for the couple and for those who supported them. Yet, in many other, often less dramatic ways, pastors are with people in both the highs and lows of life––at their best and at their worst. So, how do pastors deal with this aspect of their calling?
Rejoicing and Weeping in Community
It’s good to note that in this, pastors are embodying a reality that is actually the case for the whole of the Christian community. As Paul develops his image of the Church as the body of Christ, he says: “If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together” (1 Corinthians 12:26). Christians belong to one another as members of a body, and we cannot isolate the experiences of individuals from that of the community as a whole. Paul sums up this dynamic memorably when he says, “Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep” (Romans 12:15).
Yet, it’s still the case that pastors in their specific office and role are seemingly called upon to live in this tension more than most Christians. It’s the pastors who conduct both the weddings and the funerals. The pastors who have the privilege of baptizing the children of the congregation as well as praying with the grandparents grieving over their grandchildren who have not been baptized. It’s the pastors who are often given a front row seat to the Holy Spirit’s work of creating or awakening faith and it’s the pastor who sometimes becomes discouraged as too few confirmands continue in regular worship.
Forgiving Sins and Preaching God's Law
Another example of the “rejoicing and weeping” dynamic that lands in the pastor’s domain is the forgiving and retaining of sin in Christ’s stead. By virtue of holding the office of the keys, pastors are called to this work. This means witnessing moments of profound grace, freedom, and joy as a penitent sinner hears the word of absolution and so a person crushed by the weight of guilt and shame can be given a new lease on life. Thus, we rejoice! Yet, the weight of the pastoral office also means speaking God’s law to those who do not always welcome it, and at times it then means retaining the absolution in the face of impenitence and hard-heartedness. Thus, we weep.
Fundamentally, the way pastors can deal with all this is that they do not minister from the resources of their own emotions and emotional connections with people, but from God’s living and active Word. Certainly, emotions are important. Paul doesn’t tell us just to be with those who rejoice and weep and stay our neutral selves, but he says we too should rejoice and weep with them. Yet the way pastors do this is by especially drawing on those aspects of God’s Word that express our joy, our grief, and everything in between.
Using Psalms and Hymns for Pastoral Care
This is why the Book of Psalms has been such a treasure trove of pastoral care through the history of the Church. From the Psalms the pastor can speak into anger, grief, despair, guilt, and hopelessness, as well as into relief, thanksgiving, joy, peace, and hope, and sometimes even from the same Psalm! And more than speaking into these, the Psalms can be used to help people express all this to God themselves and lead people through the various emotions and experiences in life. The art of the wise pastor, of course, is learning to speak the right word at the right time. This is partly why at certain times in Church history it was a requirement for ordination to have the entirety of the Psalms committed to memory.
In addition to Scripture and especially the Psalms, pastors minister with the Sacraments, prayer, blessing, and using the hymnody of the Church. All of this can be a tremendous resource in the journey of joy and suffering with the people of God. God’s gift of music and song has a particular way of being able to hold within itself a range and depth of human experience and emotion. As Christian hymnody is permeated by Scripture and Scriptural meditation, it brings another dimension to the ministry of the Word. For example, a pastor speaking to a person awaiting health-related test results might sometimes turn to a hymn of lament and suffering, and at other times turn to one of praise and thanksgiving.
It’s a privilege to minister to people through the whole range of human experience because we do it all in the name of our Lord Jesus, who took on all of our humanity in order to redeem and save us.
See how we should be looking up to God and out to our neighbors—not to ourselves—in Rev. Pfeiffer’s book.
