To Be A "Pastor"

Last Wednesday I went into a United Methodist bookstore looking for funeral resources.

Never feeling like I’m smart enough or prepared enough to deal with whatever is around the next bend in the road is one of my deepest insecurities. Not feeling like a “real” pastor is another one. This trip to the bookstore managed to encompass both.

I got to the counter, lugging what had turned into a whole PILE of books (most of which I just had to have because they looked so interesting and had nothing to do with funerals!). The very friendly clerk asked, ever so nicely, if I was a pastor – they give a 15% discount if you are.

I said no.

Let the insecurity begin.

What exactly qualifies one to be a “pastor?”

Here’s the official Merriam-Webster take on the matter at hand.
“Etymology: Middle English pastour, from Anglo-French, from Latin pastor herdsman, from pascere to feed: a spiritual overseer; especially: a clergyman serving a local church or parish”

When 20 or more from our congregation gather in my dining room on Wednesday evenings and pore over what we call the clobber passages in the Bible and wrestle with Scripture and push each other, am I not serving as a herds(wo)man?

When we gather on Sunday evenings for worship, am I not feeding and stoking spiritual flames. . .or at least trying?

When we go to the church basement after worship to share food and conversation, doesn’t that qualify as pascere?

When I sit with people – when I hold people, who are so wounded that they can’t fathom that God could possibly love them, isn’t that seeing something that God wants SOMEONE to see?

It’s that last clause in the definition that trips me up: a clergy(wo)man serving in a local church or parish.

Good old Merriam-Webster to the rescue again. Clergy: a group ordained to perform pastoral or priestly functions in a Christian church

I once heard someone (who is ordained) describe job security for clergy – the only difference between “them” and “us” is that they have the spiritual authority to make bread something more than just bread during Communion and make water something more than just water during baptism.

Forgive me for my impertinence, but isn’t it GOD who does that?

And there is my dilemma. When I look into people’s eyes and when I speak their names as we break communion bread together, I’m just the conduit. God gives the grace.

When I baptized a woman who had endured unspeakable abuse and was terrified of the water, yet chose to be baptized by immersion – what role did a human being play in that? When she came up out of the water and found a new source of strength and power that she didn’t know her gut contained – what role did “clergy” play in that?

I want to be a conduit. If you need to call me “pastor” I suppose that’s OK too.

Still doesn't answer that question about the 15% discount though. . .