The dangers of providing pastoral care
Woundedness is the predictable price we pay for being sent on outrageous assignments by Jesus.
Willimon: When I graduated from Yale Divinity School and headed back to South Carolina Methodism, I thought I was entering a war. Some of the young pastors who had talked me into ministry were run out of the church before I got to join them. I was immature and didn’t know much about pastoral ministry, but I knew that you could get hurt doing it.
Hauerwas: When I left Yale, I was lucky to get a job teaching at Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois, where the Lutherans were easy to get along with. Though the ’60s had their challenges, we at least thought that ministry was worth the trouble.
Willimon: Young and reckless, accustomed to unsafe behavior, I was unintimidated—even invigorated—by Luther’s dictum that the sermon is like the surgeon’s scalpel. Ministry puts the church in pain by telling the truth it’s been avoiding.
Years later, as a bishop, I became troubled that many contemporary pastors aspired only to be obsequious pastoral caregivers and hand-holders—the pastor as the empathetic helping healer who goes for the low-hanging fruit by encouraging people to display and then lick their wounds.
