Pastors need their vacations. Many pastors won’t take one unless loving church members prod them to do so.
For good reason we Presbyterians require four weeks’ break for our congregations’ ministers.
• It’s not only the stress of preparing a sermon every week — although that can take the stuffing out of a person earnestly wrestling with the text(s) to bring God’s Word to the people.
• It’s not only the phone calls from emergency rooms — although that can disrupt a family’s dinner hour, not to mention a night’s sleep.
• It’s not only the committee meetings — although they could sap the Energizer Bunny®.
• It’s not only EGR (“extra-grace-required”) members who storm into the pastor’s study to report about the funny smells in the kitchen or last Sunday’s organ volume — although one might wonder if the eternal supply of grace might be depleting to the verge of exhaustion.
One other reason the pastor needs a break: to rediscover what it’s like to be a human.
A pastor may think that the vocation’s core calling is that of preaching or visiting or administration or pastoral care. But to many in the pews, what matters most is that this person is their congregation’s icon.
Now don’t get me wrong. We westerners split away from Eastern Church nearly 1,000 years ago — distancing ourselves from their iconizing tendencies. And 500 years ago we of the Reformed tradition rediscovered the priesthood of all believers, declaring Jesus to be the sole mediator between heaven and earth — clerics and icons not needed. What’s more, we iconoclasts cleared all statues, paintings, and other representations of God from our churches in the Reformation’s wake. We hold the second commandment to be inviolable.
Plus, to be honest, not one in a million congregants would actually label their pastor as an icon. But that’s exactly what she is — in the members’ eyes.
People see their ministers as different from everybody else in the church. If five people say the same thing, we’re more likely to really hear it when spoken by the pastor. If every elder visits us at the hospital, it’s the minister’s visit and prayer that touches most deeply. If someone lets out an expletive, they’ll apologize to the pastor present — not to anybody else.
Many a new pastor gets blindsided by such special treatment. Most resist the adulation, prefering a pew over a pedestal. But, as the Rev. Dimmesdale of The Scarlet Letter fame discovered, the more you downplay your greatness, the more the others exalt you.
Some pastors get drunk on the prestige and adoration, falling prey to the belief that they really are different. They receive others’ honor as if their professional excellence had earned it.
Others do come to terms with this complex aspect of their vocation. They realize that, just as children can hear their parents’ voices in a crowded stadium, so, too, their congregants develop better hearing of God’s voice through the words the preacher intones. So it is with good shepherds. The promises of God’s abiding presence just feel more real upon the arrival of the pastor. And if she moves around church and community in utmost humility, aware of this iconic role being played – knowing “I’m just the messenger” – she can see her service to Christ take flight.
But that mantle gets heavy over time. And it can confuse and delude and downright separate the pastor from his humanity. Oh, the family knows how human he is. The spouse, kids, siblings, in-laws — they all know the truth. Those folks need to take away to the beach or the mountains the person they don’t call pastor but, rather, “honey” or “mom” or “dad” or “bro” or “sis,” where he or she can get refit into the more basic human mantle — that of being a child of God, living in a community of equals.
Hence, the need for a vacation. Will you ask your pastor and pastor’s family where they will be vacationing this summer?
— JHH
