We gather this afternoon with intent and purpose. We didn’t come just because we needed another church service today. We’re here because we want to celebrate – to lift up with joy and gladness – the work of pastoral care that goes on here at Holy Trinity.
The word “pastoral” derives from a Latin word which means shepherd. Unfortunately that fact tends to lead us to some incorrect assumptions about what pastoral care is and how it’s accomplished. For example, it might imply that the work of pastoral care within a congregation is primarily the work of the pastor. Isn’t it the pastor who is called to be the “shepherd” of a congregation? And then too, this definition might imply that pastoral care is about “taking care of.” That is, pastoral care is about taking care of the people, just as the shepherd protects, feeds and waters the sheep.
It helps to remember that the shepherd and sheep images of Christian relationship in the scripture are but one of many, many images Jesus and others used to help Christians know how to BE with one another.
Remember that Jesus was inviting people to live in a different way, a way that was contrary to normal life in his day. He was trying to give them pictures they could understand. The culture of Israel in that day was very much a culture of domination – of top-down rule, of oppression of the poor, in fact, oppression of any who did not fit or were not wanted by the ruling elite.
Jesus called for something different. He called it life IN the kingdom of God; life lived in the same place, but lived in a different way, a way in fact, that came to be known as The Way, the way of being that brings personal and communal transformation. Jesus said that the Kingdom of God was both already present (so he could say immediately to the blind man “go, your faith has made you well) and the Kingdom of God was, paradoxically, yet to come. Thus he invited people to follow him, and to learn to serve one another, to learn to love one another, as they were being loved.
Jesus’ vision of the Kingdom of God was so compelling that people did follow. Even when Jerusalem was destroyed and the Jewish and Christian communities were scattered forty or fifty years after his death, still the Christians were faithful to this vision. So we hear the letter of instruction and encouragement called “First Peter” which was probably sent around thirty years after the resurrection to several small Christian communities in what we now know as Turkey or Greece. The writer reminded these struggling Christians who were living under severe persecution that they should “maintain constant love for one another, for love covers a multitude of sins and…serve one another with whatever gift each of you has received.”
The early Christians were pretty clear that the Kingdom of God was not about always doing things right, but it was about right relationship. It was not about happiness, but about joy. It was not about freedom from the effects of war, but it was about peace. It was not about safety, but it was about security.
The world has changed a great deal in these last 2000 years, but life has not changed all that much, and the Kingdom of God has not changed at all.
The Kingdom of God still exists in the here and now, whenever one of us reaches out to another in love. Where flowers are delivered, where food is supplied, where grief is shared, where compassion is offered, where prayer lifts up, where burdens are put down – there is the Kingdom, and there, my friends, is pastoral care. There is the way of being with one another that leads to transformation of both individuals and the world. It is not a transformation that has a human time line, but it does have effect within human time. It is not about a few persons taking care of others. It is about a community of love that nurtures life in its midst.
This is what we take time to celebrate this afternoon – the Kingdom of God emerging in this congregation, in this community through your willingness to offer to others the gifts you yourselves have received.
As participants in the Kingdom, as persons who both give and receive care, we thank you, and we ask God, through this service of worship, and through our continuing prayers to “Bless all who, following in his steps, give themselves to the service of others…that with wisdom, patience, and courage, they may always minister in his Name.” Amen.