Today’s Word from Pastor Tom Kidd…
Harry never made it through a sermon the last 20 years of his life. Five minutes into my stirring rendering of the Gospel of the day, Harry’s head would begin to bob, his eyelids would grow weary, and sleep would soon overtake him. I took it as grace that he wasn’t a snorer. He would slowly return to us as the congregation would be offering a full-throated response with the hymn of the day. As an act of grace, I chose to never have the congregation stand for the hymn. That would have been too much, asking Harry to wake and stand. It would have been considered cruel and unusual punishment. I loved Harry and I loved being his pastor. When he died in his late 90s the congregation lost a beloved senior churchman and statesman.
I could tell Harry stories enough to fill a dozen blogs. But I shan’t. Well… okay, just one. Harry had bad knees. They needed to be replaced. So, in typical Harry fashion, he talked the doctor into replacing them both at the same time. For goodness’ sake he was 87! Yikes! I came in the next day to witness Harry lying on his back with both legs up in a contraption that was simulating a walking motion. It looked awful and he was obviously in significant pain. In walks this lovely little punkin’ of a physical therapist who looked all of 14. She had no sooner sweetly introduced herself than Harry verily exploded with all sorts of verbal vitriol that left this young lady plastered against the far wall. Boom!!
Into the ensuing silence steps the pastor… “Mary (I really don’t remember her name), you have no idea what a miracle this is. Why, before this surgery replacing Harry’s knees, he was actually a man considered to be of poor attitude. This has obviously fixed that. It’s a miracle!” Harry looked over at me with a look best described as lethal, to which I added, “Harry, what do you say to this young lady who came in here to help you?” Immediately he morphed into everyone’s favorite grandfather, “Mary, I am sorry. Please, could you help me?”
The point? Harry needed help moving into “extra-dependance.” Extra-dependance is when you can let go, you can let go trusting those about you who are in charge, those whose responsibility it is to provide leadership. Kind of like going to church and trusting the pastor to provide safe, renewing pastoral leadership. Sunday morning the pastor is in “intra-dependence” so we can move into extra-dependence. “Our pastor is taking charge so we don’t have to.” Ever notice how congregational anxiety goes up when there is a guest preacher? You sit in the pew internally stressing over questions:
… “Will he have us stand at the right time?”
… “Will she use the standard Lord’s Prayer or the new one?”
… “What if he forgets the gluten-free wafers?”
…”She wants us to sing that?!”
The point being, as much as we appreciate a modestly stimulating sermon, we go to church (when there’s no pandemic) desiring worship leadership that makes us feel safe as well as nurtured. Leadership sufficient that it even makes it safe to drift off once in a while without fear. Even in the best of times life is constantly drawing us into a state of intra-dependance where we are forced to live with the stress of solving the problems of the world. We don’t want to be in intra-dependance on Sunday morning. We want the pastor and leaders to be in intra-dependance. At heart we want to let go and trust our leaders. We want Sunday morning extra-dependance.
Being stuck in intra-dependance leads to burn out. During a pandemic, with all its concomitant issues, we desperately need moments of extra-dependance. We need relationships where we can let go, trusting others without fear of getting it right or being judged. For me, this helps explain why we miss being the church together in flesh and blood.
Maybe the best affirmation of my pastoral leadership was Harry not hearing a sermon from beginning to end. I was good with that.
God’s peace be upon you, I miss you,
Tom
