It's become a cliche in pastor circles. How hard the holidays are. Sometimes cliches can make the reality rather than represent it, but in this case, I do think the holidays are particularly challenging for most pastors. Here's a list of 5 things that have been vexing for me this Christmas season:
- Advent sermons. In Advent, the scriptures always talk about Jesus' Second Coming and re-making the earth. And every year the earth needs re-making. It exacerbates our legitimate doubts about whether he is coming back at all. Waiting for Jesus gets tiring. So do Advent sermons on waiting.
- What to do with Mary? Never more than in the last two years have I been aware of pregnancy complications. Several more came on my radar this year in the congregation. None of these folks want to hear about Mary's miraculous pregnancy and how God comes as a baby. Those words hurt.
- There's a homeless woman whom we suspect is sleeping in the church. Not sure how she gets in, but she hides and sleeps in a classroom. She can't stay there. But the shelters across the city are full to the gills. There is no room in the inn, anywhere in Atlanta. I still have to kick her out.
- The calls for assistance come fast and furious. Random people just call and every story, if you listen to it, is desperate. Evicted. Staying in a hotel. No money. Kids. "Pastor, can you pay for just one more night? We'll find the rest...." People can lie about a lot of things, but desperation is not easy to mask in someone's voice.
- Holidays without loved ones. So many families are missing somebody important, maybe from death, from mental illness, from a broken relationship.
But if the holidays feel hard... I think it's because they are.
It's not the first time. There was a woman who slept in the shelter of a hut then on the property; she was too paranoid to sleep inside. But she used the restrooms to clean up and dress. She was very well groomed.
ReplyDeleteThis season brings fresh meaning to the phrase "mixed blessings" for many of us. And yes, the holidays are hard for even those of us for whom others think they *should* be *easy.*
ReplyDeleteThe Advent part bothers me, too. It's a real crises of faith: Xn ethics depends on X's return, but . . . Each year we are reminded that he hasn't. The best I can do is choose to be a person who lives in hope. But this grinds my soul.
ReplyDeleteI love preaching about Mary. First, because nobody expects a Baptist minister to focus on her. Second, because her story is a great way of reminding the church that there are thousands of single mothers desperate for help, and the church needs to step up and be the family of that single mother and the child.
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