It was a surprise to get my essay back. I found this lecturer to be a compelling teacher. He was a person who brought the best out in me. Now I was to read his comments for the first essay I had written on Life Long Learning. There it was! He used a biblical image saying “this sounds like a resurrection, John”. I was somewhat horrified that he should take a personal familial incident and compare it with the resurrection. The lecturer was a person who had previously served as a priest. He retained his faith although life had taken him away from priesthood. It seemed almost blasphemous! I asked about it our next meeting and discovered that he was equally put off by a comparison the unique resurrection of Jesus. “No!” he exclaimed, “I was thinking of Lazarus”. The metaphor thus explained opened my eyes to a completely new aspect of self-awareness.
The notion that one could discover a pastoral reframe, an enabling perspective on something that had caused me to baulk at a helpful metaphor, is compelling and one that I know experientially to be authentic. This idea is worth reflection and perhaps adopting as one seeks to influence others who will be teachers, pastors or spiritual directors.
Spiritual Direction
Margaret Guenther uses the images of ‘hospitality, teaching and midwifery’ as windows into the practice of spiritual direction that is wise, compassionate earthed and practical. Alan Jones, who wrote the preface to her book Holy Listening, suggests that spiritual directors are people who hold up the demands of ‘absolute responsibility’ and the promise of ‘absolute forgiveness’ (Guenther 1992, X).
In her comparative work Pastoral Work and Spiritual Direction, the Canadian pastoral carer Jean Stairs suggests that spiritual direction is “time bound and normally limited in practice to the private sphere. The spiritual director generally does not socialise with or enter public arenas of those being directed. Spiritual direction is established with contractual, disciplined and confidential relationship for a negotiated period of time. It may involve a fee paid by the directee” (Stairs, 2000, p.190). By way of contrast, Stairs correctly observes that pastoral care is absorbed into the fabric of a congregation’s life and service to its members and the wider community. Pastoral carers freely offer pastoral care because it is a dimension of the church’s ministry and mutual belonging to the priesthood of all believers (ibid). This of course is less true when one comes to think of pastoral care within the boundaries that are particularly appropriate for chaplains in whatever setting they minister. Pastoral care can be “informal, formal, highly confidential or entirely public” (Stairs 2000, p.188).
Pastoral care has been variously defined. I want to share a composite definition that embraces the opinions of researches and writers like Clebsch and Jaekle (1964), Clinebell (1988), Underwood (1993), Lester (1995), and Goodliff (1999). It is this:
The ministry of pastoral care consists of service done by representative Christian persons, directed towards the healing, liberating, nurturing, sustaining, reconciling, and celebrating of people whose joys and troubles arise in the context of ultimate meanings.
Other major writers such Tidball (1986 or 1999), Gerkin (1997), Willimon (2002) and Musgrave and Bickle (2003) further contribute to the discussion.
Stairs suggests that “pastoral care and spiritual direction are to be related in practice as complimentary disciplines” (2000, p.187). She suggests that neither can replace the other nor the two merge and lose the distinctiveness of its disciplines. In my opinion the distinction may in part be helpful, but it does not mean that they are mutually exclusive. Personal giftedness, abilities and personality enable some individuals to integrate these two disciplines in practice. I believe that is possible to switch in and out of the disciplines within relationship at times when we are ministering with people.
The practices of spiritual direction and pastoral care are both informed by, and at times under-girded by, images and metaphors that give us windows into empowering ministry. The ways of doing that may be difficult, but I think that, in this largely visual society in which we live, there are a number of distinctive metaphors that have informed, and to a greater or lesser degree, shaped Christian spirituality, and that may be used to enable us to provide appropriate spiritual direction for those who it desire of us. At the very least it seems to me that we need to consider ways in which images can form pastoral connections with people’s stories and which enable us to provide some frames through which people may view their experiences in medical care and other transitional spaces in life as we minister with them.
Feast
The metaphor of feast informs both spiritual formation and pastoral care.
Feasts in the Scriptures are images of joyful voices, festive music and dancing and abundant food’. Biblical feasts are not just parties - they are celebrations of divine goodness towards the people of God. Feasts provide occasions for fellowship in community as people recall acts of God in delivering, preserving and protecting his people. Passover, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Feast of First Fruits, and the Feast of Weeks, the Feast of Trumpets and the Feast of Tabernacles along with the later Feast of Purim and the Feast of Dedication or rededication of the temple - all point to these interventions by God on people’s behalf. People of spiritual integrity, rather than the unrepentant, can authentically celebrate these feasts. The fast of repentance is needed before one can resume feasting in good faith.
The New Testament recounts Jesus’ involvement in some of the feasts, such as the Feast of Tabernacles when he called thirsty people to come to drink deeply of him, God’s incarnate word. The Lord birthed Holy Communion in the midst of a celebration of the Passover Feast, redefining and reshaping its character as he focused on his death and resurrection. The Lord’s Supper thus becomes a symbolic feast that commemorates and celebrates God’s love for God’s people in establishing the new covenant with them in Christ who delivers and transforms them. The Eucharist is a feast that both looks back (reminding us of Christ’s death and resurrection) and forward (encouraging us to imagine that we are in heaven where Christ can be seen in all the glory of God). Then the sign and the symbol will become unnecessary as we are in the nurturing presence of the risen Christ (McGrath 1999, pp.89-90).
God’s kingdom is compared to a great feast to which people of the global village are invited from the whole of history. This New Testament image is compared to a wedding feast celebrating the profound connecting between the Son of God and his bride - the believers of all ages (Matthew 22:1-14, Revelation 19:9). The feast metaphor points to the future when God will resurrect his people from every age to live with him in eternal intimacy and joy (Ryken, Wilhoit, Longman 1998, pp.279-280).
Pastoral care and spiritual direction which can give people liberty to celebrate the traces of grace one discerns in life’s journey is both healing and empowering. Underwood (Underwood 1993) is right in saying that pastoral care is about celebrating with people in their triumphs and amid their troubles and in the ordinary and extraordinary achievements and milestone in life.
Journey
The biblical use of the image of journey is powerful. From the story of Abraham’s journeys, through the journeys of the people of Israel in and out of exile, and the journeys of Jesus the teaching Messiah, to the missionary journeys of Paul, the motif of journey is strong.
An early nickname given to Christians was ‘the people of the way’. The apostle Paul spoke of life as a long and arduous race undertaken under the pressure of the need to be focused and disciplined. The author of Hebrews urges readers to persevere in the race of life, keeping their eyes fixed on Jesus.
Centuries after biblical times, John Bunyan added to the strength of the journey motif and its place in personal pilgrimage, with his spiritual epic, The Pilgrim’s Progress. Later again, the Victorian preacher, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, also wrote powerfully of the Christian life as a journey. For him the journey began with conversion, when the individual comes to the existential realisation that they need an ultimate and eternal friend who brings reconciling grace, forgiveness and transformation to the relationship. Baptism is the funeral service signifying death to the old life and rising to a new life and relationship.
Spurgeon suggested that people on the journey of faith need to constantly nurture the grace and work of prayer. “Prayer” he said “is the lisping of the believing infant, the shout of the fighting believer, and the requiem of the dying saint falling asleep in Jesus” (Spurgeon 1969, 4). Those who faithfully journey are to embrace spiritual practices that are to do with the outworking of faith, hope and love. The practice of prayer, mediation, obedience, service, community disciplines, working on the creation rhythm of work and rest, are all vital to nurture on the journey. For Spurgeon, as for those in the ‘Lectio Divina’ prayer traditions, there is a profound link between prayer and interaction with the scripture.
The qualities needed for the journey, according to Spurgeon, are to be “holy, and humble, zealous and patient” (Spurgeon 1969, 148). He asserts that zeal is unhelpful when not accompanied by patience and humility and holiness - they are profoundly connected in practice.
“Zeal pushes us onward towards the promise of the coming king. Patience keeps us within the communion of the converted sinners in which we find ourselves. Zeal would have us waiting on tiptoe in anticipation of the eschaton. Patience sends us off on the unglamorous work of the day by day so that the coming reign of the Saviour is proclaimed” (Ashmail 1980, p.80)
Alister McGrath makes some interesting comments about the contemporary notion of the hitchhiker and our spiritual journey.
“To hitchhike is to get a free ride and to travel in company. By the end of the ride we are farther along the road than when we started and we have enjoyed company along the way. To hitch a ride is to learn more about people and about life, as well as to move alone the road to our destination. It is to learn the wisdom of others… we can rest beside the road and reflect by the side of the road before hitching another ride with someone else” (McGrath 2004, pp.40-42).
McGrath reminds us that to hitch a ride with great spiritual writers and thinkers of the past, and a soul mate in the now, can be powerfully enabling as one grapples with the realities of practising prayer and contemplating. To hitch a ride is to reject proud independence and own the fact that pilgrimage in company is a delightful part of our Judeo-Christian heritage that enables us to stay on track towards a destination. This climactic realisation is not a tantalising dream that cannot be reached, but the destination is real. Both our journey of trust and its final goal is a grace gift from an extraordinarily generous God.
The Presence of God
The notion of the 'ministry of presence' and needs some elaboration. First, the pastoral carer needs to be confident of the presence of God with him or her when they are ministering to other people. “Remarkably, our wonderings about the incomprehensibilities of God and the ineptness of language are somehow put out of our minds when we accept the simple meaning of the statement and realise that no other meaning will do - God is with us (Matthew 1:22-23)” (Musgrave 2003, p.68). God becomes present to us in Jesus. God is present to us because of the promise of Jesus that he would be with his people as they serve him to the end of the ages. God is with us by the Holy Spirit. God’s care for his people is powerfully recognised when we understand that he sent his own Spirit to be among us and within us. This indeed is the hope of glory.
God’s prior presence with us in the incarnation, in his immersion into death for us and presence in and among us by the Holy Spirit prompts pastors to be present to the women, men, girls and boys that we care for. “Presence is not only a concept to be understood: it is a gift to be given. Because it is at the heart of ministry and the core of empathetic response, presence is the most important gift a visitor can bring to the sick and the dying” (Musgrave 2003, pp.69-70). The recognition of the presence of God by the carer and those being cared for has potential to facilitate, nurture, heal, sustain, guide, reconcile, liberate and lead another to celebrate. Carers are therefore to enter pastoral interchanges with the underlying question: Where is God acting here? A companion question is ‘how can I get on track with God here?
Empathetic Presence with others
“Empathy is the ability to tolerate the tension of being truly open to the experience of another, the ability to attempt actively to understand the subjective world of the other, and at the same time to remain a differentiated person” (Musgrave 2003, p.35).
Musgrave goes on to highlight two components to empathy, that which is cognitive and that which is affective. Empathy requires one to physically attend to another. Empathy demands that I am mentally present to another. Emotional presence with another is essential in the demonstration of genuine empathy. Further, the pastoral carer needs to be spiritually attentive to another.
Being present to another places on us the responsibility of being reflective practitioners. Having listened proactively to another’s ideas and feelings, the pastoral carer needs to reflect on questions such as:
‘What is God doing here?’
‘How and where is God working here?’
‘How does this person’s experience influence their and my theology?’
‘What does my faith tradition have to say about my recent pastoral experience?’
‘How can I meaningfully pray with and for this person?’
‘What insights do I gain into the worldview of my colleague from this interchange?’
‘How does the other person’s perspective on interact with my own?’
‘How can I improve the quality of our future interactions as a pastor of integrity?’
Struggle
Andrew Mayes wrote a delightful book entitled Spirituality of Struggle in which he urges us to constructively confront the understandable, but unhelpful, tendency of many of us to oversimplify faith and growth. He turns readers’ attention to biblical stories such as: Jacob wrestling with God and personal identity; Ruth who embraces change; Elijah who struggles with stress and fear; Mary’s struggle with her calling; and Paul’s struggle with human nature and life of the community of faith.
Mayes thus taps into a powerful metaphor that is deeply rooted in Christian spirituality. There are the struggles which are both personal/internal and behavioural/outward; the legitimate struggle with the discrimination that Christians may experience that comes at us in many forms, without our being masochistic; the struggle we have with temptation or personal darkness; the struggle that we have with God when we wish God’s agenda for us and for humankind was different to what it is.
We struggle with the disciplinary components of suffering. “We rejoice in our suffering, because we know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance, character and character, hope” (Romans 5:3-4).
Then there is the struggle of idealism and integrity, and of human destructiveness or suffering all around us. We validly cry with Habakkuk the prophet, “How long, O Lord?” We relate to the same prophet with the English poet William Cowper who struggled with continuous mental illness and could cry with Habakkuk:
Sometimes a light surprises
the Christian while he sings;
it is the Lord who rises
with healing in his wings;
when comforts are declining,
he grants the soul again
a season of clear shining
to cheer it after rain.
Though the vine nor fig tree neither
their wonted fruit should bear,
though all the field should wither,
nor flocks nor herds be there,
yet God, the same abiding,
his praise shall tune my voice,
for, while in Him confiding,
I cannot but rejoice. (Cowper 1731-1800)
Conclusion
The metaphors of feast, journey, presence and struggle, like other metaphors, are limited. They provide windows into values, beliefs and practice. Some of the windows are expansive, some less so, but windows are limited. Metaphors, like windows, have a frame. The whole truth of grace, mercy and peace from God - Father, Son and Holy Spirit - is wider and more profound than any metaphors that point us. Some of us were formed as preachers on the notion that preaching was about conveying truth through personality. As pastoral carers and spiritual directors who are called to embody integrity as God’s servants, we may convey yet more of the truth as we take the metaphors as windows that potentially can create ‘zones of liberation’ for others to discover that God is a healing, liberating, nurturing, sustaining, reconciling, God who intends people to celebrate life.
References
Ashmail, Donald 1980, Spiritual Development and the Free Church tradition, - The Inner Pilgrimage. The Newton Quarterly, USA
McGrath, Alister ‘Classical and Modern Understandings of the Journey’ in Conversations Volume 2.2 Fall 2004Mayes, Andrew D 2004, Spirituality of Struggle, Pathways to Growth, SPCK, London
McGrath, Alister 1999, Christian Spirituality, Blackwell Publishers Oxford.
Musgrave, Beverley Ann, Bickle, John R 2003, Partners in Healing, SPCK, London
Nouwen, Henri 1975, Reaching Out, Collins, Glasgow
Ryken, Leland, Wilhoit, James C. Longman, Tremper 1998, Dictionary of Biblical Imagery, InterVarsity, Downers Grove.
Spurgeon, Charles 1969 Edition Morning and Evening, Zondervan, Grand Rapids
Spurgeon, Charles 1975 Edition, Morning by Morning, Zondervan Grand Rapids
You are reading Metaphors for Pastoral Care and Spiritual Direction by John Reid, part of Issue 39 of Ministry Today, published in March 2007.
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