July 21, Ordinary 16B (Mark 6:30–34, 53–56)
An exhausted Jesus responds to the crowd with compassion. I think that’s a miracle.
It’s a question many pastors dread when we are chatting at the gym or sitting on the plane or standing in line at the grocery store: “So, what do you do?” There are, of course, several creative responses to this question, from the basically true “director of a nonprofit” to the tongue-in-cheek “carpenter’s apprentice” to an unintelligible grunt and a quick “How about that local sports ball team?” Only the bravest among us will square our shoulders, look the inquisitor in the eye, and say, “I am a pastor.”
Sometimes, particularly for those of us who don’t present as male, this revelation elicits hostility. Other times people aren’t so much hostile as simply awkward; they try not to swear and start stumbling over explanations of why they haven’t been to church lately. The truth is that I don’t care about their swearing or their church attendance, and I now have zero chance of a normal, meaningful conversation with this person.
Despite the discomfort of hostile and awkward reactions when people find out what I do, for me the most difficult response is enthusiasm. Sometimes when a person learns that I am a pastor, they want me to be their pastor. They tell me about their spouse’s infidelity right there in the locker room, when I have on fewer clothes than I generally like to wear for such conversations. They want me to explain the finer points of Anabaptist theology as we fly from Kansas City to Orlando. They ask me to pray for their cousin who has brain cancer while they are bagging my groceries.
