What two pastors from novels taught me about incarnational presence

God is most fully disclosed at times of our greatest distress and despair. Those people who have gotten themselves into a mess (as we all do, more frequently than we care to admit) might be called troubled. Two novels, George Eliot’s Adam Bede (Oxford University Press) and Hannah Kent’s Burial Rites (Picador), offer narrative accounts of pastoral presence that have helped me discern what it means to be present incarnationally with troubled people—ministry that is attentive to presence, attention, mystery, delight, participation, partnership, enjoyment, and glory.

Chapter 16 of Adam Bede elegantly portrays a sensitive pastoral conversation. Adolphus Irwine, the rector of Broxton, is a generous, thoughtful man who lives with his mother and sisters in the rectory. He ministers to the whole community. His former pupil is Arthur Donnithorne, 20 years old, son of the local squire, enlisted in the army and anticipating taking a seat in Parliament. Arthur has an issue weighing heavily on his mind. He has recently developed a passion for, and entered a liaison with, Hetty Sorrel, a local farmworker and orphan. The liaison seems set only to ruin Hetty and jeopardize Arthur’s considerable prospects.

Arthur knows he needs to confide in trusted Mr. Irwine. He decides to join the rector for breakfast. The progress of civilization, Eliot sagely observes, makes breakfast the most suitable time for sharing confidences: “mortal sin,” it turns out, “is not incompatible with an appetite for muffins.” What follows is an exquisite study in what it means to be with, and yet not fully be with, a person who is troubled.