A friend once tried to explain fishing to me. “It’s just like playing with a cat,” he said. “You toss something in front of the cat and then pull it along with a string, and suddenly the cat pounces. It’s the same with fishing.”
“But, Daryl,” I protested, “I can see the cat. I can’t see the fish.”
He replied, “Well, you need to think like a fish so you know where to drop the bait.”
I never did learn to think like a fish. But it does occur to me that pastoral ministry requires a good deal of thinking outside oneself. The behavior we may observe and judge in the people we care for may mask realities we should first understand before we act.
Ove, the hero of Frederick Backman’s intriguing novel A Man Called Ove1 is one we might be quick to condemn. He’s given to precise rules and swift judgment. He disdains bureaucrats and anyone driving anything but a Saab. He’s harsh when kindness is called for; dismissive when others are in need.
But as pastors charged with caring for such people, we need to take the time to think like an Ove. The novel slowly reveals the loss and suicidal grief that has produced such behavior. When we begin to “think like Ove,” so to speak, understanding and charity tempers our initial condemnation. The heart is not as easily read as the behavior that arises out of it and knowing that should give pause to our quick reactions.
The hearts out of which Jesus says behaviors arise are sometimes stirred by things other than evil desires. They are often broken, or damaged by the ways they have been sinned against, or compromised by imbalanced brain chemistry. Judgment will defer to charity when we keep this in mind, even in the most scandalous of situations.
My presbyterian circles have very linear procedures for dealing with scandalous sin, and I’m grateful for them. But procedure without charity makes for very poor pastoral care. Procedures can be a tidy way to dispose of a complicated situation, but when premature and lacking sufficient charity they can do lasting harm.
Absolutely, severe censures are at times necessary and their swift application situationally demanded. Jesus brooked little patience toward the Scribes and Pharisees. But at the same time he modeled a rare pastoral charity toward the sheep. He refused to condemn the woman caught in adultery. He took time to understand why the woman with the issue of blood violated all convention by touching him. He spoke tenderly into Mary’s anger at him for delaying to come save Lazarus, understanding that her anger was borne on the wings of her grief.
Such charity should infuse our pastoring and our preaching. A woman who struggles to attend worship because of deep social anxiety fed by layers of trauma is not to be cut off, but to be patiently loved, and tenderly spoken to. Lambasting her with words of not forsaking the assembling of the saints is of no help to her.
My ADHD makes anxiety a constant mental companion. I’m wired in that way. When Jesus says “fear not” and Paul tells me to “be anxious for nothing” I can’t simply toss a switch and move into the fields of perfect peace. Jesus’ and Paul’s words are invitations to move closer to Jesus and to rest more fully in him, but I’ll never get all the way there. Sermons that condemn my fear leave me helpless; sermons full of the gracious favor of a compassionate savior help me move closer. Charity, not judgment, has pastoral power.
Harrison Scott Key’s book How to Stay Married2 takes us deep into the fascinating and troubling inner dynamics of scandalous sin. Adultery is wrong, destructive, and dishonoring to God. And yet the terrible, awful, selfishly wrong choices made by Key’s wife were driven in part by the ways in which she had been sinned against, most directly by her unfaithful and unrepentant pastor father. Her choices were her own, and they were not her own, and careful pastoral care is needed to sort such things out. What she needed most for her healing and recovery was not the judgment of the church but rather the church’s compassion and understanding and patience and love.
People and life are messier than they appear. Those we judge as righteous may be following a script that masks a rebellious heart, and those we judge as rebellious may be running from a brokenness even they struggle to understand. The Westminster Larger Catechism reminds us that sins are made more or less heinous by circumstances beyond their outward actions.
This calls for charity, a gift I can better give to the church when I learn to think, not like a fish, but like the sheep I’ve been called to shepherd.
Frederick Backman, A Man Called Ove: A Novel (United States: Atria Books, 2014).
And yes, it is “Ove,” not “Otto.” It’s odd to me that the name had to be changed for the American movie goers.
Harrison Scott Key, How to Stay Married: The Most Insane Love Story Ever Told, (United States: Simon and Schuster, 2023).
Thank you. This paragraph really touched me: "My presbyterian circles have very linear procedures for dealing with scandalous sin, and I’m grateful for them. But procedure without charity makes for very poor pastoral care. Procedures can be a tidy way to dispose of a complicated situation, but when premature and lacking sufficient charity they can do lasting harm."