JUST A LITTLE OFF THE TOP [T, 7-26-22]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter

 

My friend, Paul Unger, had a long and distinguished career in ministry. even though his mother did not want him to be a preacher, he told us recently.

This surprised me. I knew his mother. I was her pastor for several years. She was a totally dedicated church member.

That was the problem, Paul explained. Barbara knew how churches could mistreat their pastors. She didn’t want her son mistreated that way.

Instead, she wanted him to be a barber.

At first, that sounds like a rather large disconnect. I mean, preachers and barbers exist in rather different strata of society. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that barbers are a lot like preachers, but without the mistreatment.

I mean, if you don’t like your haircut, you don’t try to get the barber fired. You just go someplace else.

In the meantime, just like preachers, barbers: listen to confessions; listen to complaints about weather and politics; tell stories; give opinions; deal with uncooperative children; put up with boring people; try to make things look better; sweep up the fallout at the end of the day.

Similar jobs, but barbers don’t have to deal with bridezillas and bickering trustees and annual evaluations. Maybe Barbara was on to something. But maybe not. She raised her son to be able to deal with anything that came up with calmness and humor. He was a good preacher. I’m sure he would have been a good barber, too.

John Robert McFarland

I’m going to preach again, or at least tell stories, at St. Mark’s UMC in Bloomington, Indiana at 10:30 Eastern Time on July 31. You can “attend” by clicking on the livestream button on the smumc.church web site. [Not smumc.org.] Or you can get it via the archive button any time after noon on 7-31. I don’t intend for this to be a regular thing. My eyes and back and voice are already too old for preaching. In fact, I’ve dragooned a friend into leading the rest of the service so that all I have to do is preach. But one thing I can do for our pastors, and thus our congregation, is give them some rest time. Besides, Jesus came to teach us how to have a good time [John 10:10], and I think preaching is fun.