The Best Advice: Sometimes It's No Advice at All

A mentor of mine in ministry shared a story with me in my first few years in the pastorate.  He shared with me about the death of his father.  He and his father were very close, and his father’s death signaled the saddest transition of his life to that point.  My friend was an experienced minister at the time of his father's final illness and passing, and had already counseled many families going through grief. But none of those experiences were helping him through this process.  During that time, he said, there were a few friends in his life – some ministers, some not – who would just call him and make a coffee or lunch appointment or would just come by his office and sit with him and listen.  Those conversations, he said, would sometimes address the grief he was feeling about his father’s death.  At other times, the interactions were minimal.  Still at other times, the conversation involved an hour or so of small talk: sports, the weather, local news, etc. 

After his father died and several months of grief and adjustment had passed, my mentor and friend sat down and began writing “thank you” notes to those who had assisted in the process: hospice workers, doctors, nurses, pall bearers, and funeral directors would all receive notes.  Then his mind turned to those who had sat with him during the days leading up to and immediately following his father’s death.  What would he say to them?  Most of those handful of friends had no insightful words or even counsel for him.  Most offered no advice or help for the grief process.  None of them were particularly close to my friend’s father, so they were not able to provide any deep reflection on the man’s life or contributions to society.  Yet, those handful of friends, according to my friend, more than any others to whom he wrote those thank you notes on that day, had been used by God to get him through that time of transition.

Incarnational Ministry

The term my friend used for this kind of ministry is “incarnational.”  It is a phrase that I had heard in ministry circles before.  But, I had never grasped the full measure of its importance as it applied to my own life.  I knew that Jesus was “God incarnate” (God in the flesh), which is where the term my friend used came from.  In ministering to others, the definition goes, we are to “incarnate” or to “make evident in our own bodies and presence” the love and compassion and presence of God in the lives of others. 

From my friend, I learned that sometimes this actually means the “presence” of God: simply being present, being near.  At that stage, I was in the middle of my formal training for ministry and was just beginning my pastoral assignment.  So, I was accumulating important knowledge of the Bible, history, theology, philosophy, pastoral counseling, and pastoral care.  These things would certainly serve me well, but they, like me, were often very “word intensive.”  In other words, my first tendency was to speak rather than to listen.  I wanted to “fix” what was broken instead of connecting with people in their brokenness so as to leave room for God’s Spirit to do the fixing that only God can do.  It is a lesson I am still learning nearly 20 years later.  

I know and practice it better now than then, but the lesson started there, when a more experienced and better trained fellow-minister reminded me that there is nothing like “just being there.”  It was a reminder that God sometimes does allow us to speak into the lives of those who are hurting, but the best words come only after we have established a consistent loving presence of friendship, hospitality, and grace.  And sometimes there are no words at all.  We have to earn the right to speak, but sometimes we never get around to the words – just the presence.  And through our presence, the God who loves us and who loves those to whom we minister is able to speak volumes: meaningful, life-changing, healing volumes to others.

The Thank You Note

So, what did my friend end up writing to those handful of friends who became incarnational ministers to him during the lowest point of his life?  What words could he share to convey what their presence meant to him?  He wrote the only thing to he could write.  To each one of them, as they went to their mailbox and opened a surprise thank you note from my friend, they read these words: “Thank you for being Jesus to me.”