A very arresting topic in Christian ministry is that of sickness and healing. Some people don't believe it at all, some people are more devoted to it than anything in the whole panoply of spiritual things. One way or another though, nobody seems to want a sick Pastor. Sympathy is rife, but only briefly. After all, a sick Pastor is like failure totem on the weekly notice sheet . . .
From the point of being the pastor this is somewhat unfortunate because few of us choose to be sick or especially enjoy it and having a load of other people willing you better by next Sunday makes you feel worse. Churches like to welcome the weak and sick - but not to the pulpit.
My track record is not too bad but took a very unfortunate dip on my arrival in Wycombe. I suppose I was vaguely aware of the existence of something called a gall bladder in the body. Within a few weeks of touching down as the dynamic new Pastor of Union Baptist Church I became acutely aware of the gall bladder. Several times.
Before the machinations of the National Health Service sent people in Wycombe to far-flung hospitals for emergencies as now is, I was admitted to Wycombe Hospital. And a few weeks later again. Once in a kind friend's car, once in a blue-light ambulance. Each time I was in for a few nights. Among the first church people I got to know were the nurses and volunteers who worked in the hospital . . .
This yielded a Day to Remember. I sat by the bedside of an older, unwell lady in one of the hospital three months into the pastorate.
"Well," I said, "this is the third time I've visited the hospital since my induction. But it's the first time I've come through the main entrance and not Accident and Emergency. It's nice to be a visitor instead of a patient . . ."
The church put up with all this fairly stoically. I imagine that after a few years without a pastor, one in the local hospital is a small step forward. One church member even brought their gallstone in a jar to church to show me, what had been removed from their body some years before . . . In fact I think that I'll show you a picture so you can share the experience. Nice, eh?
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