"So what are you doing here?" The role of the minister of the gospel in hospital visitation, or a theological cure for the crisis in evangelical pastoral care

Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, Sep 2003 by Milton, Michael A

I. A MODERN PARABLE OF PASTORAL VISITATION OF THE SICK

Here is a true story-a parable, if you will-about a freshly minted minister's experiencing his first charge.1 I will not use the real name here, but the new minister was serving as a chaplain at a large metropolitan hospital. On one of his first calls, he went in to see a newly admitted patient who was to have surgery that day. Dressed in clerical attire-his uniform of the day-he arrived in that patient's room without any guesswork as to who he was. The patient, a middle age man, frowning as he watched the freshly minted minister stroll in, looked right in the eyes of the chaplain and barked out, "Yeah, Chaplain, can I help you?"

The minister replied, "I am a hospital chaplain." The patient lowered himself back into the covers. "I figured that much, Chaplain." The grumpy patient then recovered a bit and sat up.

"Chaplain, tell me something. . . . This morning, the surgeon who will perform my surgery came in. He marked me all up on my chest where he plans to cut away at my breastbone to get at my heart. I knew why he was here. Then, in came a nurse. She hooked me up to these I.V.s. I knew why they were here. A little lady came in shortly before you arrived to fix me up with a bedpan, if I needed it. Now, I even know why she was here. But, Chaplain, the question I have of you and every other fellow like you in that dog collar is this: 'What in the _____ are you doing here?'"

Our clerical friend said that he stood there for a second that seemed like an eternity. Then, it came out almost automatically: "Actually, I am here because God sent me to see you."

He had not planned to say that and had no idea, really, what one should say at such a time as that. Years later, the minister would confess that it was actually one of the most profound things he had ever said but it was uttered in abject fear and with no one else around to hear it except that perturbed patient!

The chaplain's prophetic response, though, hit the man hard. It was the right answer.

O.K., Chaplain, O.K., I guess I get it. All right, so I know why you are here. Pardon me for putting it the way I did, but, I am the Chief of Psychiatry at this hospital and for thirty years I have always wondered why you people were here. I may not believe what you believe, but I guess I know why you think you must be here.

At that the chaplain felt braver. "So, tell me Doctor, how are things with you and God?" The psychiatrist was sort of stunned at the question, but then relaxed, and thoughtfully replied,

I will tell you this: I've seen a lot of simple operations get a little fouled up over the years. My operation will be open-heart surgery. I know full well that if something were to go wrong . . . well, I guess I'm saying . . . I'm not sure about God.

"Go on," the young chaplain whispered. "Well, what does that Bible say about what happens when you die? . . ."

II. MODERN PROBLEMS IN PASTORAL CARE OF THE SICK AND DYING

Whether the minister of the gospel is a solo pastor with an older congregation (who gets more than his fair share of hospital visits) or the senior pastor of a mega church, or even a professor of a college or seminary who may also serve on the staff of a suburban congregation, all ministers usually wind their way into hospital parking lots, hopefully locate that most serendipitous of locations-a vacant space in the Clergy Parking Area-and climb stairs and maneuver endless corridors to enter the room of people in hospital beds. Some of them the minister will know quite well. Others will be friends or relatives of the congregation, and the minister will have never met them.

Few clergy would dispute the proposition that hospital visitation is a necessary part of the minister's work. The biblical references on the matter are so many and so clear that pastoral visitation of the sick and dying is an expected work of the minister of the gospel in carrying out a biblically faithful pastorate.

Now Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Syria, was a great and honorable man in the eyes of his master, because by him the LORD had given victory to Syria. He was also a mighty man of valor, but a leper. Now bands from Aram had gone out and had taken captive a young girl from Israel, and she served Naaman's wife. She said to her mistress, "If only my master would see the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy" (2 Kgs 5:1-3).2

"I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me" (Matt 25:36).

"I was a stranger and you did not take Me in, naked and you did not clothe Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me" (Matt 25:43).

Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord (James 5:14).

However, a real question might be: "What is the role of the minister of the gospel on hospital visitations?" Or, in keeping with the theme of a recent Annual Meeting of our society, "What are Evangelicalism's 'boundaries' in the work of pastoral care of the sick and dying?"3 We might even borrow the sarcastic patient's question as an authentic and pressing question to every minister of the gospel prying open a hospital room door: "So, what are you doing here?"