I have always been a bit skeptical of the “comfort the afflicted, afflict the comfortable” adage deployed in many an evangelical circle. It’s not just the implicit condescension it lends to the ‘minister’ in any given moment. The main skepticism has to do with the supposition that anyone is actually comfortable in life–that, beneath the surface, all of us are experiencing some underlying discomfort with the world we’re inhabiting. If we’re honest with ourselves, we’re all afflicted, and we all need comfort.
If this adage makes any sense, then, it’s that we sometimes need help facing ourselves. It’s that maybe the task of ministry is not wagging a finger at the self-satisfied, but providing a safe place for a person to see themselves. This is what Henri Nouwen is getting at in this passage, which comes from his classic work on pastoral care, The Wounded Healer. To wit, he explains that a minister is really only a minister when he sees his task in light of his own affliction. Until he has followed the call of his own wounds, he will continue to misunderstand the work of ministry itself.
The minister who has come to terms with his own loneliness and is at home in his own house is a host who offers hospitality to its guests. He gives them a friendly space, where they may feel free to come and go, to be close and distant, to rest and to play, to talk and to be silent, to eat and to fast. The paradox indeed is that hospitality asks for the creation of an empty space where the guest can find his own soul.
Why is this a healing ministry? It is healing because it takes away the false illusion that wholeness can be given by one to another. It is healing because it does not take away the loneliness and the pain of another, but invites him to recognize his loneliness on a level where it can be shared. Many people in this life suffer because they are anxiously searching for the man or woman, the event or encounter, which will take their loneliness away. But when they enter a house with real hospitality they soon see that their own wounds must be understood not as sources of despair and bitterness, but as signs that they have to travel on in obedience to the calling sounds of their own wounds.
From this we get an idea of the kind of help a minister may offer. A minister is not a doctor whose primary task is to take away pain. Rather, he deepens the pain to a level where it can be shared. When someone comes with his loneliness to the minister, he can only expect that his loneliness will be understood and felt, so that he no longer has to run away from it but can accept it as an expression of his basic human condition. When a woman suffers the loss of her child, the minister is not called upon to comfort her by telling her that she still has two beautiful healthy children at home; he is challenged to help her realize that the death of her child reveals her own mortal condition, the same human condition which he and others share with her.
Perhaps the main task of the minister is to prevent people from suffering for the wrong reasons. Many people suffer because of the false supposition on which they have based their lives. That supposition is that there should be no fear or loneliness, no confusion or doubt. But these sufferings can only be dealt with creatively when they are understood as wounds integral to our human condition. Therefore ministry is a very confronting service. It does not allow people to live with illusions of immortality and wholeness. It keeps reminding others that they are mortal and broken, but also that with the recognition of this condition, liberation starts.
No minister can save anyone. He can only offer himself as a guide to fearful people. Yet, paradoxically, it is precisely in this guidance that the first signs of hope become visible.
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5 responses to “The Difference Between the Minister and the Doctor”
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So, good- much thanks for this!
I’ve never heard the expression “afflict the comfortable, comfort the afflicted” in evangelical circles. I’ve only heard it in 12-step circles. But, I don’t see it as condescending because telling someone the truth or allowing them to see the truth about themselves is loving.
“We are all in the same boat” is not in the least comforting to me. Maybe that’s why a listening and merely present minister of the ? is the last place I would go for comfort. I am comforted by the hope of seeing Jesus someday in the flesh and being in a better place where a loving God is more apparently present, and by nothing else. Except maybe a little good whiskey in the meantime.
I think the adage and Ethan’s nice article agree. There may be an apparent contradiction, but that’s all. The adage is correct if viewed as Law and Gospel, and it is true giving gospel without the hammer of the law is fruitless and vice versa. I think Ethan correctly sees that there is no such thing as “the comfortable” in reality, but the individual may have to be hammered away a bit to uncover it. The minister has a tremendous task at hand, as do we all. Nouwen’s great advice here is really nothing more than understanding that it takes great experience in distinguishing when and how to apply law or gospel to an individual. He is right in saying that it cannot be done well unless the minister has been broken by the law and is fully aware of his own deeply ingrained dysfunction and thus can be skillful at dissecting the “loneliness, etc” in others. Applying the law (exposing the true depth of sin) in the above setting is not taking away the pain, but “deepening it to a level that it an be shared”. I take this as steadily applying the law with the skill of a surgical dissection. This is reminiscent of Christ exponentially elevating the law to pure motives which breaks us all. Then and only then can the balm of the good news be applied (shared). CFW Walther’s 25 theses is beautiful here. Thesis III “To rightly distinguish Law and Gospel is the most difficult and highest Christian art…” Those lectures are pure gold. Nouwen has a different angle and emphasis, but I think the law/gospel lens is beneficial to see that the adage and insight are one in the same if viewed widely. It is the art of knowing how and when to apply them that is difficult and is learned best by brokenness. Of course Ethan is sensitive here to the unskillful judgemental “fix it” statements attempting to relieve pain, or the overt use of applying law or gospel without the appropriate invitation, experience, wisdom and context. And Lord help us, we have all seen this done terribly with horrible damage done. Those “broken by the church” are everywhere!
Fun fact–the phrase, “comfort the afflicted, afflict the comfortable” was originally satirical in meaning, and directed at the newspaper, of all things:
“Th’ newspaper does ivrything f’r us. It runs th’ polis foorce an’ th’ banks, commands th’ milishy, controls th’ ligislachure, baptizes th’ young, marries th’ foolish, comforts th’ afflicted, afflicts th’ comfortable, buries th’ dead an’ roasts thim aftherward. They ain’t annything it don’t turn its hand to fr’m explainin’ th’ docthrine iv thransubstantiation to composin’ saleratus biskit.”
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Finley_Peter_Dunne