Early in my pastoral work I often wondered why I was on such spiritual high on Sunday and somewhat depressed on Monday morning. I still ponder that question today. I would and still wake up without much enthusiasm. It was a fairly distinct feeling than the previous Sunday morning. Sunday gives me a rush. Perhaps it is due to the spiritual component that comes with a high liturgical service where kneeling and standing and singing and confessing do not allow the body to remain passive, motionless. Preaching is also a unique sensation. To this day, when I walk up to the pulpit, my heart still races. I am ready to address my congregation as if it were my first time. In my case, it’s almost the 500th time and still, every Sunday feels fresh and that same insecurity coupled with boyish eagerness still strikes at about 9:50 AM each Lord’s Day.
Sundays are full days for ministers. After the service is over there are the enlivening conversations consisting of life updates, sermon-follow ups, general back and forth about casual day-to-day issues, setting appointments to meet during the week, eating, and sometimes serious counseling issues and more. Every pastor knows that after the service, there is much more energy to be poured. As I say, it’s enlivening, but emotionally draining. The afternoons continue to feed off morning worship. Hospitality and friendships continue. The joy of following up with visitors, the remaining melodies of hymns and psalms are hummed throughout, family responsibilities and the entire Sunday is consumed. And there was evening and there was morning, day one.
When Monday arrives, most pastors I talk to find themselves unhappy, bewildered by the newness of the week as if they’ve never been at this stage of the week before. Some take the day off. I refuse to do so. There is something powerful about beginning things early in the week. At least two pastors I spoke with said they had a hard time getting out of bed on Monday mornings. They are not lazy people. In fact, these guys get up quite early during the week, but Mondays they generally cannot. So what’s the cause? It can’t be a rare phenomenon because it’s too common among people in my field. In fact, it’s not common in other professions.
One obvious explanation is that Mondays are days where exhaustion appears most frequently. This makes sense. On Sunday, pastors uphold a high degree of alertness and awareness, emotional stability, and outward energy before, during and after church and when Monday comes as surely as the sun, all that is spent. Jared Wilson observes:
On Monday mornings I enter my office and find that, like Sisyphus, the stone I spent the week previous pushing up the hill lay at the bottom again, ready for another go. Monday morning I must pastor. But what kind of must?
Sometimes it’s a half-hearted must; a weak and overwhelmed must. But shepherding must go on.
Sundays are the culmination of lots of things: the delivery of a sermon worked, meditated and prayed over all week, the administration of the sacraments which is anticipated throughout the week, the face to face interaction with all your people at once. It’s completion embodied and enjoyed. In sum, Sundays are Sabbath rests; days of pastoral repose; for the pastor, Sunday is the “very good” of creation. It is easier to see God’s hands at work. Mondays are the beginning of a new construction project. New beginnings are daunting, overwhelming and mentally challenging. As Jared Wilson so appropriately summarizes the pastoral vision for Monday:
My first thoughts on Monday mornings are to my fatigue and all I must do, but I must push them into thoughts of Christ, all he is and all he has done. There lies the vision that compels my will.
Let Christ shepherd us when we are weak. Let him compel us to work for the kingdom as he takes our burdens and gives us rest.
