I have often cited this passage from Thomas Oden’s Pastoral Theology: Essentials of Ministry (85), though I long ago forgot it came from Oden. It has some flaws, but it’s a moving statement of the privilege of pastoral vocation:

“”There are five incomparable days in the believer’s life. The day one is born, when life is given. The day one is baptized, and enters anticipately into the community of faith. The day one is confirmed, when one chooses to re-affirm one’s baptism, and enter by choice deliberately into the community of faith and enjoy its holy communion. The day one may choose to enter into a lifelong covenant of fidelity in love. They day when one dies, when life is received back into God’s hands.”

Oden asks, “What do those five days have in common? Who is invited to share them all?” His answer: “Besides the family” the only person “welcomed into the intimate circle of significant participants in all of those days” is the pastor.