Monday, March 29, 2010
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Sermon: Third Sunday in Lent, Year C
Sermon preached at Holy Trinity Parish in Decatur, Ga.
This morning, we heard the familiar story of God’s call to Moses, of God’s appearance in the burning bush. (Exodus 3:1-15)
I am in my first year of seminary at Sewanee, and with my fellow first-year students, I have been studying the Hebrew Bible in depth, through two classes in the study of the Old Testament with professor Becky Wright. One of the first things Becky taught us in class this past fall was how to recognize certain “forms” in the Old Testament narratives.
The story of the burning bush is a “prophetic call narrative.” Not all biblical prophets have the story of their calling by God preserved in writing, but for those who do, it follows a pretty standard pattern throughout the Bible.
There are four parts to a prophetic call narrative: First, there is a theophany. That’s a fancy scholarly word for “manifestation of God.” (As Becky always tells us, you can’t just say “manifestation of God,” because you have to use big words that nobody understands so you can prove you’ve been to seminary.) In the case of Moses, the theophany is the burning bush. The theophany itself is not the main point of the story, but serves as a means to get the person’s attention. Exodus 3 is not primarily about the fact that God can make bushes appear to burn without actually burning; God’s conversation with Moses is the real point of the story.
The second part of a prophetic call narrative is the announcement of a task for the human being. God or God’s messenger says to the person called, “I’ve got a job for you,” and then proceeds to tell the person what it is. In biblical call narratives, God never calls someone just to be a prophet, but calls him or her to a specific task. In the case of Moses, it’s “get my people out of slavery in Egypt.”
The third part of the prophetic call narrative is the person’s objection. The biblical prophets ALWAYS voice an objection in response to God’s call. Moses says, “Who am I that I should go to Pharoah, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” Remember, Moses’s mother shipped him off down the river after he was born to save him from the Egyptian king’s intent to kill all male Israelite children, in an attempt to curb the Israelites’ population growth, since they were becoming more numerous than the Egyptians themselves. Moses was taken in by a daughter of the Pharaoh, and raised as an Egyptian. So although he was an Israelite, he was not recognized by the Israelites as being part of the people of Israel. Given his history, Moses felt he was not the most appropriate choice of a prophet to speak to the Israelite people.
And the final part of the prophetic call narrative is God’s answer to the person’s objection. God’s answer is almost always, “I will be with you,” which is what God says to Moses in Exodus 3.
As I listened to a lecture on this material in a classroom full of future priests, I saw heads nodding and knowing smiles around the room. Objecting to God’s call to us? Yep, that sounds familiar! “Who am I to do this?” is a familiar refrain among would-be priests.
But the part that was particularly interesting to me was the bit about the specificity of God’s call. According to the patterns we see in the biblical prophets, God does not call people to simply be a prophet, but to do some particular task. I wondered about the implications of this for those of us who claim to be called to the priesthood. We often talk about being called to “be” priests, as a role, as an identity. What does the biblical notion of call say to us? What if we are not called to be something but to do some specific thing in service of God? If God calls us to a specific task, to what has God called me?
If I ask myself that question, the answer has to be that I am called to serve people who are homeless or in extreme poverty. If I think about my own “prophetic call narrative” – or perhaps I should say “priestly call narrative,” it would probably go something like this:
Later, in the midst of serving the poor through the Outdoor Church of Cambridge, I sensed a call to explore the possibility of ordained ministry. When I served as a parish intern in Omaha, Nebraska for a year, I found that I loved the life of the parish; I loved preaching, I loved being in community, I loved leading study groups, and I loved being the center of attention. Wow, this job was really cut out for me! I moved to Atlanta, went through the formal discernment process, and now I find myself in seminary at Sewanee.
But somewhere in the midst of all the churchy formalities, I lost touch with that original sense of call. Is God really calling me to “be” a priest, or is God calling me to listen to the needs and concerns of the poor, and becoming a priest is merely a vehicle for me to pursue those ends? As nice as it is to imagine a life sitting in my parish office going about the daily routine of a parish priest, I know my calling is more specific, and that I am called to always be outside the walls of the church. I am sensing a return of that call in my life these days, and I hope to do the “field education” part of my degree at Sewanee with an outdoor church for the homeless in Nashville, called “Church in the Yard,” that is very similar to Church of the Common Ground here in Atlanta and to the Outdoor Church of Cambridge, Mass., where I first began to discern my call.
My time at Sewanee has been very valuable for putting my call in context. I am lucky to have many professors who constantly seek ways to make our classroom study relevant to ministry on the ground. For example, in the same class I have already mentioned, I am working on a paper assignment that asked us to write about how we would lead a Bible study on Isaiah in a hypothetical mission parish in Des Moines, Iowa, made up of people like those described in a New Yorker article on the working poor that we were assigned to read as part of the class. One of the reasons I chose Sewanee was because of its focus on training parish priests for the actual day-to-day aspects of parish ministry, for its way of making seminary education relevant to the “real world,” and it has certainly delivered in that regard. I am constantly reminded that I am learning not just for learning’s sake, or for my own personal edification, but because I have been called to a very specific task for which I will need the knowledge I am gaining during this period of study. At the same time, I have to acknowledge that none of the biblical prophets went to seminary, and I realize that a seminary education does not give me or anyone else a monopoly on understanding God’s call or God’s message for God’s people.
In fact, I believe that God calls all of us in the body of Christ to specific tasks in specific times and places. I believe God has called each one of you. Maybe some of you know for sure what God has called you to do, while others are less certain.
I invite you all to go home this afternoon, take your bulletins with the Scripture readings in them, and sit down with the story of God’s call to Moses in Exodus 3. Think about your own “prophetic call narratives.” How and where in your life has God called you to a specific task? Re-write the burning bush story, as I did earlier, putting yourself in Moses’s place and replacing the burning bush with whatever “manifestation of God” in your life has triggered your sense of call. What did God say to you? What did you say to God? Is God calling you to do something specific right now?
Whatever it is, take time to hear God’s response to the inevitable objections that will rise within you. “I will be with you” is God’s response. According to the Bible, it is always God’s response to our objections. Whatever it is that you feel called to do, whatever it is that seems impossible and out of your field of expertise, God will be with you. And if we believe the promises of Scripture, we know that “with God, all things are possible.” (cf. Luke 1:37)
Amen.
This morning, we heard the familiar story of God’s call to Moses, of God’s appearance in the burning bush. (Exodus 3:1-15)
I am in my first year of seminary at Sewanee, and with my fellow first-year students, I have been studying the Hebrew Bible in depth, through two classes in the study of the Old Testament with professor Becky Wright. One of the first things Becky taught us in class this past fall was how to recognize certain “forms” in the Old Testament narratives.
The story of the burning bush is a “prophetic call narrative.” Not all biblical prophets have the story of their calling by God preserved in writing, but for those who do, it follows a pretty standard pattern throughout the Bible.
There are four parts to a prophetic call narrative: First, there is a theophany. That’s a fancy scholarly word for “manifestation of God.” (As Becky always tells us, you can’t just say “manifestation of God,” because you have to use big words that nobody understands so you can prove you’ve been to seminary.) In the case of Moses, the theophany is the burning bush. The theophany itself is not the main point of the story, but serves as a means to get the person’s attention. Exodus 3 is not primarily about the fact that God can make bushes appear to burn without actually burning; God’s conversation with Moses is the real point of the story.
The second part of a prophetic call narrative is the announcement of a task for the human being. God or God’s messenger says to the person called, “I’ve got a job for you,” and then proceeds to tell the person what it is. In biblical call narratives, God never calls someone just to be a prophet, but calls him or her to a specific task. In the case of Moses, it’s “get my people out of slavery in Egypt.”
The third part of the prophetic call narrative is the person’s objection. The biblical prophets ALWAYS voice an objection in response to God’s call. Moses says, “Who am I that I should go to Pharoah, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” Remember, Moses’s mother shipped him off down the river after he was born to save him from the Egyptian king’s intent to kill all male Israelite children, in an attempt to curb the Israelites’ population growth, since they were becoming more numerous than the Egyptians themselves. Moses was taken in by a daughter of the Pharaoh, and raised as an Egyptian. So although he was an Israelite, he was not recognized by the Israelites as being part of the people of Israel. Given his history, Moses felt he was not the most appropriate choice of a prophet to speak to the Israelite people.
And the final part of the prophetic call narrative is God’s answer to the person’s objection. God’s answer is almost always, “I will be with you,” which is what God says to Moses in Exodus 3.
As I listened to a lecture on this material in a classroom full of future priests, I saw heads nodding and knowing smiles around the room. Objecting to God’s call to us? Yep, that sounds familiar! “Who am I to do this?” is a familiar refrain among would-be priests.
But the part that was particularly interesting to me was the bit about the specificity of God’s call. According to the patterns we see in the biblical prophets, God does not call people to simply be a prophet, but to do some particular task. I wondered about the implications of this for those of us who claim to be called to the priesthood. We often talk about being called to “be” priests, as a role, as an identity. What does the biblical notion of call say to us? What if we are not called to be something but to do some specific thing in service of God? If God calls us to a specific task, to what has God called me?
If I ask myself that question, the answer has to be that I am called to serve people who are homeless or in extreme poverty. If I think about my own “prophetic call narrative” – or perhaps I should say “priestly call narrative,” it would probably go something like this:
“Tracy was traveling in Turkey, studying the religious history of the Mediterranean region as part of her bachelor’s degree in religion at Furman University. She came to Ankara, the capital of Turkey. Then an angel of the Lord appeared to her in the form of a young girl living on the street. The young girl approached Tracy and the other college students with her and pleaded with them for food. When the Lord saw that the students did not give the girl any food, he made the little girl to grab the leg of one of the students. When the Lord saw that the students still did not give the little girl any food, the Lord’s anger burned against them, and the little girl picked up a shard of glass from a nearby bag of garbage and held it up menacingly. Although she could not understand any of the Turkish words the girl yelled, Tracy heard the voice of the Lord speaking through her:
“I have observed the misery of my people living in poverty on the streets,” said the Lord. “I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them. So come, I will send you to speak to them on my behalf, and to tell them that I love them and to deliver them from their bondage.”(cf. Exodus 3:7-8)
But when Tracy heard the Word of the Lord, she was terrified, and left that place, and fled to Boston, away from the Lord. (cf. Jonah 1:3)
But the Lord found Tracy, and appeared to her again, in the form of men and women living on the streets in Cambridge. As she passed by them on her daily walk to class, the Word of the Lord came to her again:
‘If you love me, feed my sheep.’ (John 21:17)
‘Whatever you did to the least of these, you did it to me.’ (Matthew 25:40)
Finally Tracy answered the Lord, saying, ‘Who am I that I should go these people on the streets? I don’t know what to say. I’m not good at this. I’m scared.’
And the Lord said to Tracy, ‘I will be with you.’”
Later, in the midst of serving the poor through the Outdoor Church of Cambridge, I sensed a call to explore the possibility of ordained ministry. When I served as a parish intern in Omaha, Nebraska for a year, I found that I loved the life of the parish; I loved preaching, I loved being in community, I loved leading study groups, and I loved being the center of attention. Wow, this job was really cut out for me! I moved to Atlanta, went through the formal discernment process, and now I find myself in seminary at Sewanee.
But somewhere in the midst of all the churchy formalities, I lost touch with that original sense of call. Is God really calling me to “be” a priest, or is God calling me to listen to the needs and concerns of the poor, and becoming a priest is merely a vehicle for me to pursue those ends? As nice as it is to imagine a life sitting in my parish office going about the daily routine of a parish priest, I know my calling is more specific, and that I am called to always be outside the walls of the church. I am sensing a return of that call in my life these days, and I hope to do the “field education” part of my degree at Sewanee with an outdoor church for the homeless in Nashville, called “Church in the Yard,” that is very similar to Church of the Common Ground here in Atlanta and to the Outdoor Church of Cambridge, Mass., where I first began to discern my call.
My time at Sewanee has been very valuable for putting my call in context. I am lucky to have many professors who constantly seek ways to make our classroom study relevant to ministry on the ground. For example, in the same class I have already mentioned, I am working on a paper assignment that asked us to write about how we would lead a Bible study on Isaiah in a hypothetical mission parish in Des Moines, Iowa, made up of people like those described in a New Yorker article on the working poor that we were assigned to read as part of the class. One of the reasons I chose Sewanee was because of its focus on training parish priests for the actual day-to-day aspects of parish ministry, for its way of making seminary education relevant to the “real world,” and it has certainly delivered in that regard. I am constantly reminded that I am learning not just for learning’s sake, or for my own personal edification, but because I have been called to a very specific task for which I will need the knowledge I am gaining during this period of study. At the same time, I have to acknowledge that none of the biblical prophets went to seminary, and I realize that a seminary education does not give me or anyone else a monopoly on understanding God’s call or God’s message for God’s people.
In fact, I believe that God calls all of us in the body of Christ to specific tasks in specific times and places. I believe God has called each one of you. Maybe some of you know for sure what God has called you to do, while others are less certain.
I invite you all to go home this afternoon, take your bulletins with the Scripture readings in them, and sit down with the story of God’s call to Moses in Exodus 3. Think about your own “prophetic call narratives.” How and where in your life has God called you to a specific task? Re-write the burning bush story, as I did earlier, putting yourself in Moses’s place and replacing the burning bush with whatever “manifestation of God” in your life has triggered your sense of call. What did God say to you? What did you say to God? Is God calling you to do something specific right now?
Whatever it is, take time to hear God’s response to the inevitable objections that will rise within you. “I will be with you” is God’s response. According to the Bible, it is always God’s response to our objections. Whatever it is that you feel called to do, whatever it is that seems impossible and out of your field of expertise, God will be with you. And if we believe the promises of Scripture, we know that “with God, all things are possible.” (cf. Luke 1:37)
Amen.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
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