Sermon delivered Sunday, Oct. 16, 2016 (The Twenty-Second Sunday After Pentecost (Proper 24, Year C, Track 2)), at St. Cuthbert’s Episcopal Church, Oakland, CA.
Sermon Text(s): Genesis 32:22-31, 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5, Luke 18:1-8
It doesn’t always work out this way, but occasionally all the scriptures AND the collect for the day have a very clear theme and connection. Today is one of those days. We have it spelled out for us in the opening collect, when we asked God to:
“Preserve the works of your mercy, that your Church throughout the world may persevere with steadfast faith …”
Perseverance is all over these scriptures today – from Jacob wrestling with the angel to Paul’s instructions to Timothy to be “persistent” in teaching the faith, “whether the time is favorable or unfavorable” to the widow’s unfailing determinism to get justice from the unjust judge.
All of these folks stick it out against all odds. They refuse to give up. They keep knocking and knocking and knocking even when the door seems to be welded shut. These scriptures teach us that perseverance is key to the life of faith. Persevere whether you are contending against the forces of God or of this world, whether you are dealing with the frustration of unanswered prayer or the obstacles of unjust social structures. Persevere, because it is through persistence that you will ultimately come to reach your goal, whether that is a greater connection with God, answers to unanswered questions, or justice for those who have been wronged.
From what I know about St. Cuthbert’s, I think you all know quite a bit about perseverance. The written history of this place that was posted on the old website describes a people who have persisted in the face of all odds to do God’s work in this corner of East Oakland.
According to that written history (as articulated by Steve Keplinger and updated by Pamela Cranston), throughout the years, St. Cuthbert’s has faced numerous challenges to its existence but has proved to be a tenacious bunch in the face of adversity. For some of you who lived through this history, this will not be news, but for those of you who are newer to this place, allow me to provide a brief summary of that history.
In the mid-1940s, after its creation as a mission outreach of St. Andrew’s in San Leandro, St. Cuthbert’s was so small it did not even have the regular services of a priest. In the late 50s, the building of the freeway split this neighborhood in two, causing a decrease in population in the area. The church grew in the 60s, but in the 70s, conflict in the wider church around the revision of the prayer book and the ordination of women severely reduced membership, and “by 1974,” the history says, “the possibility of closure was imminent.”
But the people of St. Cuthbert’s persevered – the written history actually uses that word! They went through an interim period, then called a new priest, and managed to pay off their mortgage by 1982.
In the 80s, the church grew and was able to move from mission to parish status, but the earthquake in 1989 and the fire in 1991 affected neighborhoods surrounding the church and reduced membership, and in the late 90s the church again shifted back to mission status, with some members also leaving due to the fact that the congregation had called its first openly gay priest. (The written history didn’t say that, but I’ve been told that by some of you as you’ve shared your stories of your own histories here.)
Again, though, despite these challenges, the people of St. Cuthbert’s hung on. The parish became increasingly ethnically diverse during the late 90s and early 2000s, and began to do more interfaith work, specifically Buddhist-Christian dialogue activities around contemplative practice.
In the mid-2000s, however, after a period of functioning with a vicar and a part-time associate priest, the congregation went back to a single priest who was paid just a quarter-time salary. During the past 10 years, this congregation has experienced a continual loss of membership. As I’ve gotten to know you over the past seven months, I’ve heard many of your stories about your experiences during that time, and I’ve come to the conclusion that those of you who are still here are pretty much tough as nails. You are the epitome of perseverance. You’re not going down unless the ship is going down.
And that’s a good thing, because once again St. Cuthbert’s is at a turning point in its history. During this discernment period, this “year of exploration” that the diocese has instructed us to take, we are considering what the future of St. Cuthbert’s will be. I think most of you know that we’re in a place similar to where the congregation has been before, in one of those “crossroads moments.” The current state of affairs in this congregation is not sustainable over the long-term. Without an increase in membership from younger generations and an increase in financial giving, this congregation will slowly dwindle out of existence over time. Maybe not tomorrow, but eventually.
What some of you may not know is that this summer, your Bishop’s Committee took a leap of faith. When they entered into a six-month contract with me, beginning in July and ending at the end of this calendar year (with the option to renew for another six months), they did something very few church boards would be willing to do. They made a budget decision based on hope, not fear. They decided to raise my salary and my hours from 40% of full time to 60% of full time -- even though there was no money in the budget to do so.
St. Cuthbert’s has been blessed with generous financial bequests from parishioners at their deaths, and we have a balance of about $300,000 in our reserve funds in the bank. Although it is not good financial practice to spend down one’s reserves to meet the operating budget, the B.C. realized that they couldn’t keep doing what they’d been doing and expect different results. They couldn’t expect the church to grow or revitalize with a quarter-time priest. So, expressing a great deal of faith in me and in this congregation, they stepped out in faith and made the decision to pull from their financial reserves in order to make an investment in the congregation’s future.
The Random House Dictionary defines “perseverance” as “steady persistence in a course of action [or] a purpose, a state, especially in spite of difficulties, obstacles, or discouragement.” That’s pretty much the definition of what the leadership here has done throughout its history to continue the work of God in this community, and the present day is no different.
It’s important to realize, though, that this decision is not financially sustainable over time. There must be a significant growth in income for this congregation in order for it to be able to sustain anything close to the clergy services it has come to expect.
To give you a realistic picture of where things stand: I am currently paid for 24 hours of work each week. I consistently go over that number of hours worked, sometimes by just an hour or two, but sometimes by as much as 6 or 8 hours. Before the BC raised my salary, I was working pretty consistently at least a 20 hour week, if not more, although I was only being paid for 16 hours. So in effect, what they BC did in raising my salary was pay me for what I was already doing.
I’ve tried very hard in the past four months since my formal contract began to give you a realistic picture of what you can expect from a priest working 60% of full time hours for 60% of full time pay. But even in order to sustain that, something significant needs to change about the financial situation of this parish.
I say this all not to instill fear in you or to use guilt as a motivator, but in the interest of being open, transparent, and honest. This is our situation. What are you going to do to change it? What is possible for you to do to change it? Can you increase your financial pledge to St. Cuthbert’s in a way that will be sustainable long-term? If you’re already giving at the maximum amount possible for you, how might you look into alternative sources of funding to support St. Cuthbert’s? Could you write a grant proposal? Raise funds in some other way?
Your response to this fall’s stewardship campaign will give us an indication of what may be possible here at St. Cuthbert’s in the coming years. From my perspective, I can envision three possible futures for St. Cuthbert’s:
- The congregation could continue its giving at the same level as it has been. If this is the case, the congregation will eventually run out of money and be forced to choose between closing its doors or merging with another nearby congregation.
- The congregation could increase its giving to the point that it can make the current clergy salary rate of 60% of full time long-term sustainable, and continue at that level, as a mission with a part-time priest.
- The congregation could start to grow again, which would be seen in increased income and increased attendance, and eventually reach the point where it could achieve parish status again, with a full-time priest and a robust outreach ministry to this neighborhood. In order for this goal to be attainable financially anytime in the near future, it would most likely involve providing the vicarage as a home to the priest, because when a congregation provides housing to a priest, they can pay the priest 20% less than a full time salary because the value of the housing is understood to be part of the total compensation package. One possible avenue to being able to afford full-time clergy services more quickly would be to join in some formal partnership with United Lutheran Church of Oakland, which is part of the reason we’re beginning some conversations with them; between the two congregations, perhaps the members could come up with enough funds to pay one full-time priest or pastor.
These are all possible scenarios for St. Cuthbert’s, and there may be others as well. None of them means “success” or “failure.” Whatever scenario is pursued, we want it to be one that is in line with God’s will, and we have to remember that God is in the business of turning things on their heads, in that great reversal where “the last shall be first and the first shall be last.” Sometimes “God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom” and “God’s weakness is stronger than human strength” – in other words, what we might see as “success” might actually be “failure,” and what we might see as “failure” might actually be “success.”
I think it’s no secret to many of you that personally, I’ve been pushing and hoping for that last scenario I mentioned, envisioning this place as a flourishing center of community life and ministry in this neighborhood, and even possibly seeing myself as that long-term full-time priest here.
In my own personal discernment, I have come to the conclusion that I am called to full-time work in the church. I am an “all in” kind of person. I have a hard time holding myself back from giving 100% to something that I’m doing. I don’t really know how to give 60%, despite the fact that I’m trying to give you a realistic perspective of what 60% is. But doing that has left me with a constant sense of dissatisfaction, knowing that I’m not doing everything I could be doing to serve this community, and that drives me crazy. I also don’t do well with my commitments spread out over various places, as they would be if I worked multiple part-time jobs to try to cobble together a full-time salary. So because I’ve discerned that, and because I love this place and its people, I’ve been running scenarios about how this place could fit what I know I am called to do. But you all may not decide that you are able to or want to work toward becoming a parish with a full-time priest.
Ultimately, discernment is a matter of listening for God’s will, which may or may not be synonymous with our will. In my enthusiasm and love for this place, I’ve begun to conflate my will with God’s will, and that’s a dangerous thing for a priest to do. These ideas I have, so far they’re really just about me – about my enthusiasm for this community and my ideas for the kinds of ministry I could see happening here and the potential for growth – but the future of this congregation is not about me. It’s about you, the people of St. Cuthbert’s, and what God is calling you to do.
This is why I’m very glad the Bishop’s Committee is considering hiring a third-party consultant – someone who will not have a stake in the outcome in the way that I would – to assist St. Cuthbert’s in your own work of discernment.
So persevere, my brothers and sisters. Keep up that tenacious spirit that has kept you going this long, and do the hard work of listening for where and how God is calling you to “be the church,” God’s beloved community, in this place at this point in time. There may be some difficult reflections and conversations in the coming months, but you need to answer these questions for yourselves:
What do you want for this church?
What do you think God wants for this church?
As you share your answers to those questions and begin to see whether they are the same or different, and whether there is a common theme among everyone’s answers to those questions, the will of God for this place may begin to emerge more clearly. God’s will is always discerned in community, never by a single individual. So prepare yourselves. Get ready to wrestle with the angel, as Jacob did, and to be changed by it.
Showing posts with label discernment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label discernment. Show all posts
Sunday, October 16, 2016
Sunday, May 1, 2016
Authentic evangelism is always Spirit-led
Sermon delivered Sunday, May 1, 2016 (6th Sunday of Easter, Year C) at St. Cuthbert's Episcopal Church, Oakland, CA.
Acts 16:9-15, John 14:23-29
“Come over to Macedonia and help us.”
This line from today’s passage from Acts is a classic in the theology of evangelism and missions. Paul’s vision of the man from Macedonia pleading for help has been echoed in the call stories of evangelists throughout the centuries – many missionaries have framed their sense of call to travel abroad with a similar sense that a foreign people is asking them to “come over and help us.”
At its best, casting missionary work within this framework encourages people to be willing to go wherever God calls them and to respond to expressed human need wherever they find it. But at its worst, conceptualizing missionary work in this way has led to a patronizing kind of approach in which the missionaries go of their own initiative to “help” people who have not expressed a need for help, bringing with them an attitude that assumes they have all the answers and solutions to bring to the people they have set out to “help.” Let’s explore that shadow side a bit more before we turn our attention to what I believe is a corrective to that shadow side within this very passage.
Any time we talk about “helping” others, we have to step back and examine the power dynamics at play. It is often much easier to be the “helpers” than to be the “helped.” The “helpers” are the ones with power, money, with enough abundance in their lives that they have something to give. The “helped” are the ones “in need,” the ones who lack something, the ones who are vulnerable and dependent. It is much easier to see ourselves as the competent givers than the vulnerable receivers, and yet in our relationship with God we are ALL vulnerable and dependent. The roles of “helper” and “helped” are never completely separable when God’s Spirit is at work. That’s the tricky part and the key thing to remember anytime we begin to see ourselves primarily as the “helpers.” All encounter that is led by the Spirit is intended for the mutual transformation of both parties, and requires listening and obedience on both sides.
The blueprint for evangelism we have in the Acts of the Apostles, the stories of how the first disciples spread the faith in its earliest days, show story after story of mutual encounter. I’m struck by how often the people to whom the disciples are sent to bring the message receive their own vision from God ahead of time to let them know these people are coming. It’s not like the disciples are the only ones receiving visions telling them what other people need; the people they are sent to have also been spoken to by God and they are ready and waiting for them when they arrive.
We’ve heard several of these stories lately: in Paul’s conversion story we heard a few weeks ago from Acts chapter 9, Paul receives a vision from God telling him to go into the city and wait for someone to come and tell him what to do, and Ananias receives a vision telling him to go look for Paul, the infamous persecutor of the church. When they meet up, they confirm that they each have received visions that brought them together. In Acts 10, we hear the story of how Cornelius, the Roman soldier, receives a vision that he should send for Peter, and right about that same time Peter receives a vision telling him that all foods are clean and the Spirit tells him that some men have come looking for him and that the Spirit has sent them. This leads Peter to share the Gospel with Cornelius, breaking tradition in taking the message to and including Gentiles, not just his fellow Jews.
In today’s story, we don’t have as clear of an example of the Spirit moving on both sides – we’re not told whether the people of Macedonia also received a vision telling them to expect the disciples, but Lydia is receptive and open to their message when they arrive. And far from a patronizing encounter where the disciples do all the “giving” and “helping” to this “poor lost soul,” Lydia does her own share of giving right back – she shows them hospitality by providing lodging for the disciples while they are in her community. The encounter is one of mutual transformation, mutual benefit, mutual assistance, not just from one side to the other.
And perhaps the most important aspect of this evangelism story is that it is Spirit-led; it is God’s initiative that leads to Lydia’s conversion, not Paul’s or any other person’s. Paul and his crew weren’t even planning to go to Macedonia originally; they had planned to continue to travel in the region where they had been. If our first lesson had started just three verses earlier in this chapter, at verse 6 instead of verse 9, we would have heard this introduction to the journey to Macedonia:
“They went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia. When they had come opposite Mysia, they attempted to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them; so, passing by Mysia, they went down to Troas.” (Acts 16:6-8)
It’s here that our reading for today picks up, with verse 9:
“During the night Paul had a vision: there stood a man of Macedonia pleading with him and saying, ‘Come over to Macedonia and help us.’ When he had seen the vision, we immediately tried to cross over to Macedonia, being convinced that God had called us to proclaim the good news to them. We set sail from Troas and took a straight course to Samothrace, the following day to Neapolis, and from there to Philippi, which is a leading city of the district of Macedonia and a Roman colony. We remained in this city for some days.”
It is in Philippi that they encounter Lydia. Now, if you look at the map I’ve included in your bulletins, you’ll see all these cities or regions that were mentioned in the reading have been circled. Look at where Phrygia and Galatia are, in the central part of what is now Turkey. That whole region is called “Asia” on the map, and even though the scripture says they had already been “forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the Word in Asia,” still they try to go to Bithynia – see where that is on the map? Even further north than Galatia, and still East! It’s like, um, hello, what part of “not in Asia right now, folks!” did you guys not get? But “the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them” to go there, and so they go down to Troas – see where that is? Basically as far West as you can go and still be in Asia. They’re trying desperately to hang on to what they already know, to stay in the area that’s familiar to them, to continue to try to do something in Asia despite being told that their ministry is not there right now. So here they are, hanging out in Troas, at the very edge of their familiar territory, and it’s here that Paul receives the message to go to Macedonia – even further West – a whole different land mass! They follow that call and they wind up finding Lydia in Philippi. She was the one God had prepared for them to encounter next, and if they hadn’t been willing to listen to the Spirit’s promptings and follow where God led, they would have never even met her.
In our Gospel passage for today, Jesus promises the disciples that after he is taken from them, they will continue to have a teacher and guide in the Holy Spirit: “I have said these things to you while I am still with you,” he says. “But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.” (John 14:25-26)
The Holy Spirit is the continuing presence of God among us, to continue to guide and direct the church in the ways that God wants us to go. The disciples had the benefit of an actual human person in the form of Jesus of Nazareth to teach and guide them, but now we are left with this illusive and not-so-easy-to-identify Holy Spirit as our guide. Our challenge is to remember that we still have a teacher and guide with us, because it is a lot easier to ignore that guide if it is not a physical person actually speaking to us and showing us the way. It’s a lot easier, in the absence of a physical person as leader, to be guided by our own ideas and desires rather than God’s ideas and desires.
I’ve said quite a bit about that distinction lately, and I want to make clear that I’m not saying that our ideas and desires are inherently opposed to God’s ideas and desires. They can, in fact, be the same thing. But the key is remembering to ask the question, to listen for where the Spirit is leading us and being open to the idea that that might not be the same place we’ve decided we want to go. Like the disciples in our passage from Acts today, we might think we’re going to Bithynia, but God wants us to go to Macedonia! Sometimes when we listen to the Spirit, we find a whole new direction that we hadn’t even thought of before. Other times, we confirm that the direction we’re already going is indeed of God – but again, remembering to listen is the key point.
So the corrective to the shadow side of Christianity’s missionary impulse is to ensure that evangelism is always Spirit-led. When left to our own devices, we know the horrible things we are capable of – coming in to a community and tearing away their time-honored traditions and the ways God has spoken to them throughout the centuries, insisting that they do things our way, right down to the clothes they wear and the language they speak, falsely equating one particular human culture with the Gospel. But when we look at the stories of evangelism in the book of Acts, the account of how the faith first spread, we are reminded that authentic evangelism is always Spirit-led. It is God-initiated rather than human-initiated. And it is never a one-way encounter. It is never one people telling another what to do. It is always a mutual encounter in which both sides have received messages or visions from God and together they attempt to discover the wonderful thing that God is trying to do in their midst and to be faithful to that call.
So as we consider the ways we might reach out to our neighborhood and the community around this church building, let us be in prayer and deep listening about where God is calling us – and how God might already be speaking to the people around us. Being still long enough to listen will help us ensure that our evangelism is Spirit-led rather than human-led.
Acts 16:9-15, John 14:23-29
“Come over to Macedonia and help us.”
This line from today’s passage from Acts is a classic in the theology of evangelism and missions. Paul’s vision of the man from Macedonia pleading for help has been echoed in the call stories of evangelists throughout the centuries – many missionaries have framed their sense of call to travel abroad with a similar sense that a foreign people is asking them to “come over and help us.”
At its best, casting missionary work within this framework encourages people to be willing to go wherever God calls them and to respond to expressed human need wherever they find it. But at its worst, conceptualizing missionary work in this way has led to a patronizing kind of approach in which the missionaries go of their own initiative to “help” people who have not expressed a need for help, bringing with them an attitude that assumes they have all the answers and solutions to bring to the people they have set out to “help.” Let’s explore that shadow side a bit more before we turn our attention to what I believe is a corrective to that shadow side within this very passage.
Any time we talk about “helping” others, we have to step back and examine the power dynamics at play. It is often much easier to be the “helpers” than to be the “helped.” The “helpers” are the ones with power, money, with enough abundance in their lives that they have something to give. The “helped” are the ones “in need,” the ones who lack something, the ones who are vulnerable and dependent. It is much easier to see ourselves as the competent givers than the vulnerable receivers, and yet in our relationship with God we are ALL vulnerable and dependent. The roles of “helper” and “helped” are never completely separable when God’s Spirit is at work. That’s the tricky part and the key thing to remember anytime we begin to see ourselves primarily as the “helpers.” All encounter that is led by the Spirit is intended for the mutual transformation of both parties, and requires listening and obedience on both sides.
The blueprint for evangelism we have in the Acts of the Apostles, the stories of how the first disciples spread the faith in its earliest days, show story after story of mutual encounter. I’m struck by how often the people to whom the disciples are sent to bring the message receive their own vision from God ahead of time to let them know these people are coming. It’s not like the disciples are the only ones receiving visions telling them what other people need; the people they are sent to have also been spoken to by God and they are ready and waiting for them when they arrive.
We’ve heard several of these stories lately: in Paul’s conversion story we heard a few weeks ago from Acts chapter 9, Paul receives a vision from God telling him to go into the city and wait for someone to come and tell him what to do, and Ananias receives a vision telling him to go look for Paul, the infamous persecutor of the church. When they meet up, they confirm that they each have received visions that brought them together. In Acts 10, we hear the story of how Cornelius, the Roman soldier, receives a vision that he should send for Peter, and right about that same time Peter receives a vision telling him that all foods are clean and the Spirit tells him that some men have come looking for him and that the Spirit has sent them. This leads Peter to share the Gospel with Cornelius, breaking tradition in taking the message to and including Gentiles, not just his fellow Jews.
In today’s story, we don’t have as clear of an example of the Spirit moving on both sides – we’re not told whether the people of Macedonia also received a vision telling them to expect the disciples, but Lydia is receptive and open to their message when they arrive. And far from a patronizing encounter where the disciples do all the “giving” and “helping” to this “poor lost soul,” Lydia does her own share of giving right back – she shows them hospitality by providing lodging for the disciples while they are in her community. The encounter is one of mutual transformation, mutual benefit, mutual assistance, not just from one side to the other.
And perhaps the most important aspect of this evangelism story is that it is Spirit-led; it is God’s initiative that leads to Lydia’s conversion, not Paul’s or any other person’s. Paul and his crew weren’t even planning to go to Macedonia originally; they had planned to continue to travel in the region where they had been. If our first lesson had started just three verses earlier in this chapter, at verse 6 instead of verse 9, we would have heard this introduction to the journey to Macedonia:
“They went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia. When they had come opposite Mysia, they attempted to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them; so, passing by Mysia, they went down to Troas.” (Acts 16:6-8)
It’s here that our reading for today picks up, with verse 9:
“During the night Paul had a vision: there stood a man of Macedonia pleading with him and saying, ‘Come over to Macedonia and help us.’ When he had seen the vision, we immediately tried to cross over to Macedonia, being convinced that God had called us to proclaim the good news to them. We set sail from Troas and took a straight course to Samothrace, the following day to Neapolis, and from there to Philippi, which is a leading city of the district of Macedonia and a Roman colony. We remained in this city for some days.”
It is in Philippi that they encounter Lydia. Now, if you look at the map I’ve included in your bulletins, you’ll see all these cities or regions that were mentioned in the reading have been circled. Look at where Phrygia and Galatia are, in the central part of what is now Turkey. That whole region is called “Asia” on the map, and even though the scripture says they had already been “forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the Word in Asia,” still they try to go to Bithynia – see where that is on the map? Even further north than Galatia, and still East! It’s like, um, hello, what part of “not in Asia right now, folks!” did you guys not get? But “the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them” to go there, and so they go down to Troas – see where that is? Basically as far West as you can go and still be in Asia. They’re trying desperately to hang on to what they already know, to stay in the area that’s familiar to them, to continue to try to do something in Asia despite being told that their ministry is not there right now. So here they are, hanging out in Troas, at the very edge of their familiar territory, and it’s here that Paul receives the message to go to Macedonia – even further West – a whole different land mass! They follow that call and they wind up finding Lydia in Philippi. She was the one God had prepared for them to encounter next, and if they hadn’t been willing to listen to the Spirit’s promptings and follow where God led, they would have never even met her.
In our Gospel passage for today, Jesus promises the disciples that after he is taken from them, they will continue to have a teacher and guide in the Holy Spirit: “I have said these things to you while I am still with you,” he says. “But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.” (John 14:25-26)
The Holy Spirit is the continuing presence of God among us, to continue to guide and direct the church in the ways that God wants us to go. The disciples had the benefit of an actual human person in the form of Jesus of Nazareth to teach and guide them, but now we are left with this illusive and not-so-easy-to-identify Holy Spirit as our guide. Our challenge is to remember that we still have a teacher and guide with us, because it is a lot easier to ignore that guide if it is not a physical person actually speaking to us and showing us the way. It’s a lot easier, in the absence of a physical person as leader, to be guided by our own ideas and desires rather than God’s ideas and desires.
I’ve said quite a bit about that distinction lately, and I want to make clear that I’m not saying that our ideas and desires are inherently opposed to God’s ideas and desires. They can, in fact, be the same thing. But the key is remembering to ask the question, to listen for where the Spirit is leading us and being open to the idea that that might not be the same place we’ve decided we want to go. Like the disciples in our passage from Acts today, we might think we’re going to Bithynia, but God wants us to go to Macedonia! Sometimes when we listen to the Spirit, we find a whole new direction that we hadn’t even thought of before. Other times, we confirm that the direction we’re already going is indeed of God – but again, remembering to listen is the key point.
So the corrective to the shadow side of Christianity’s missionary impulse is to ensure that evangelism is always Spirit-led. When left to our own devices, we know the horrible things we are capable of – coming in to a community and tearing away their time-honored traditions and the ways God has spoken to them throughout the centuries, insisting that they do things our way, right down to the clothes they wear and the language they speak, falsely equating one particular human culture with the Gospel. But when we look at the stories of evangelism in the book of Acts, the account of how the faith first spread, we are reminded that authentic evangelism is always Spirit-led. It is God-initiated rather than human-initiated. And it is never a one-way encounter. It is never one people telling another what to do. It is always a mutual encounter in which both sides have received messages or visions from God and together they attempt to discover the wonderful thing that God is trying to do in their midst and to be faithful to that call.
So as we consider the ways we might reach out to our neighborhood and the community around this church building, let us be in prayer and deep listening about where God is calling us – and how God might already be speaking to the people around us. Being still long enough to listen will help us ensure that our evangelism is Spirit-led rather than human-led.
Sunday, April 24, 2016
Who are we to hinder God -- even when God breaks tradition?
Sermon delivered Sunday, April 24, 2016 (5th Sunday of Easter, Year C) at St. Cuthbert’s Episcopal Church, Oakland, CA.
(Acts 11:1-18, Revelation 21:1-6, John 13:31-35)
“Hear what the Spirit is saying to God’s people.”
We use that phrase to conclude the reading of the Scriptures in public worship at St. Cuthbert’s. This phrase comes from a liturgical resource called “Enriching Our Worship,” which was made available to the Episcopal Church in 1998 as a supplement to the 1979 Book of Common Prayer. It offers alternative phrases and imagery to the more traditional wording in the prayer book.
The traditional phrase used after the reading of Scripture in the prayer book is, “The Word of the Lord.” But I much prefer “Hear what the Spirit is saying to God’s people,” for several reasons.
Although I do believe our scriptures to be “The Word of the Lord,” I think using that phrase so casually and without clarification can lead to a misunderstanding of how we are to engage with them. To me, when I hear “THE WORD OF THE LORD,” I imagine some big booming voice of authority sending down a message from on high. To me, that phrase has a sense of absolutism that does not encourage inquiry and exploration. This is the truth, the whole truth, the undeniable, indisputable truth, so help us God!
But “Hear what the Spirit is saying to God’s people” has an entirely different ring, at least to my ears. Rather than telling us to be passive recipients of something coming down from heaven, it invites us to discern what God is saying to us now in and through this text. It doesn’t imply that there is one meaning and all we have to do is accept it. When we are invited to “Hear what the Spirit is saying to God’s people,” we must do something in response to the scripture. We have to use our own faculties, our own God-given gifts for discernment, to figure out what God is saying to our church, to our community, to our country, to our world, through this passage of scripture.
This semantic distinction is important, I think, because it reminds us that God’s revelation to us is ongoing, not static. While maintaining and preserving tradition and passing it on to the next generation is important, if we focus only on that part of religion, we can end up knowing more about what God said to the ancient people than what God is saying to us today.
The letter to the Hebrews says that “the Word of God is living and active” (Hebrews 4:12), and our brothers and sisters in the United Church of Christ remind us that “God is still speaking,” which has been their official slogan since 2004. Despite the fact that the scriptures include stories of God encouraging change in individuals and within communities, and of God saying outright, “I am doing a new thing!” – whether through the ancient prophet Isaiah or the futuristic book of Revelation – many people still tend to think of God – and therefore religion – as unchanging, unchangeable, set in stone, and church can be a place where “innovation” can be a dirty word.
But our scriptures on this Fifth Sunday of Easter, in this season of change and renewal, put innovation right up front and center. Beyond John’s vision of the heavenly king proclaiming “I am making all things new” in the passage from Revelation and Jesus giving a “new commandment” to the disciples in the passage from John, perhaps the most striking example of innovation is in our passage from Acts, when Peter receives a revelation from God that leads him to abandon the dietary laws that were central to Jewish tradition.
Now, it’s perhaps not possible to overstate how significant this change was for Peter and for the followers of Jesus. Although there is a common misperception that Jesus rejected Jewish tradition and ritual because of the many times he broke the Sabbath or challenged the authorities, Jesus actually was not really a religious innovator. He followed the traditional Jewish practices and he observed all the Jewish festivals. He told his followers, “I have not come to abolish the law but to fulfill.” In the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter 5, he has this to say about Jewish law:
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:17-19)
Now, given that context, Peter’s vision telling him to “get up, kill and eat” animals that were forbidden by Jewish law to be eaten is extraordinarily radical! Peter immediately protests, saying, “By no means, Lord, for nothing profane or unclean has ever entered my mouth.” He probably thought this vision was a test, to see if he’d do the right thing, to see if he’d be tempted to eat any of the “forbidden fruits” he was being shown on this sheet coming down from heaven. I imagine Peter might have been remembering Jesus’s words: “Whoever breaks one of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven.” “No way am I going to break the dietary laws,” Peter’s thinking, “I’ve already screwed up enough times; I’m not going to screw it up again! I know the right answer to this one – ‘By no means, Lord, I wouldn’t DREAM of disobeying the law!’”
But in the vision, God insists that he do so! “What God has made clean, you must not call profane,” says the voice from heaven.
I spent some time in evangelical non-denominational churches in college, and I remember a key part of their teaching was that no revelation could ever contradict scripture. So if you thought you had a vision from God, you had to go back and read the scriptures and see what they said, and if what you felt God was telling you to do was contrary to what the scripture said, it couldn’t be an authentic message from God. This line of reasoning was often used to explain to women who felt a call to ordained ministry why that couldn’t be an authentic message from God. Since women leading congregations would contradict scriptures that said, “Women should be silent in church,” or “I do not permit a woman to have authority over a man,” then obviously the woman must be confused or misunderstand what she’s really being called to do. God would never call a woman to ordained ministry, because that would contradict scripture!
But by that line of reasoning, Peter’s revelation in today’s passage from Acts would also be invalid! I’m sure some of the believers in Jerusalem rejected Peter’s message for the same reason: “What do you mean, God told you to eat unclean animals? That contradicts the scriptures! God would never tell you to do something that contradicts scripture!”
And yet, Christian tradition has held up this story as an example of how the Spirit moved among the believers in the early church, and the church would look very different today had Peter’s vision not been taken seriously – we would all still be keeping kosher and all the other commandments of the Jewish law as well. We would have essentially been required to convert to Judaism in order to become a follower of Jesus. But Peter’s contrary-to-scripture revelation acknowledged that God was bringing in the Gentiles even without their conversion to Judaism. Peter’s contrary-to-scripture revelation was central to the birth of the church and what it would become, and therefore central to our identity as Christians today. We now regard this example of breaking tradition as scripture!
The revelation Peter received wasn’t just a new interpretation of an old way of being; it was literally rejecting something that had been sacrosanct and endorsing something that had been forbidden! If this was possible, how could the church ever know for sure that they were following the right path? How could they be sure they were following God’s will, if God’s will could change with the next revelation to come along?
We still continue to struggle with these questions today. The debate over women’s ordination that raged in the 20th century in Protestant churches and of course continues today in the Roman Catholic Church, and the debate over same-sex marriage that has become the “hot button issue” of the 21st century, are just two obvious, high profile examples of the church wrestling with whether God can move us in a direction that “contradicts tradition” or “contradicts scripture,” but we can see this dynamic at play in any number of situations in the church, in issues large and small, any time we feel ourselves being called to move in a direction that somehow seems to be contrary to what is taught in the Bible or church tradition, and yet, we feel this call so strongly that we cannot deny that it is of God.
And although he valued the religious tradition of his birth and upheld it, Jesus himself also taught his followers that the action of God in this world is not always so easy to pin down. He compared the work of the Spirit to the wind. In John chapter 3, he answers Nicodemus’s inquiry about how to enter the kingdom of heaven by saying, “The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit” (John 3:8). The Spirit moves where it will, and our job is to be still long enough to listen for it and hear where it is moving, and to acknowledge it wherever we find it, even if it contradicts everything we’ve always known.
After the believers in Jerusalem hear about Peter’s vision showing that all foods had been made clean and then his story of the Gentiles receiving the Holy Spirit just as the Jewish followers of Jesus had, they acknowledge that it is possible that God is moving even in this unconventional way. “If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?” Peter asks, as he explains why he’s allowed Gentiles to join the community without keeping the Jewish law, and why he’s eaten with them despite their lack of adherence to the Jewish dietary laws. His listeners are silenced, for what satisfactory answer is there to that question? Who are we to hinder God? If God’s Spirit is behind something, good luck trying to stop it.
At another point in the book of Acts, the teacher Gamaliel, a wise elder on the Jewish council, defends the leaders of the church against calls for their execution by reasoning with his fellow councilmembers in this way:
“So in the present case,” Gamaliel says, “I tell you, keep away from these men and let them alone; because if this plan or this undertaking is of human origin, it will fail; but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them—in that case you may even be found fighting against God!’” (Acts 5:38-39)
As we begin the work of discernment about the future this congregation over the next weeks and months to come, let me remind you again about the key role of LISTENING in discernment. We are being invited to “hear what the Spirit is saying to God’s people” at St. Cuthbert’s and in this part of Oakland. Our job is to listen for where God is already at work in the world around us, and to join in, to become his partners in creation, in bringing forth that “new thing” in our midst. Our job is to be open to the Spirit’s promptings and to follow them wherever they lead – even if they lead us to break tradition! Even if they lead us to do things that might contradict what we always thought we knew, or what we always thought we wanted for this church and for this community. Because no matter how noble and compassionate our ideas are, no matter how exciting or fun or promising they might seem, and no matter how much effort we put in to fulfilling them, they will never come to fruition if they are not in line with where God’s Spirit is already moving in the world. We can’t FORCE something to happen of our own will if it is not already of God.
So as we discern together, we must continue to ask ourselves “is this plan or this undertaking of human origin, or is it of God?” And we must be willing to accept the answer we receive, for if it is of human origin, it will fail; but if it is of God, we will not be able to stop it, because who are we to hinder God?
(Acts 11:1-18, Revelation 21:1-6, John 13:31-35)
“Hear what the Spirit is saying to God’s people.”
We use that phrase to conclude the reading of the Scriptures in public worship at St. Cuthbert’s. This phrase comes from a liturgical resource called “Enriching Our Worship,” which was made available to the Episcopal Church in 1998 as a supplement to the 1979 Book of Common Prayer. It offers alternative phrases and imagery to the more traditional wording in the prayer book.
The traditional phrase used after the reading of Scripture in the prayer book is, “The Word of the Lord.” But I much prefer “Hear what the Spirit is saying to God’s people,” for several reasons.
Although I do believe our scriptures to be “The Word of the Lord,” I think using that phrase so casually and without clarification can lead to a misunderstanding of how we are to engage with them. To me, when I hear “THE WORD OF THE LORD,” I imagine some big booming voice of authority sending down a message from on high. To me, that phrase has a sense of absolutism that does not encourage inquiry and exploration. This is the truth, the whole truth, the undeniable, indisputable truth, so help us God!
But “Hear what the Spirit is saying to God’s people” has an entirely different ring, at least to my ears. Rather than telling us to be passive recipients of something coming down from heaven, it invites us to discern what God is saying to us now in and through this text. It doesn’t imply that there is one meaning and all we have to do is accept it. When we are invited to “Hear what the Spirit is saying to God’s people,” we must do something in response to the scripture. We have to use our own faculties, our own God-given gifts for discernment, to figure out what God is saying to our church, to our community, to our country, to our world, through this passage of scripture.
This semantic distinction is important, I think, because it reminds us that God’s revelation to us is ongoing, not static. While maintaining and preserving tradition and passing it on to the next generation is important, if we focus only on that part of religion, we can end up knowing more about what God said to the ancient people than what God is saying to us today.
The letter to the Hebrews says that “the Word of God is living and active” (Hebrews 4:12), and our brothers and sisters in the United Church of Christ remind us that “God is still speaking,” which has been their official slogan since 2004. Despite the fact that the scriptures include stories of God encouraging change in individuals and within communities, and of God saying outright, “I am doing a new thing!” – whether through the ancient prophet Isaiah or the futuristic book of Revelation – many people still tend to think of God – and therefore religion – as unchanging, unchangeable, set in stone, and church can be a place where “innovation” can be a dirty word.
But our scriptures on this Fifth Sunday of Easter, in this season of change and renewal, put innovation right up front and center. Beyond John’s vision of the heavenly king proclaiming “I am making all things new” in the passage from Revelation and Jesus giving a “new commandment” to the disciples in the passage from John, perhaps the most striking example of innovation is in our passage from Acts, when Peter receives a revelation from God that leads him to abandon the dietary laws that were central to Jewish tradition.
Now, it’s perhaps not possible to overstate how significant this change was for Peter and for the followers of Jesus. Although there is a common misperception that Jesus rejected Jewish tradition and ritual because of the many times he broke the Sabbath or challenged the authorities, Jesus actually was not really a religious innovator. He followed the traditional Jewish practices and he observed all the Jewish festivals. He told his followers, “I have not come to abolish the law but to fulfill.” In the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter 5, he has this to say about Jewish law:
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:17-19)
Now, given that context, Peter’s vision telling him to “get up, kill and eat” animals that were forbidden by Jewish law to be eaten is extraordinarily radical! Peter immediately protests, saying, “By no means, Lord, for nothing profane or unclean has ever entered my mouth.” He probably thought this vision was a test, to see if he’d do the right thing, to see if he’d be tempted to eat any of the “forbidden fruits” he was being shown on this sheet coming down from heaven. I imagine Peter might have been remembering Jesus’s words: “Whoever breaks one of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven.” “No way am I going to break the dietary laws,” Peter’s thinking, “I’ve already screwed up enough times; I’m not going to screw it up again! I know the right answer to this one – ‘By no means, Lord, I wouldn’t DREAM of disobeying the law!’”
But in the vision, God insists that he do so! “What God has made clean, you must not call profane,” says the voice from heaven.
I spent some time in evangelical non-denominational churches in college, and I remember a key part of their teaching was that no revelation could ever contradict scripture. So if you thought you had a vision from God, you had to go back and read the scriptures and see what they said, and if what you felt God was telling you to do was contrary to what the scripture said, it couldn’t be an authentic message from God. This line of reasoning was often used to explain to women who felt a call to ordained ministry why that couldn’t be an authentic message from God. Since women leading congregations would contradict scriptures that said, “Women should be silent in church,” or “I do not permit a woman to have authority over a man,” then obviously the woman must be confused or misunderstand what she’s really being called to do. God would never call a woman to ordained ministry, because that would contradict scripture!
But by that line of reasoning, Peter’s revelation in today’s passage from Acts would also be invalid! I’m sure some of the believers in Jerusalem rejected Peter’s message for the same reason: “What do you mean, God told you to eat unclean animals? That contradicts the scriptures! God would never tell you to do something that contradicts scripture!”
And yet, Christian tradition has held up this story as an example of how the Spirit moved among the believers in the early church, and the church would look very different today had Peter’s vision not been taken seriously – we would all still be keeping kosher and all the other commandments of the Jewish law as well. We would have essentially been required to convert to Judaism in order to become a follower of Jesus. But Peter’s contrary-to-scripture revelation acknowledged that God was bringing in the Gentiles even without their conversion to Judaism. Peter’s contrary-to-scripture revelation was central to the birth of the church and what it would become, and therefore central to our identity as Christians today. We now regard this example of breaking tradition as scripture!
The revelation Peter received wasn’t just a new interpretation of an old way of being; it was literally rejecting something that had been sacrosanct and endorsing something that had been forbidden! If this was possible, how could the church ever know for sure that they were following the right path? How could they be sure they were following God’s will, if God’s will could change with the next revelation to come along?
We still continue to struggle with these questions today. The debate over women’s ordination that raged in the 20th century in Protestant churches and of course continues today in the Roman Catholic Church, and the debate over same-sex marriage that has become the “hot button issue” of the 21st century, are just two obvious, high profile examples of the church wrestling with whether God can move us in a direction that “contradicts tradition” or “contradicts scripture,” but we can see this dynamic at play in any number of situations in the church, in issues large and small, any time we feel ourselves being called to move in a direction that somehow seems to be contrary to what is taught in the Bible or church tradition, and yet, we feel this call so strongly that we cannot deny that it is of God.
And although he valued the religious tradition of his birth and upheld it, Jesus himself also taught his followers that the action of God in this world is not always so easy to pin down. He compared the work of the Spirit to the wind. In John chapter 3, he answers Nicodemus’s inquiry about how to enter the kingdom of heaven by saying, “The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit” (John 3:8). The Spirit moves where it will, and our job is to be still long enough to listen for it and hear where it is moving, and to acknowledge it wherever we find it, even if it contradicts everything we’ve always known.
After the believers in Jerusalem hear about Peter’s vision showing that all foods had been made clean and then his story of the Gentiles receiving the Holy Spirit just as the Jewish followers of Jesus had, they acknowledge that it is possible that God is moving even in this unconventional way. “If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?” Peter asks, as he explains why he’s allowed Gentiles to join the community without keeping the Jewish law, and why he’s eaten with them despite their lack of adherence to the Jewish dietary laws. His listeners are silenced, for what satisfactory answer is there to that question? Who are we to hinder God? If God’s Spirit is behind something, good luck trying to stop it.
At another point in the book of Acts, the teacher Gamaliel, a wise elder on the Jewish council, defends the leaders of the church against calls for their execution by reasoning with his fellow councilmembers in this way:
“So in the present case,” Gamaliel says, “I tell you, keep away from these men and let them alone; because if this plan or this undertaking is of human origin, it will fail; but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them—in that case you may even be found fighting against God!’” (Acts 5:38-39)
As we begin the work of discernment about the future this congregation over the next weeks and months to come, let me remind you again about the key role of LISTENING in discernment. We are being invited to “hear what the Spirit is saying to God’s people” at St. Cuthbert’s and in this part of Oakland. Our job is to listen for where God is already at work in the world around us, and to join in, to become his partners in creation, in bringing forth that “new thing” in our midst. Our job is to be open to the Spirit’s promptings and to follow them wherever they lead – even if they lead us to break tradition! Even if they lead us to do things that might contradict what we always thought we knew, or what we always thought we wanted for this church and for this community. Because no matter how noble and compassionate our ideas are, no matter how exciting or fun or promising they might seem, and no matter how much effort we put in to fulfilling them, they will never come to fruition if they are not in line with where God’s Spirit is already moving in the world. We can’t FORCE something to happen of our own will if it is not already of God.
So as we discern together, we must continue to ask ourselves “is this plan or this undertaking of human origin, or is it of God?” And we must be willing to accept the answer we receive, for if it is of human origin, it will fail; but if it is of God, we will not be able to stop it, because who are we to hinder God?
Sunday, April 10, 2016
When the people of God listen to God and trust God's word, amazing things are possible
Sermon delivered Sunday, April 10, 2016 (3rd Sunday of Easter, Year C), at St. Cuthbert’s Episcopal Church, Oakland, CA.
(Acts 9:1-20, John 21:1-19)
On this third Sunday of Easter, we continue to hear stories of uncertainty, newness, change, and fear. The disciples are still reeling from the events of Jesus’s final week in Jerusalem – arrest, crucifixion, death, and now, these miraculous appearances! In our passage from John today we see Jesus appearing to the disciples while they are out doing what is familiar to them – fishing – and reminding them of their call to go beyond the familiar in order to bring in a successful “catch” for the kingdom. And in Acts, although the story is chronologically a bit later than the first post-Resurrection appearances, we have another powerful story of uncertainty, newness, change, and fear – when Jesus appears to Saul, an adamant persecutor of Christians, and Saul does a complete 180 – transforming from violent enemy to passionate leader in the church.
In both stories, the people of God are asked to trust God’s word, God’s direction, God’s movement in their lives, even when that leads them to do things that are unknown, unfamiliar, uncomfortable, and scary. When Jesus appears to the disciples on the beach and offers them some advice on getting better results with their fishing excursion, they have to trust that he knows what he’s talking about, even though they have been casting their nets all night and catching nothing.
“Cast the net to the right side of the boat,” Jesus says. “Oh, gee, thanks,” the disciples might have thought, “You think we haven’t thought of that one? What difference is casting the net on a different side of the boat going to make? If there aren’t any fish on this side, there aren’t going to be any just a few feet away on the other side! There are no fish! We know; we’ve been out here all night!” So they have, but perhaps they’ve only been casting the net on the left side of the boat because it was easier for them to do it that way. If they were right-handed, casting on the left side would make hauling the fish in easier, since they could use their dominant right arm to lift the heavy loads. They were professional fishermen; they’d probably perfected their technique to where it taxed the body the least so they could sustain longer working hours. They’d always done it this way and it had always worked for them in the past. But Jesus comes along after the Resurrection and asks them to do something slightly different, something that wasn’t the way they’d always done it, something that might have felt uncomfortable and unfamiliar. They’d have to use muscles they weren’t used to using. They’d have to call upon strengths they didn’t know they had. They’d have to modify their actions to adapt to the situation at hand.
And when they did – when they trusted Jesus’s advice and tried something different, they were overwhelmed with an enormous haul of fish – 153, to be exact, the same number as the number of nations known to exist at that particular time. A catch of 153 fish was symbolic of a “catch” of all the nations, foreshadowing the evangelism they would do as they spread the Gospel throughout the world.
And what about Ananias, in our passage from Acts today? Can you imagine God asking you to go voluntarily to meet with one of the chief persecutors of the church, someone who had sworn to kill anyone who was a follower of Jesus?
“Um, are you SURE that’s who you want me to go see?” Ananias asks. “I’ve heard lots of stories about this guy, and none of them are good. Do you KNOW how much evil he has done to your saints in Jerusalem? And you want me to go heal HIM?”
But the Lord answers, “Go, for he is an instrument whom I have chosen to bring my name before Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel.”
Imagine the kind of trust it had to take for Ananias to follow through on that command! In our Gospel passage, the disciples had to trust just enough to try a slight change in their professional working habits, but still operating in the realm of something they were used to doing and that wasn’t threatening to them in any way. But Ananias is essentially being asked to walk right into the lion’s den! He has to trust God’s word that Saul is “an instrument God has chosen” – although every self-preservation instinct – and all of his friends who cared about him – would have urged him to stay as far away from Saul as possible.
But somehow, Ananias does it. He takes God at God’s word and does what he is being asked to do. And Saul is converted to the faith and becomes one of its strongest leaders.
When the people of God listen to God and trust God's word, amazing things are possible. Miraculous things are possible. When the people of God listen to God and trust God's word, lives are changed.
What is God asking you, the people of St. Cuthbert’s, to do that might be unfamiliar, uncomfortable, and scary? Fr. John Rawlinson’s sermon last week invited you to consider what the “resurrection” of this congregation might look like. “Resurrection is not the same old, same old,” he said. “Resurrection is not a repeat of what has been. Resurrection is the unknown and new life, but in likely a very different way.” This is the message of our scriptures for today as well. Resurrection means change – subtle change in some cases, radical change in others, but all cases, change.
St. Cuthbert’s is at a crucial moment in its history. In this “liminal space,” as Deacon Pam put it in her sermon the week after the retirement of your previous priest, in this in between time, you are being invited to consider what the future of this community will be. Your task is to listen for where the Holy Spirit is moving in this place – this congregation, this neighborhood, this city – and how God is calling you to respond.
In the short amount of time I have been here, I have seen and felt God’s spirit moving in a number of ways at St. Cuthbert’s. I’ll share a few of my thoughts, which I hope will be the start of a conversation that will engage the whole congregation over the next few weeks and months.
I see the Spirit moving in the passionate and beautiful music we make with one another each week. Quality music can be difficult to come by in small congregations, and St. Cuthbert’s is very fortunate to have the wonderful musicians it has to lead us in our praise of God.
I see the Spirit in the re-engagement of Lydia Pierce Chong with the congregation. Lydia is a young woman who had been loosely connected to St. Cuthbert’s in the past but now has a fire lit in her to reach out to the neighborhood surrounding the church and find ways we can minister to young parents and families in the area. Deacon Pam told me that after seeing the nursery room in the narthex used on Easter Sunday for the first time in a long time, she felt a nudge from the Spirit for us to do some kind of a blessing for that space, to put the energy out there in the universe that we are setting aside and dedicating that space for the nurture of children whom we have not yet met, but who God intends to bring to us.
I see the Spirit moving in the determination of BJ Gerton and her crew to keep the produce market going, despite the loss of funding from Episcopal Senior Communities, to provide a source of fresh produce in this neighborhood that in many ways is a “food desert,” an urban area where it is difficult to buy affordable or good quality fresh food.
And speaking of produce, I feel a nudge from the Spirit every time I see the farmers standing on the street corner in front of St. Cuthbert’s selling their produce during the week. This parish is blessed in terms of location to be perched on such a busy intersection. These guys wouldn’t choose this spot to sell their produce if it wasn’t a high traffic area with potential to net them good business. We could harness that energy to draw attention to St. Cuthbert’s. I’ve had visions of standing on the corner with them during the week, wearing my collar, holding up signs that say – “Pull over for free prayers” or “God loves you - join us on Sundays” – or whatever other creative ideas you all can come up with! Or, doing something as simple as holding a service outside one Sunday under the big trees in front of the church would make us more visible and show that there is life and energy in this place.
Where do YOU see or feel the Spirit moving at St. Cuthbert’s? What do you feel the Spirit nudging you to do around here? Now is a time for dreaming, for visioning, for considering what might be. No idea is too grandiose or too impractical – let your minds go wild, and share your ideas with Milene Rawlinson, our senior warden, BJ Gerton, our junior warden, or anyone else on the Bishop’s Committee. Diocesan leaders will be coming to St. Cuthbert’s within the next few weeks to begin a conversation about the future of St. Cuthbert’s. If you feel the Spirit moving us toward resurrection, listen. Listen and make it known to the rest of us, because we discern God’s will in community, through hearing and listening to one another. Listen and act on it, because when the people of God listen to God and trust God's word, amazing things are possible.
(Acts 9:1-20, John 21:1-19)
On this third Sunday of Easter, we continue to hear stories of uncertainty, newness, change, and fear. The disciples are still reeling from the events of Jesus’s final week in Jerusalem – arrest, crucifixion, death, and now, these miraculous appearances! In our passage from John today we see Jesus appearing to the disciples while they are out doing what is familiar to them – fishing – and reminding them of their call to go beyond the familiar in order to bring in a successful “catch” for the kingdom. And in Acts, although the story is chronologically a bit later than the first post-Resurrection appearances, we have another powerful story of uncertainty, newness, change, and fear – when Jesus appears to Saul, an adamant persecutor of Christians, and Saul does a complete 180 – transforming from violent enemy to passionate leader in the church.
In both stories, the people of God are asked to trust God’s word, God’s direction, God’s movement in their lives, even when that leads them to do things that are unknown, unfamiliar, uncomfortable, and scary. When Jesus appears to the disciples on the beach and offers them some advice on getting better results with their fishing excursion, they have to trust that he knows what he’s talking about, even though they have been casting their nets all night and catching nothing.
“Cast the net to the right side of the boat,” Jesus says. “Oh, gee, thanks,” the disciples might have thought, “You think we haven’t thought of that one? What difference is casting the net on a different side of the boat going to make? If there aren’t any fish on this side, there aren’t going to be any just a few feet away on the other side! There are no fish! We know; we’ve been out here all night!” So they have, but perhaps they’ve only been casting the net on the left side of the boat because it was easier for them to do it that way. If they were right-handed, casting on the left side would make hauling the fish in easier, since they could use their dominant right arm to lift the heavy loads. They were professional fishermen; they’d probably perfected their technique to where it taxed the body the least so they could sustain longer working hours. They’d always done it this way and it had always worked for them in the past. But Jesus comes along after the Resurrection and asks them to do something slightly different, something that wasn’t the way they’d always done it, something that might have felt uncomfortable and unfamiliar. They’d have to use muscles they weren’t used to using. They’d have to call upon strengths they didn’t know they had. They’d have to modify their actions to adapt to the situation at hand.
And when they did – when they trusted Jesus’s advice and tried something different, they were overwhelmed with an enormous haul of fish – 153, to be exact, the same number as the number of nations known to exist at that particular time. A catch of 153 fish was symbolic of a “catch” of all the nations, foreshadowing the evangelism they would do as they spread the Gospel throughout the world.
And what about Ananias, in our passage from Acts today? Can you imagine God asking you to go voluntarily to meet with one of the chief persecutors of the church, someone who had sworn to kill anyone who was a follower of Jesus?
“Um, are you SURE that’s who you want me to go see?” Ananias asks. “I’ve heard lots of stories about this guy, and none of them are good. Do you KNOW how much evil he has done to your saints in Jerusalem? And you want me to go heal HIM?”
But the Lord answers, “Go, for he is an instrument whom I have chosen to bring my name before Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel.”
Imagine the kind of trust it had to take for Ananias to follow through on that command! In our Gospel passage, the disciples had to trust just enough to try a slight change in their professional working habits, but still operating in the realm of something they were used to doing and that wasn’t threatening to them in any way. But Ananias is essentially being asked to walk right into the lion’s den! He has to trust God’s word that Saul is “an instrument God has chosen” – although every self-preservation instinct – and all of his friends who cared about him – would have urged him to stay as far away from Saul as possible.
But somehow, Ananias does it. He takes God at God’s word and does what he is being asked to do. And Saul is converted to the faith and becomes one of its strongest leaders.
When the people of God listen to God and trust God's word, amazing things are possible. Miraculous things are possible. When the people of God listen to God and trust God's word, lives are changed.
What is God asking you, the people of St. Cuthbert’s, to do that might be unfamiliar, uncomfortable, and scary? Fr. John Rawlinson’s sermon last week invited you to consider what the “resurrection” of this congregation might look like. “Resurrection is not the same old, same old,” he said. “Resurrection is not a repeat of what has been. Resurrection is the unknown and new life, but in likely a very different way.” This is the message of our scriptures for today as well. Resurrection means change – subtle change in some cases, radical change in others, but all cases, change.
St. Cuthbert’s is at a crucial moment in its history. In this “liminal space,” as Deacon Pam put it in her sermon the week after the retirement of your previous priest, in this in between time, you are being invited to consider what the future of this community will be. Your task is to listen for where the Holy Spirit is moving in this place – this congregation, this neighborhood, this city – and how God is calling you to respond.
In the short amount of time I have been here, I have seen and felt God’s spirit moving in a number of ways at St. Cuthbert’s. I’ll share a few of my thoughts, which I hope will be the start of a conversation that will engage the whole congregation over the next few weeks and months.
I see the Spirit moving in the passionate and beautiful music we make with one another each week. Quality music can be difficult to come by in small congregations, and St. Cuthbert’s is very fortunate to have the wonderful musicians it has to lead us in our praise of God.
I see the Spirit in the re-engagement of Lydia Pierce Chong with the congregation. Lydia is a young woman who had been loosely connected to St. Cuthbert’s in the past but now has a fire lit in her to reach out to the neighborhood surrounding the church and find ways we can minister to young parents and families in the area. Deacon Pam told me that after seeing the nursery room in the narthex used on Easter Sunday for the first time in a long time, she felt a nudge from the Spirit for us to do some kind of a blessing for that space, to put the energy out there in the universe that we are setting aside and dedicating that space for the nurture of children whom we have not yet met, but who God intends to bring to us.
I see the Spirit moving in the determination of BJ Gerton and her crew to keep the produce market going, despite the loss of funding from Episcopal Senior Communities, to provide a source of fresh produce in this neighborhood that in many ways is a “food desert,” an urban area where it is difficult to buy affordable or good quality fresh food.
And speaking of produce, I feel a nudge from the Spirit every time I see the farmers standing on the street corner in front of St. Cuthbert’s selling their produce during the week. This parish is blessed in terms of location to be perched on such a busy intersection. These guys wouldn’t choose this spot to sell their produce if it wasn’t a high traffic area with potential to net them good business. We could harness that energy to draw attention to St. Cuthbert’s. I’ve had visions of standing on the corner with them during the week, wearing my collar, holding up signs that say – “Pull over for free prayers” or “God loves you - join us on Sundays” – or whatever other creative ideas you all can come up with! Or, doing something as simple as holding a service outside one Sunday under the big trees in front of the church would make us more visible and show that there is life and energy in this place.
Where do YOU see or feel the Spirit moving at St. Cuthbert’s? What do you feel the Spirit nudging you to do around here? Now is a time for dreaming, for visioning, for considering what might be. No idea is too grandiose or too impractical – let your minds go wild, and share your ideas with Milene Rawlinson, our senior warden, BJ Gerton, our junior warden, or anyone else on the Bishop’s Committee. Diocesan leaders will be coming to St. Cuthbert’s within the next few weeks to begin a conversation about the future of St. Cuthbert’s. If you feel the Spirit moving us toward resurrection, listen. Listen and make it known to the rest of us, because we discern God’s will in community, through hearing and listening to one another. Listen and act on it, because when the people of God listen to God and trust God's word, amazing things are possible.
Sunday, July 15, 2012
How do we discern the will of God?
My first sermon at St. Paul's, delivered on Sunday, July 15, 2012 (the Seventh Sunday After Pentecost).
So what am I supposed to do?
Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you were asking that question? Perhaps you had a difficult decision to make at home. Perhaps the expectations of a supervisor were unclear. Perhaps you struggled with a difficult moral decision and you didn’t know how to decide what was the “right” thing to do. You may have found yourself asking yourself or God, “So what am I supposed to do – in this situation, with this information, with this person or group of people?”
Perhaps at times like those, our opening collect this morning might be helpful. It asks God that we “may know and understand what things [we] ought to do, and also may have grace and power faithfully to accomplish them.” The first thing we can do when we are unsure of what we are supposed to do is to pray, to ask for God’s guidance on the matter.
Now, that sounds nice, but if you’re like me, perhaps you’re wondering how exactly we will know for sure what God’s answers to our prayers for guidance are. Should we expect a bolt of lighting? A voice from the sky? A sign or uncanny coincidence that tells us that something is “meant to be”?
Or might it perhaps be more subtle: a certain inner tug on the heart, an intuition, a “gut feeling” that tells us we should do a certain thing?
The biblical figures we encounter in the scripture today all struggled in some way with what they “ought” to do:
- David set out to bring the ark of the Lord to Jerusalem because he believed it was God’s will for him to do so, but what our lectionary leaves out from the reading is that along the way, one of the men who was driving the cart with the ark on it was struck dead after touching the ark. After that, David was afraid to bring the ark to Jerusalem, so he left it at the house of Obed-edom. Our reading picks up again after David has decided it is safe to continue bringing the ark to Jerusalem because things have gone well for the house of Obed-edom while the ark was there. But in that in between time, there was a struggle for him about what he “ought” to do – should he bring this sacred object that apparently had the power to destroy people at whim into the midst of the city he was building to be the center of power of his empire? Ultimately, he is convinced that God indeed does want the ark in Jerusalem and so he takes it there.
- The author of Ephesians boldly asserts that he knows God’s will for all creation: “with wisdom and insight he has made known to us the mystery of his will… a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him.” He says all these things quite confidently, but in fact they represent his perspective on a struggle in the early church about what they “ought” to do in spreading the message about Jesus – was the message only for other Jews, or could non-Jews be brought in to the community as well? The author of Ephesians, writing in the tradition of the Apostle Paul, believes it is God’s will for the message to spread to all people – both Jews and Gentiles.
- King Herod’s struggle with what he “ought” to do is perhaps the most obvious one: when Herodias’s daughter asked for the head of John the Baptist, Herod was “deeply grieved” because he believed John to be a “righteous and holy man” and did not want to kill him, but he gave in to the girl’s request out of a sense of duty – he felt he “ought” to keep his word to her. In doing so, he allowed a sense of duty and pride to override his deeper sense of what was right.
Herod’s story is a good example of the fact that not everything we feel we “ought” to do is of God or in accordance with God’s will. Sometimes, like Herod, we feel we “ought” to do things out of a sense of duty, even if we think the action is wrong. Or we might feel we “ought” to do things because other people expect or want us to do them, even if we don’t want to do them ourselves. So how can we tell whether a sense that we “ought” to do something is motivated by the proddings of the Spirit or a guilt trip from the demands of the world?
These are not new questions. The church has struggled since its earliest days to discern the will of God for the community and to live it out, and we still struggle to know what we “ought” to do as a church today. These questions are at the heart of what we ask ourselves whenever we gather as a church – whether in the local parish, at the diocesan level, or as a whole body at the General Convention.
Through the centuries, Christians have come up with different ways to answer these questions, with criteria or guidelines for discerning God’s will and for determining whether a desire to do something is of God or not.
One of the most common answers is that the will of God must be discerned in community. Any individual who believes God is calling him or her to do something should take it to the community to benefit from their collective wisdom, or at least to a spiritual director or confidant who can help the person discern whether the direction they are feeling pulled in is of God or not.
In doing so, the community or spiritual director may ask the individual to look at the potential fruits of that decision. Will it bring greater peace to that person’s life? Will it bring him or her closer to God? Jesus pointed out to his disciples that healthy trees bear good fruit, while unhealthy ones do not, using this metaphor to apply to people: “by their fruits you will know them.” The same can be applied to any of our individual or communal decisions. How will this decision potentially affect us and those in our community? Do those potential results seem in line with what we think God would want for us?
And, of course, as a community rooted in the Scriptures, we also will ask what guidance we can find in the Bible on the matter, although this can be a tricky one, since we have to wade through centuries of layered meanings, cultural and historical contexts, and translations to truly understand what the biblical text is saying about any given matter. And the biblical texts do not always speak with one voice on an issue. There are many tensions between seemingly different perspective and theological approaches represented in the Bible, since they were written by different authors and over a long period of time. Still, as a church we affirm that the Scriptures were inspired by God and that God continues to speak to us through them, and so we seek to root our decision-making in the witness of the Bible.
Ultimately, though, I think it is important to remind ourselves that however many “tests” we may apply to our feelings about any given decision, we cannot ever fully know the will of God in this life. The Apostle Paul says that “now we see through a glass darkly, but then we will see face to face.” The questions and uncertainties that we have in this life about the ways of a God much bigger than we are will have to wait for the next life to be completely resolved.
And this need not lead us to despair, for although part of the work of the church is to discern and do the work of God in the world, the other part of our work – and really the first and most important part of our work – is simply to praise and worship the Almighty God whose mysteries are beyond human understanding. In the Jewish tradition, each copy of the Talmud, the collection of writings and commentary on the scriptures, begins on page 2, leaving the first page blank to remind the reader of all that we do not know or understand about God.
Christians have at times been rather smug about thinking we have God all figured out because we believe God was incarnate in Jesus – so we have an actual human being we can read about and learn from and after we’ve done all that, we’ve pretty much got God all figured out. But how much do we really even understand Jesus? The early church ran itself in circles and shed all kinds of blood arguing over exactly how they should make sense of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus and what it meant for the world. And surely the mystery of Christ’s indwelling in us by the Holy Spirit through our baptism is beyond our human understanding! Perhaps we could take a lesson from our Jewish brothers and sisters and leave a little blank space at the beginning of our volumes of theology, our attempts to speak in words what is ultimately unspeakable.
So how do we know what we ought to do? How do we, as a community, discern the will of God for us? Well, we pray – turning the matter over to God and waiting for a revelation or some sense of inner clarity – but we also engage our reason, turning to the scriptures and the community of the church. We “test the spirits” of revelation based on this tradition that has been both received and reshaped by the body of faithful Christians throughout the history of the church. We look at the potential fruits of our decisions. And we do the best we can with the knowledge and insights we have – all the while remaining open to the possibility that we might make the wrong decision, but trusting that God’s grace and mercy will catch and redirect us if we do.
I hope it is in this spirit that we can view the decisions of the church, both those decisions that we make for our life together here at St. Paul’s and the decisions that were made over the past two weeks by the General Convention. Whether we feel that St. Paul’s or the Episcopal Church is doing what it “ought” to do or not, we might remind ourselves that our own sense of what we “ought” to do might not be God’s sense of what we “ought” to do, and that even if we are certain we are doing God’s will, we have no guarantees that that is actually the case! By their fruits we will know them, perhaps, but even in our judgment of the fruits of our decisions, we are seeing through a glass darkly.
But no matter whether we have discerned God’s will for us correctly or not, we can trust that, as Thomas Merton famously wrote, God will “lead us by the right path though we may know nothing about it.” In other words, God’s the one really in control here, whether we realize it or not. Sometimes the best thing for us to do when we feel confused about what we “ought” to do is to return to that blank first page and rest in that.
So what am I supposed to do?
Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you were asking that question? Perhaps you had a difficult decision to make at home. Perhaps the expectations of a supervisor were unclear. Perhaps you struggled with a difficult moral decision and you didn’t know how to decide what was the “right” thing to do. You may have found yourself asking yourself or God, “So what am I supposed to do – in this situation, with this information, with this person or group of people?”
Perhaps at times like those, our opening collect this morning might be helpful. It asks God that we “may know and understand what things [we] ought to do, and also may have grace and power faithfully to accomplish them.” The first thing we can do when we are unsure of what we are supposed to do is to pray, to ask for God’s guidance on the matter.
Now, that sounds nice, but if you’re like me, perhaps you’re wondering how exactly we will know for sure what God’s answers to our prayers for guidance are. Should we expect a bolt of lighting? A voice from the sky? A sign or uncanny coincidence that tells us that something is “meant to be”?
Or might it perhaps be more subtle: a certain inner tug on the heart, an intuition, a “gut feeling” that tells us we should do a certain thing?
The biblical figures we encounter in the scripture today all struggled in some way with what they “ought” to do:
- David set out to bring the ark of the Lord to Jerusalem because he believed it was God’s will for him to do so, but what our lectionary leaves out from the reading is that along the way, one of the men who was driving the cart with the ark on it was struck dead after touching the ark. After that, David was afraid to bring the ark to Jerusalem, so he left it at the house of Obed-edom. Our reading picks up again after David has decided it is safe to continue bringing the ark to Jerusalem because things have gone well for the house of Obed-edom while the ark was there. But in that in between time, there was a struggle for him about what he “ought” to do – should he bring this sacred object that apparently had the power to destroy people at whim into the midst of the city he was building to be the center of power of his empire? Ultimately, he is convinced that God indeed does want the ark in Jerusalem and so he takes it there.
- The author of Ephesians boldly asserts that he knows God’s will for all creation: “with wisdom and insight he has made known to us the mystery of his will… a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him.” He says all these things quite confidently, but in fact they represent his perspective on a struggle in the early church about what they “ought” to do in spreading the message about Jesus – was the message only for other Jews, or could non-Jews be brought in to the community as well? The author of Ephesians, writing in the tradition of the Apostle Paul, believes it is God’s will for the message to spread to all people – both Jews and Gentiles.
- King Herod’s struggle with what he “ought” to do is perhaps the most obvious one: when Herodias’s daughter asked for the head of John the Baptist, Herod was “deeply grieved” because he believed John to be a “righteous and holy man” and did not want to kill him, but he gave in to the girl’s request out of a sense of duty – he felt he “ought” to keep his word to her. In doing so, he allowed a sense of duty and pride to override his deeper sense of what was right.
Herod’s story is a good example of the fact that not everything we feel we “ought” to do is of God or in accordance with God’s will. Sometimes, like Herod, we feel we “ought” to do things out of a sense of duty, even if we think the action is wrong. Or we might feel we “ought” to do things because other people expect or want us to do them, even if we don’t want to do them ourselves. So how can we tell whether a sense that we “ought” to do something is motivated by the proddings of the Spirit or a guilt trip from the demands of the world?
These are not new questions. The church has struggled since its earliest days to discern the will of God for the community and to live it out, and we still struggle to know what we “ought” to do as a church today. These questions are at the heart of what we ask ourselves whenever we gather as a church – whether in the local parish, at the diocesan level, or as a whole body at the General Convention.
Through the centuries, Christians have come up with different ways to answer these questions, with criteria or guidelines for discerning God’s will and for determining whether a desire to do something is of God or not.
One of the most common answers is that the will of God must be discerned in community. Any individual who believes God is calling him or her to do something should take it to the community to benefit from their collective wisdom, or at least to a spiritual director or confidant who can help the person discern whether the direction they are feeling pulled in is of God or not.
In doing so, the community or spiritual director may ask the individual to look at the potential fruits of that decision. Will it bring greater peace to that person’s life? Will it bring him or her closer to God? Jesus pointed out to his disciples that healthy trees bear good fruit, while unhealthy ones do not, using this metaphor to apply to people: “by their fruits you will know them.” The same can be applied to any of our individual or communal decisions. How will this decision potentially affect us and those in our community? Do those potential results seem in line with what we think God would want for us?
And, of course, as a community rooted in the Scriptures, we also will ask what guidance we can find in the Bible on the matter, although this can be a tricky one, since we have to wade through centuries of layered meanings, cultural and historical contexts, and translations to truly understand what the biblical text is saying about any given matter. And the biblical texts do not always speak with one voice on an issue. There are many tensions between seemingly different perspective and theological approaches represented in the Bible, since they were written by different authors and over a long period of time. Still, as a church we affirm that the Scriptures were inspired by God and that God continues to speak to us through them, and so we seek to root our decision-making in the witness of the Bible.
Ultimately, though, I think it is important to remind ourselves that however many “tests” we may apply to our feelings about any given decision, we cannot ever fully know the will of God in this life. The Apostle Paul says that “now we see through a glass darkly, but then we will see face to face.” The questions and uncertainties that we have in this life about the ways of a God much bigger than we are will have to wait for the next life to be completely resolved.
And this need not lead us to despair, for although part of the work of the church is to discern and do the work of God in the world, the other part of our work – and really the first and most important part of our work – is simply to praise and worship the Almighty God whose mysteries are beyond human understanding. In the Jewish tradition, each copy of the Talmud, the collection of writings and commentary on the scriptures, begins on page 2, leaving the first page blank to remind the reader of all that we do not know or understand about God.
Christians have at times been rather smug about thinking we have God all figured out because we believe God was incarnate in Jesus – so we have an actual human being we can read about and learn from and after we’ve done all that, we’ve pretty much got God all figured out. But how much do we really even understand Jesus? The early church ran itself in circles and shed all kinds of blood arguing over exactly how they should make sense of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus and what it meant for the world. And surely the mystery of Christ’s indwelling in us by the Holy Spirit through our baptism is beyond our human understanding! Perhaps we could take a lesson from our Jewish brothers and sisters and leave a little blank space at the beginning of our volumes of theology, our attempts to speak in words what is ultimately unspeakable.
So how do we know what we ought to do? How do we, as a community, discern the will of God for us? Well, we pray – turning the matter over to God and waiting for a revelation or some sense of inner clarity – but we also engage our reason, turning to the scriptures and the community of the church. We “test the spirits” of revelation based on this tradition that has been both received and reshaped by the body of faithful Christians throughout the history of the church. We look at the potential fruits of our decisions. And we do the best we can with the knowledge and insights we have – all the while remaining open to the possibility that we might make the wrong decision, but trusting that God’s grace and mercy will catch and redirect us if we do.
I hope it is in this spirit that we can view the decisions of the church, both those decisions that we make for our life together here at St. Paul’s and the decisions that were made over the past two weeks by the General Convention. Whether we feel that St. Paul’s or the Episcopal Church is doing what it “ought” to do or not, we might remind ourselves that our own sense of what we “ought” to do might not be God’s sense of what we “ought” to do, and that even if we are certain we are doing God’s will, we have no guarantees that that is actually the case! By their fruits we will know them, perhaps, but even in our judgment of the fruits of our decisions, we are seeing through a glass darkly.
But no matter whether we have discerned God’s will for us correctly or not, we can trust that, as Thomas Merton famously wrote, God will “lead us by the right path though we may know nothing about it.” In other words, God’s the one really in control here, whether we realize it or not. Sometimes the best thing for us to do when we feel confused about what we “ought” to do is to return to that blank first page and rest in that.
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Seeking the Call... again and always
This afternoon, I was sending my resume to several churches and dioceses as part of my on-going search for a ministry position post-seminary when I suddenly noticed that the title of my email was nearly identical with the title of this blog: "Sewanee seminarian seeking a call."
"Seeking a call." In the church, we talk about "calls" to minister in a particular parish rather than "jobs." I've been careful not to use "employment" language as I write and speak about my desire for a place to go after graduation that will pay me and give me health insurance, but to instead talk about looking for or searching for where God is calling me to minister. And it hadn't even occurred to me until today that the very title of my blog is "seeking the call!"
Of course, I meant something very different when I coined that term for my blog six years ago. I began this blog as a place to record and share my reflections on my experience in the Resurrection House program in Omaha, a vocational discernment internship for young adults sponsored by the Episcopal Church. (Now part of the Episcopal Service Corps.) At that point, I was "seeking the call" in the sense of trying to figure out "what to do with my life" -- looking at the "bigger picture" of vocational discernment -- am I called to work in a homeless shelter? To be a deacon? To be a priest? "The call" I was seeking -- and eventually found -- was the call to the priesthood.
But even after I discerned that call clearly, I decided not to change the blog's title, because, I figured, we're always seeking God's call on our lives -- we never really have it all figured out. Even if I'd discerned a call to a particular vocation, there would always be ways in which, throughout my vocation as a priest, I would be seeking God's call -- where is God calling this particular parish to go at this time? How is God moving in this parishioner's life? To think that I had found that which I sought when I discerned a vocational call to the priesthood and that there was no more need to "seek the call" would have been extremely naive.
So I kept it. And six years later, here I am, "seeking the call" in a different way -- seeking a particular parish and particular people with whom I can be in relationship and ministry, with whom I can listen for the ways in which the Holy Spirit is moving in their midst and jump on Her bandwagon. (Because, I've found, the best ideas in the world won't come to fruition if the Spirit is not already active in that area. "Success" in ministry, I believe, comes from listening to and discerning where the Spirit is already active and then joining forces with that work, rather than trying to create something entirely of our own devising or our own ideas.)
So, the suspense is building. Where is the call I am so ardently seeking now? How is God about to move in my life to bring me to new experiences and opportunities in ministry that I have not yet known? I must have faith that it is out there somewhere, that call that I seek, and I pray regularly for the parishioners of that congregation, even though I do not know who they are yet.
And even after it is revealed to me, even after I find "a call," I will continue "seeking the call"... in that never-ending process of discernment that is relationship with the living God.
God grant me the patience, perseverance, and openness to remain,
faithfully,
Seeking the Call...
always.
"Seeking a call." In the church, we talk about "calls" to minister in a particular parish rather than "jobs." I've been careful not to use "employment" language as I write and speak about my desire for a place to go after graduation that will pay me and give me health insurance, but to instead talk about looking for or searching for where God is calling me to minister. And it hadn't even occurred to me until today that the very title of my blog is "seeking the call!"
Of course, I meant something very different when I coined that term for my blog six years ago. I began this blog as a place to record and share my reflections on my experience in the Resurrection House program in Omaha, a vocational discernment internship for young adults sponsored by the Episcopal Church. (Now part of the Episcopal Service Corps.) At that point, I was "seeking the call" in the sense of trying to figure out "what to do with my life" -- looking at the "bigger picture" of vocational discernment -- am I called to work in a homeless shelter? To be a deacon? To be a priest? "The call" I was seeking -- and eventually found -- was the call to the priesthood.
But even after I discerned that call clearly, I decided not to change the blog's title, because, I figured, we're always seeking God's call on our lives -- we never really have it all figured out. Even if I'd discerned a call to a particular vocation, there would always be ways in which, throughout my vocation as a priest, I would be seeking God's call -- where is God calling this particular parish to go at this time? How is God moving in this parishioner's life? To think that I had found that which I sought when I discerned a vocational call to the priesthood and that there was no more need to "seek the call" would have been extremely naive.
So I kept it. And six years later, here I am, "seeking the call" in a different way -- seeking a particular parish and particular people with whom I can be in relationship and ministry, with whom I can listen for the ways in which the Holy Spirit is moving in their midst and jump on Her bandwagon. (Because, I've found, the best ideas in the world won't come to fruition if the Spirit is not already active in that area. "Success" in ministry, I believe, comes from listening to and discerning where the Spirit is already active and then joining forces with that work, rather than trying to create something entirely of our own devising or our own ideas.)
So, the suspense is building. Where is the call I am so ardently seeking now? How is God about to move in my life to bring me to new experiences and opportunities in ministry that I have not yet known? I must have faith that it is out there somewhere, that call that I seek, and I pray regularly for the parishioners of that congregation, even though I do not know who they are yet.
And even after it is revealed to me, even after I find "a call," I will continue "seeking the call"... in that never-ending process of discernment that is relationship with the living God.
God grant me the patience, perseverance, and openness to remain,
faithfully,
Seeking the Call...
always.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)