About a week and a half ago, I
offered to preach today so Fr. Don could focus on the annual meeting. A couple
days later I gave the lessons a “first reading,” and discovered, happily, that
I get to preach about one of my very favorite topics…, that being “calls,” as
in “calls to ministry.”
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| Jesus Calls Simon and Andrew |
So… here’s a story from one of my
own calls to ministry, specifically my call to ordination into the sacred order
of deacons. I entered the process with great trepidation.
You see, I had been a bit of a
church traveler for much of my life. I had been through multiple denominations.
And it seemed like most of those denominational relationships had ended when I
came up against some kind of litmus test of belief that I could not, in good
faith, conform to.
The broad umbrella of the Episcopal
Church had come to seem like the right place for me, but…. Ordination? Marry a
church? Have I lost my mind?
So I entered into the discernment
process slowly, cautiously, and with this guiding thought: If at any point, any
group or person involved in this process says, “No, we really don’t think you
are called to ordained ministry,” I will say, “Fine. Thank you!” And I would go
home and continue doing what I had always done: participating in church and doing
lay ministry.
About a year after formally entering
the process, I had my first interviews with the Commission on Ministry. The
format of those interviews back then was that the Commission broke up into
two-person teams and each team interviewed the aspirant on a single topic.
Aspirants went from room to room to meet with each team.
So I enter a room, and there sits
Fr. Greg Riley—former rector of this church—and another priest whose name I
can’t remember. We chat. All is well. And then Fr. Riley asks me a question
that knocks the breath right out of my body.
“Bette,” he says, “how many people
have you brought to Jesus Christ?”
I clapped my hands to my chest in
instantaneous reaction and blurted, “Oh, Fr. Riley, what a thought!”
And then I kind of regained my
composure and said something along the lines of ‘I don’t know. I just try to
live my life in a way that people might see something that might help them
change their own life.’
On the way home later, I’m
reflecting on the day—mostly on that one question and my reaction to it. And
chief among my thoughts was this: “There was your litmus test, girl, and you
failed. You were supposed to come into this process with a notched belt and
actual stories of people you have “reeled in” for Jesus.”
And that thought was quickly
followed, with some relief: Now I indeed get to go home and go back to doing
what I was doing before.
Well, no, that’s not how it turned
out, obviously. But I was reminded of the story and I tell it to you today
because this story—the one Fr. Don just proclaimed—is probably my least favorite
call story in the entire Bible.
I mean, I know fishing. I’ve done it
since I was a child. You bait a hook, with a luscious-looking minnow, or a fat
juicy grub, or a shiny spinnerbait, and you cast it out there and when you feel
a fish you throw your weight into setting that hook right through that fish’s
jaw and you reel it in… against its will and for the explicit purpose, usually,
of killing it and eating it.
Does that sound like Christian
ministry to you? I always want to ask, “Geez, Jesus, couldn’t you come up with
a kinder and gentler analogy?” I suppose fishing with nets, which the disciples
were surely doing, is a bit kinder and gentler–but… the outcome is the same:
dead fish.
We all know some religious
traditions seem to take this analogy quite literally and use tactics to, quote,
“evangelize” that make us shrink back in horror. We aren’t going to be the ones
standing on street corners with a bullhorn or going door to door telling people
they must be “saved” by saying a magical prayer. I’m sure my experience with
some of these tactics was part of my shocked response to Fr. Riley’s question.
(BTW, no criticism of Fr. Riley intended; he was following the protocol.)
So enough with the “fishers for people”
imagery. Thankfully, we have ample evidence throughout the Bible and in the
words and actions of Jesus.. that baiting and frightening and reeling people
into the church is not what God has in mind in calling us to ministry in the
world.
And we.. are.. all.. called. I
started out with a story about a call to ordination, and the danger of that is
you might think that’s what “call” means. Wrong. So very wrong. We.. are..
all.. called.
It is no accident that today’s
Gospel story comes on the heels of Jesus’ baptism. That was two weeks ago, and
last Sunday was kind of a continuation. John the Baptist is standing there with
his disciples, Jesus wanders by, John states who he is, and off go John’s
disciples to follow Jesus… all the way home!
Now, today, Jesus is out explicitly
calling people to follow him. And they drop everything and go. We are all
called. And our baptismal covenant states what we are called to.
Yes, the church has organized itself
into orders, and I like to list the orders in which I understand them to have
been founded: lay people first because Jesus had followers before anything
else, then bishops because the 12 apostles, then deacons because the original
apostles made the first deacons, and finally presbyters when the church got too
big for the apostles to do all the Holy Eucharists.
But all of the orders are grounded
in the same call. That’s the bottom line. The baptismal covenant is where the
rubber meets the road for followers of Jesus.
In a short time, we are going into
the parish hall to conduct our annual meeting. We’re going to approve minutes
of last year’s meeting, look at budgets, hear highlights of reports, elect
people to represent us, etc, etc. All practical and necessary matters.
But we need to address those matters
with our baptismal covenant in mind. Because if they can’t be connected to our
baptismal covenant in any way, why are we doing them? If the only thing that
would change if Grace Episcopal Church were to fold up its tent and leave was
that all these Episcopalians would have to find another place to go for an hour
on Sunday… well, we probably should do exactly that!
But I don’t think that’s the case. I
think Grace Episcopal Church & School are poised, ready for God to do
something new here. And I am totally on board with it.
We’re not going to recite the
baptismal covenant right now. We do that on certain occasions and often enough
that you know what it says. Besides, I need to stop talking and sit down
because we have an annual meeting to do!
Rather, I’m going to remind you with
a little shorthand: The first three things we promise to do are all about being
good church people: Come to church and share in the fellowship of word and
table, repent of our sins and do better, tell others. And I have an inkling
that Fr. Don is going to exhort you about those things in his address to the
annual meeting. That IS his focus as priest—to help you become better church
people.
Mine as deacon is to exhort about
what we—individually and corporately—do out there in the world. How do we love
our neighbors as ourselves? How do we make that real and concrete? How do we strive
for—not merely hope for or pray for, but strive for—justice and
peace for all people?
Calls have consequences. Those are
not hollow words to be repeated to make us feel holy and righteous. They are
promises we make. Things we commit to doing. The baptismal covenant is
not a creed, it’s a call to action.
God is already at work in the world
and in our community. We are God’s people..., and we are called to join in.
In
the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, AMEN.
