Life's Calling

Recently, the Lord has been leading me to re-evaluate what it means for me to be an ordained minister in the church of Jesus Christ.  No, he was not encouraging me to quit.  On the contrary, I felt the Lord call me to deepen my commitment to my calling, but with a different emphasis.  I have spent most of my 33 years in ministry making sure I covered all the bases.  I did want to fail at anything.  The only problem with trying to do everything is that you will eventually not do anything well.  

In my prayer life I have discerned the Lord say, “You have only so much time in life.  Focus on what I give you, and only what I give you.”  I began to ask the Lord what those things are, and the Lord kept saying be patient.  So, I have given myself to more and more prayer and reading of scripture.  Suddenly, it occurred to me:  this is what the Lord wants for the rest of my life.  More scripture, more prayer.  In every manual for ministry I have ready or referred to the two highest priorities of the minister are to be prayer and scripture.  

I have made that an important part of my personal and professional life over the years, but I have come to realize it really only have one work as a minister of the gospel:  its prayer and scripture.  Everything else flows from that.   I care for people out of my immersion in prayer and scripture.  I prepare couples for marriage out of the same.  I lead people in their grief by showing them the psalms of lament.   Even the administration of the church can only come from a deep and sustained life of prayer and scripture.  

I have further learned that it cannot only be me.  I need others along the way.  So, I have accountability partners.  I submit myself to the authority of the church through my district superintendent.  Then, after leading me through this significant and at times painful process of discovery the Lord showed me something about the real safety I have in Christ.

For so long I have been a pastor.  That means I have always come into a congregation as an outsider, who has to earn their way into relationships with people.  I kept missing what was already there.  It’s the place of real safety for people like me, because its the same safety all Christians have.  On any given Sunday I stand at the pulpit to preach the Word of God.  It’s a sign of my ordination.  On many Sundays I preside at the table of Holy Communion.  It’s another sign of my ordination responsibility.  And on other Sundays I place people into the waters of baptism, as I have been authorized to do.  Discipling the faithful and caring for the poor are the two other major tasks of my ordination.  They figure in all of this as well.  

Here’s the thing, my brothers and sisters, I have no safety practicing any of these things.  Pastors might think these actions give them power, prestige, and safety.  In the fourth century, a Christian, John Chrysostum, taught people like me that all Christians have one means of safety:  our Baptism.  In our baptism we are claimed by God.  We are marked and sealed by the Holy Spirit, and Jesus calls us brother or sister.  So, at the end of it all, when I am tempted to think I am “somebody” in the pulpit, I really am only safe when I take my seat in the congregation among the baptized.  People just like me.  People who are my family.  My greatest joy is being family with you.