Called As Partners August 1, 1999 Douglas S. Long North Raleigh United Church Exodus 19:1-8 Luke 10:25-28 I was driving my little truck in Oberlin, Ohio… had just picked up a representative from the Heifer Project International from the Cleveland airport, and we were sitting at the light in the middle of town. The church where I served as pastor, First Church in Oberlin, UCC, was located on at that intersection, (It's a rather imposing building, built in 1842, and was at the time, the largest indoor meeting space west of the Alleghenies) …and we were sitting just in front of the church sign. I was turning left, and when the light turned green I inched forward, waiting for an oncoming car to clear the intersection before I turned…. And then… WHAM!! The car behind me had not noticed I was turning, and had run into the back of me. Now it wasn't much of a 'wham.' The errant driver had been stopped at the light, too. She, a student at the college there, had just assumed when I began moving forward I would continue across the intersection rather than turn left… and looking away momentarily as she started off behind me, she jarred me hard enough to cause some minor damage, but not hard enough to cause real alarm. We both pulled over to the side and made sure everyone was OK… and that the cars were OK too… which they were, with the slight exception of a noticeable dent in my bumper. So the student says, in the course of the conversation, "Where do you work?" Well, we were practically in the shadow of the church sign with my name at the bottom. It was literally just a few feet away, and so I pointed over to it and said… "I'm the minister at First Church." Her response is why I'm telling you this story … Seeing my name posted as minister, she exclaimed… "Oh my God!! Does this mean I'm going to hell?" True story. (By the way, I assured her she definitely wasn't headed to hell, …as long as she paid for the damage to my bumper.) Do you know how people treat ministers sometimes? How they suddenly change their behavior when they realize a minister is present? If you ever want to not talk to the chatty person sitting beside you in a plane, …when they ask you what you do, tell them you’re a minister. I cannot tell you the number of times I've been to a party where folks are enjoying themselves, doing the things people do at parties, and someone asks what I do… "I'm a minister." "OH!!"…. They usually reply, backing away. I remember once a guy responded rather boldly "Oh? Tell me…" he asked, "what does your wife think of that." "Well she's a minister too," I replied. "Really !?!" he looked almost disgusted. Denise tells about the time a man began flirting with her at a funeral home until he found out she was the minister soon to officiate the funeral service. He stopped. Sometimes people treat ministers differently. …So, depending on the circumstances, I hesitate at times, to disclose my vocation. Now, understand, it's not that I'm ashamed of my profession. It's just that there are times that you are treated as a sort of pariah. I'll be in group conversation and someone will throw out a curse word, then look at me and apologize... "I'm sorry, Reverend." (I've finally gotten to the point that I just say.. "Hell, it's OK!") [I was with one of you North Raleigh United folk last week and you said a four letter word and didn't blink and didn't apologize… and I said, under my breath, 'Thank-you, Jesus!' No apologies necessary.] I don't tell you these stories to evoke sympathy at the way ministers are sometimes treated… but to help us think just a little at the stratification we unconsciously, or maybe consciously create within the context of our religious life. There are the ministers, the deacons and elders, (men and women), …those who are called by God… and then there are the ordinary folk. Well I've got news, …we're all ordinary… and I've got more news… we're all called by God. I cannot be more serious about that than I am. There is nothing more important that I, as a minister, called by God, and I do feel and know that calling (sometimes more strongly than other times)… there is absolutely nothing more important that I, as a minister can convey to you than this… you are called, too. Somewhere we've gone wrong in making too strong a delineation between the ordained and the laity, the priest and the people. We are all ministers. Now, don't worry, you don't have to introduce yourself that way at a party… but it's true. God has given you gifts, and with those gifts, comes a responsibility to share them. Yes, somewhere we've gone wrong in trying to completely separate priests and people… Do you remember Moses and the Hebrews in the promised land? Katie read a portion of the account for us earlier… They had left Egypt, escaped from Egypt actually… narrowly dodging a massacre on the shore of the Sea of Reeds where they were trapped as the Egyptian army descended on them. They were, by the hand and mercy of God, continuing on their journey toward the promised land… very early in the sojourn, unorganized and with little direction, when Moses stopped at Mount Sinai… and Moses declared to them the covenant with God: It was only later that further revelations from God were made known, only later that the 10 Commandments were given along with the rest of the Laws of the Covenant. First things first. All the people were recognized as priests… All the people were called by God. Do you understand? An aside here regarding the 'chosenness' of the Jews… Perhaps you've heard the phrase of Archibald MacLeish: 'How odd of God, to choose the Jews.' The 'chosenness' of the Hebrews does raise questions for us today. I remember a couple of years ago, a very down to earth fellow, wonderful man, not formally educated, but wise… told me he was in a class one Sunday morning in a prior church. The class met in a corner of the sanctuary and the minister happened to be walking through when a particularly interesting question was raised. 'Hey preacher," (it was a rural church, don't call me preacher,) "Hey preacher, " he said "How come the Jews are so special?" The minister never stopped walking as he shrugged "They wrote the Book." I do not want to suggest that God was not at work with the ancient Hebrews, nor in the present day Jewish community, however, neither would I want to imply God was not also working through other peoples in other places just as powerfully. The same is true today. We claim God is the God of all people… Why would we be arrogant enough to think that today we, our cult or country, are the only people who hear God's voice? As I said, this is an aside for now… but a topic that we will surely revisit soon. The point that I want you to focus on for now is that it was not just Moses who was called into covenant with God… not just the esteemed leader… not just a select few… not just the elders and judges… but all the people, even all the ages, man, woman, and child, at the very start of the journey towards the promised land… were called into covenant with God. "I will count you a kingdom of priests, a consecrated nation." In the Church of today… we are each called into a covenant relationship with God. We are all priests, all ministers, all agents of compassion, reconciliation and peace. Kaitlin sang a wonderful song for us a few minutes ago… (is that not a gift, a calling that she has shared with us? Thank you, Kaitlin.) …And by choosing the particular text that she did I had an opportunity to reflect on it in the context of what I wanted to try to express today …and new things popped out from that very familiar passage for me. You see, if you read the Gospels very much you began to notice that Jesus encountered a litany of individuals. And in those encounters almost always Jesus left the person with some decision to be made. Nicodemus, who came to him by night, the woman at the well, the rich young ruler: Jesus approaching individuals. Peter, James, and John… all the eventual disciples…. and the Spirit of God moved in their lives and they acted. The passage that Kaitlin sang, and James read…(another gift shared… Thank you for reading James)… the passage records one of the most famous of Jesus' encounters… not because of who the person was… (it was just a lawyer after all) the name of the person isn't even recorded… but it is among the most famous of Jesus' encounters because of the content of their conversation, the question asked. Think about it for a moment. This person approached Jesus and could ask any question in the world…. If you had the opportunity to ask one question to the most holy of persons, if you were concerned about how to live your life with meaning and what mattered, what would you ask? Here's the question… a good question… What must I do to inherit eternal life? or, the same question, phrased another way from the Greek… What must I do to live my life to its very fullest possibilities? How should I live to be whole, to be complete? The central question posed to the wisest of all teachers…. And here's the part that never really sunk in to me before… the fellow who asked the question answered the question himself. "What must I do to live my life to its most full potential?" And Jesus says to this one who had studied the law, "What does the law say?" And he replied… "You should love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself." True enough, Jesus expounded on the answer… but the thing that I want to draw our attention to is that the man already had the answer, already knew deep within his own heart what he was to be about. Jesus only confirmed and expounded upon what the student of the law already knew. We often know the answer to our own questions. We know because the image of God is planted deep within us, and the voice of God speaks ever so quietly to us, too. We feel the answers when the love of God courses through our spirits. Deep down, we have glimpses of the answers to the deepest questions we ask. What we often need, is the moral courage and the support of the community, to act upon those answers. We need a confirmation. The community of the church, at its best, becomes the confirmation of God in our midst. We hold each other in encouragement and accountability. We support and challenge one another. We minister among and beyond ourselves. Do you know the roots of the word 'vocation.' It is the Greek 'vocare'… calling, to call. We are each called by God. We are all ministers with gifts to share. (In fact, many of you know that the apostle Paul used that exact analogy to describe the church… as a body… Like our human anatomy it takes many parts to make a whole. Feet, hands, arms eyes, all the parts of the body work together to form something far greater than any part separately… and just so with the church… All individuals, with all their/your gifts come together and form… the Body of Christ made manifest.) We are all ministers. ...and many times we are ministers to each other, because we also are, remember, all ordinary. Gary Dorsey wrote a book just a few years ago… I think it came out in '95…. chronicling a year in the life of a congregation in Windsor, Connecticut. First Church in Windsor is one of those staunchly independent New England steeples that traces their roots to the pilgrim fore-fathers and mothers… and Dorsey came in as an outsider and with the permission of the church council sat in on everything from the prayer groups to financial committees. His book is a remarkable view into the institutional church, with all its grace and failures. I want to read one paragraph in which he captures a remarkable truth about who the church is, …about who we are. He is describing the few minutes prior to worship on a crisp April morning: That's us too. We may be ministers… but we're grounded in the ordinary. Be gentle with one another. So what does all this mean for us today? Well… Remember the Hebrews starting out on the journey into the promised land? We, here at North Raleigh United, are beginning a journey too. We're not escaping the bondage of Egypt, but we are slaves to much of our modern culture, and we seek a promised land of liberation… and clearly, very clearly, I'm no Moses… but with all my heart I want you to hear this, because I sincerely believe them to be the words of God, the beginning of a covenant to us: "You [and here, names of those in attendance were randomly called] …You… Jim, Linda, Don, Al, Dave, Ricky, Joanne, all, … you are all a holy people. I count you as a congregation of priests, a consecrated people, ministers to a world in need and to each other. You are chosen. You are called." …called at the very least, and most, as partners in Christ's service of grace, peace, and love. May we lean heavily on each other and God as we journey into the future and explore, and articulate, and live, that high calling together. May we seek God's wisdom continually as we write our own covenant as a community of faith. …and as we worship, and as we serve, may the very Spirit of the Living God fall often upon us, individually and collectively. Amen. |
Contact Doug Long at (919) 844-6661 or
send e-mail to: doug@northraleighunited.org |