Here I am, half way through a week off. In some ways these four days just past could be called wasted time. I have whiled away a few hours at the local casino, done a bit of shopping, stopped by the farm to look things over, read some and, generally, enjoyed what might best be called unstructured days.
Through it all I have reflected regularly on the question that has occupied me during the last six months of the Diocese of New Westminster's Plan 2018 process and especially throughout the last four months prior to my graduation from the Education for Ministry program at the Parish of St. George. In what manner does God call me to ministry?
The question is deceptively simple, yet at the same time nothing short of exasperating in it's difficulty.
Within our faith community I do many things. I join with our congregation in worship, I serve on Parish council, I mow the lawn at the church and change the sign out front, I occasionally visit folks in the hospital, I give money and offer prayers for those in need and I try to help out as asked in our community. All of this is ministry, but none of it, I suspect, provides the answer to the question; what does the Lord require of me?
Micah enunciated that question so simply in what became chapter six, verse eight, of the book of the bible bearing his name: And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.
Luke, in his gospel, has a nameless lawyer restate the message, from a source much older than Micah, in Chapter 10:25-27: "Teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?...Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind and Love your neighbour as yourself..." Thereafter followed the story of the Good Samaritan and Jesus injunction to the legal beagle, "Do this and you will live." Hmm, is, "will live," the same as, "inherit eternal life?" I think Jesus's answer might have been similar to those that we give to children wherein we answer their question but leave unstated all of the nuances that will come to them as they grow. Nuances that so often, after time has passed, lead them to realize that their question completely missed the point.
Personally I think that we Christians get far to hung up on this eternal life thing. It is the old, que sera, sera, that people have always had trouble getting their heads around. We are called to live our lives today, fully and in the spirit of Jesus, and surely there is no merit in doing so motivated by the hope, or even, as our prayer book says, in the certainty, of achieving eternal life. Poor old Job figured that one out a long time before Jesus was transformed into Christianity by the powers that be.
One of my persistent anarchic thoughts over the past ten years has been that perhaps the best thing that we could do for our faith would be to tear down all of the churches.
Trumping that thought is the knowledge that for me and for many others the buildings where we worship, and from whence we go out into the world to live the way, are places in which radical transformation of the individual and the collective who gather there to refresh and revitalize themselves so that they can do God's work, occurs.
Over and against that is the thought that so many churches no longer even pretend to fight the reality that they have become clubs for the fortunate ones who, no matter how mean their estate, can claim within their group exclusive ownership of a gift that they do not recognize God bestows upon all, members and non-members.
How did we come to a place where saving souls has become God's directive to us? If I didn't so completely believe that God, manifest in Jesus, extended unconditional grace to all, I would fear that, like the prince in Romeo and Juliet, he would end this tale with the words, all are punished, and consign us to the bleakness and desolation of unending bereavement.
In a very real way I am a habitual Christian. I know Jesus; have encountered him many times in my life. To be honest, my encounters with Christ have seldom been what I would call, hallelujah moments. Like many others, while I seek a calling, I don't really want to be the one called.
I was born into a denomination that has, for me, the comfort of a favorite pair of shoes. They may be a little broken down and not really supportive and less than they could be, but their familiarity trumps their shortcomings.
In a strange way my membership in my Christian denomination protects me from the demands inherent in my encounters with Christ.
So, this is quite circuitous. In what way does God call me to ministry?
I am not sure that I am any closer to an answer than I was when I started to write this piece, but I am feeling a strong urge to head out to the dikes at Pitt Lake, to take a walk, and to pray, so perhaps I am.
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