Being Called: Ecclesiastical Council

July 27, 2019

I can’t remember a time when my heart wasn’t calling me back to some kind of ministry. Even as a small child, I found that church was a safe place where I was good. At its best, I found peace, purpose, calling, hope, and community, sometimes church was less than perfect, but the promise of all that church could be, in the lives of people who walked through its doors and around the world who are affected positively by it, kept calling me back, even when others would not return.

This is vital to my call, to my standing here, and to all my future ministry--the promise of a Spirit-filled church that refuses to give up hope and love.

It was that heart, in its early days that my high school Youth Director looked at my and said, “I could see you in an office like this someday.” And I hoped it wouldn’t be quite so messy. Somethings are just inevitable. But I also thought, “Yes, this is something I can do,” and youth ministry became the direction that I was heading.

When someone suggested ordained ministry at that point in my life, it wasn’t anything that I could consider. I could figure out how to do his job but I certainly wasn’t good enough to be “Pastor.”
Which brings me to Peter and his boat.

He knew what he was doing. He was even able to take advice from some stranger on a pier. When Jesus called to him to follow, it was a calling to something that was completely outside of what Peter had ever imagined for himself.

And it wasn’t just that, it was beyond what he knew he was capable of.

Jesus’ invitation was an honor, a privilege, and was terrifying. Peter knew he was unworthy of it, unworthy of everything that would come with it.

Declared himself a sinner: unworthy, unprepared, with the mouth of a sailor, and fish guts on his clothes, his hair, his face.

And Jesus looked at him and said, and I paraphrase, “Come with me. I see you. You have been prepared for this. You are enough.”

I have spent more years than I’d care to admit convinced I am not worthy of God’s call in my life. I, unworthy, unprepared, with the mouth of a sailor, and generally too dark of eyeliner and an obsession with red lipstick. And glitter. And there were some folks who were all too willing to affirm those voices in my head (metaphorical voices, of course).

But there are also those, some of whom I wrote about in my paper, who stood at the shore called to me and taught me and reminded me of the call Jesus has for me, “Come with me. I see you. You have been prepared for this. You are enough.”

Some of my paper remembers a time when I hid parts of myself. The queer parts, the doubting parts, the lonely parts, the parts that struggled in the appointment system. For the good of the ministry and the church, but mostly out of fear that I would be named unworthy.

My paper continues to explore that with time, with examples to follow, with prayer and discernment I learned anew what it means for me to embrace my full being as what is vital to how I live in the world and to my ministry, the broken places and flaws, and that sometimes our Sunday best is being vulnerable and honest.

My paper explores the idea that sin is that which separates us from God, from each other, and from the fullness of who God has called each one of us to be. How redemption and resurrection bring us back into right relationship and offers us new life.

All this is reflected back into my experiences, studying, and life in the UCC. I have found a home in the UCC, a place that has welcomed the whole of me and invited me to be an active part of the work it is doing in the world. It was the extravagant welcome that drew me in, and it was the mission and ministry, the acts of mercy and justice that have made it my home.

My call to ordering the life of the church is deeply rooted in supporting and developing community. A call that fits closely with these piece of the UCC and how we live together in covenant.

Twenty years ago I sat in my youth director’s office and I chose to accept a course that was being set for me, by God, by him, by other people I respected and admired. The last twenty years have been a journey, and while much of it has brought me great joy, much of it wasn’t easy. There were some hard turns and brick walls and carving out way till I could find my way back.

Twenty years later I stand here before you, more certain of who I am, who God is making me to be, and still being called and choosing this call.