Called and Sent

“There are always people who astonish me with their gifts for leadership who tell me that they were filled with anxiety when they were first asked to serve.”

LORD came to Jonah son of Amittai, saying,“Go at once to Nineveh...” But Jonah set out to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD.

W e may not be able to generate quite the excitement today as President Obama did on the Mall last Tuesday, but I would argue that for this congregation, ordaining and installing new church officers is just as important. I said a couple of weeks ago in discussing Jesus’ baptism that while we do ordain officers in the Presbyterian Church, we don’t really believe in the separation of clergy and laity. That’s why we have ministers and elders, but not priests and bishops. Ordination never trumps baptism. But we do call out certain people for special service, much as the nation elects leaders to manage the affairs of state. It may be that one of the reasons we have a President and not a King is because so many Presbyterians were involved in the formation of our new government. Presidents are to Kings what Officers are to Priests. You don’t serve for life, you don’t have special status; you are given a role and a title, an office and a term. Yet just as we prayed for our new President on Tuesday, so we pray today that God’s spirit will be at work among those we call to serve among us here at Church of the Pilgrims.

Amidst all the remarkable events that have taken place this past week since Barack Obama was inaugurated (not once, but twice!) as President of the United States, the most remarkable words may have been spoken by former Senator George Mitchell, who was appointed by Obama on Thursday as Special Envoy to the Middle East. You may recall that Mitchell, who was the senator from Maine, played a similar role in Northern Ireland for the Clinton administration. “From my experience there,” Mitchell said, “I formed the conviction that there is no such thing as a conflict that can’t be ended. Conflicts are created, conducted and sustained by human beings. They can be ended by human beings.”

Too bad Jonah didn’t have that attitude when God sent him to Nineveh. Jonah is the very archetype of the reluctant prophet. He just doesn’t want to go were God is sending him. Then later, when Jonah does finally get to Nineveh, he can’t stand the idea that God has shown mercy to these terrible Ninevites whom he didn’t want to visit in the first place. Jonah is reluctantly willing to answer God’s call, but on Jonah’s terms and not on God’s. For someone who is called a prophet, it would seem that Jonah just doesn’t understand God at all. He doesn’t understand God’s persistence in getting what God wants, and he doesn’t understand the depth of God’s forgiveness when people turn to God.

I wonder if George Mitchell was as initially reluctant. We’ve had a friend’s daughter staying with us these past few weeks who has been working on the Transition Team. Her job was to help process the huge data base of people clamoring for a job in the new White House. Yet is seems to me the most important jobs Obama has to offer, like sending Mitchell to the Middle East, are jobs that no one in their right mind would want to do. Part of the qualifications for such a job ought to be that you have to be talked in to it.

I t would seem at first glance that the disciples respond in ways that are exactly the opposite of Jonah. Jesus says to them, “Follow me,” and immediately they leave their nets and business and family behind in order to follow him. Nothing in this passage tells us why the fisherman do what they do. There is no indication that they knew anything about Jesus until this moment. Why would they leave all of that behind to follow Jesus? It certainly couldn’t have been for financial reward. Fishing for human beings instead of fish might sound like some sort of promotion to us, but nothing in the Gospels says that the disciples received any kind of reward for their discipleship. In fact, when James and John later approach Jesus with a request to sit near him in glory, they are sharply rebuked by Jesus. What the disciples are promised, instead, is persecution and conflict.

We might be tempted to conclude that the disciples responded to Jesus out of faith. But what kind of faith? There is nothing in the narrative to lead us to believe that they actually understood what Jesus was about or what they were getting themselves into. As the story unfolds, these same characters persistently misunderstand Jesus and his ministry, and at the crucifixion they disappear altogether. Whatever they understand or believe about Jesus at this point in Mark’s story, they eventually forget.

W hen it comes down to it, about the only thing we can really say about the disciples, or Jonah, or all the other host of Biblical leaders, is that they respond, they go — not always happily, not always with great clarity, or purpose, or mission, or understanding — but they go. For whatever reason, they eventually take those first reluctant steps and set off in the direction in which God leads them. And the remarkable thing about it, the reason that we remember and tell these stories of faith, is that somehow, God is still able to use even the reluctant Jonah and the confused disciples to carry out God’s will.

Now, I have no indication that anything of the sort is in store for Karen or Melissa or Jean, though you never know. None of them were quite as reluctant as Jonah, though they did take some persuading and maybe a bit of gentle arm-twisting. There was certainly no fund raising, no politicking, no primaries, no debates. In all my years as pastor, I don’t recall anyone ever campaigning for slot on the Session. Most years, the Officer Nominating Committee breaths a sigh of relief when they successfully identify the required number of people to serve. The first question I always ask new officers when they are examined is “What made you say ‘yes’?”

Ego is a problem for some people, but in my experience, not for most people. I spend much more time encouraging people who think they do not possess the requisite gifts than I do talking down someone who is a bit too full of themselves. One of the greatest gifts of my work is watching people grow in to a role and become more confident in themselves and their abilities and their leadership. There are always people who astonish me with their gifts for leadership who tell me that they were filled with anxiety when they were first asked to serve.

During the campaign, President Obama was fond of saying, “It’s not about me, it’s about you. It’s not what I have done, but what we have done together.” That is true for what we are doing here today as well. It’s not about Karen and Melissa and Jean. It’s about this community of faith and what we are called by God to do together. As I am fond of saying to members of the Session, the most important work they do is enabling and empowering others in our community of faith to live out their faith more fully day by day, including identifying and developing new leaders who will take their place when their own term of office is over.

T he last time I preached on these two passages three years ago, I concluded by asking us to reflect on a series of questions. So today, plagiarizing my own sermon, I would like to do the same: When you think about the most important events of your own life, would you say they were something you initiated, or something to which you were called to respond? Has there been a time in your life when, like Jonah, you have resisted when God has called, but somehow you found yourself in a new place anyway? Have there been times in your life when , like the disciples, you responded to a call when you didn’t fully know what you were getting yourself into, and only later discovered where God was leading you? Do you know the experience of feeling as if you were absolutely the wrong person in the wrong place at the wrong time, only to look back and realize that perhaps God might have been putting your gifts to good use all along?

All of which is to say, today we pray for Karen and Melissa and Jean, that in responding to God’s call through the voice of this congregation to serve as leaders in this community of faith, that they may be prepared to respond to God’s call wherever it takes them, and where ever it might lead. Today we pray with grateful hearts that when this particular call came, even though they may not yet fully know what they are getting themselves into, they said, “yes.” ✞