Ring Out!

 This weekend I am in Orlando at Exploration 2024, a gathering for young adults to explore how God may be calling them into a vocation in the church. I love helping people explore their call—I believe each one of us was created to contribute something unique to the whole of our life together. Our task (and it can take our entire lives) is to figure out what it is and live it.

It’s kind of like playing in a bell choir.

Unlike a vocal choir, where often all the vocal sections (bass, tenor, alto, soprano) sing the same phrase with counterpoint notes, a bell choir member has but 2-4 notes (well, we altos also often have only 2-4 notes, but at least we sing them throughout the song!). Which means that as the song with bells is performed, a bell ringer must be prepared to come in at the right time with the right bell. I have seen some bell ringers ring just one bell through an entire piece, but the song would not be complete if they did not play their part at the right time. If they played the wrong bell, or came in early or late, or even refrained from playing, the musical piece would be changed.

While in other musical groups, people play individual instruments, all the bells together make the musical instrument. We all are the instrument together.  If someone misses their cue, or misses a performance, the instrument will not be able to perform due to missing notes.

Each of us carries a note we must play if the Song of Life is to be complete. To not be aware we are carrying the note, to not play the note at all, or to play it wrong results in the Song of Life devolving from being a Divine Love Song to a cacophony of dissonant and disconnected notes.

Scripture put it this way:

“Now there are varieties of gifts but the same Spirit, and there are varieties of services but the same Lord, and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.” (I Corinthians 12: 4-7)

You are needed in this world. If you don’t bring your whole self, with your unique gift, to our life together, the vibrations that reverberate in our souls is diminished. The beauty of life fades. The sweet goodness of life is lessened.

Live so aware of yourself and others that you will know the right cue—of when and how to let your life ring out in joy and delight.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHgpuWPg1OE

Called to a Life of Love

I love the story of Jesus' first calls to the disciples. His cousin John the Baptist has been imprisoned for critiquing Herod’s behavior. In this charged political climate, Jesus begins his ministry, recruiting those who are willing to let go of all they are doing to follow him. Nets were dropped, tools put down, schedules abandoned as Jesus’ call took hold of the disciples’ lives, and they could do no other but follow him.

In hindsight, the easy part was the initial call—“Come, follow me.” The disciples left the familiar and ran to Jesus, hungry for direction and meaning. But we get to see the whole story: when the demands of faith seemed too great, the risks of faith too frightening, the disciples shrank in fear.

In fact, being a disciple of Jesus was (and is!) a pretty high-risk venture. It meant leaving oneself open to a great deal of loss: the loss of friends and family, the loss of home and possessions, the loss of job and status. And by the world’s standards, the gains weren’t very pretty. Since Jesus, from his very birth, was considered a political subversive, the disciples risked a great deal to follow him. And when Jesus was arrested and crucified and the going got real tough, the disciples scattered in fear.

God wouldn’t leave them alone but kept beckoning to them. They discovered that their commitment was greater than their fear, so that they were able to live out their call of preaching, teaching, and healing in Jesus’ name.

Living out God’s claim on our life is a scary venture. It calls us into a future that is unknown. It puts us in relationships with people we might not otherwise choose to be in relationship with. It opens us to experiences that we would rather avoid.

Too often we try to put guard rails on faith. We try to stifle where the Spirit calls us. We pull ourselves back from the very places God would have us go. This is not only to our own detriment but also to the world, which God has called us to engage with hearts on fire for compassion, for healing, for justice.

During our Civil Rights Pilgrimage in Montgomery, I read one person’s words that challenged me: “We committed ourselves so completely to the vision of civil rights that the risk of dying was secondary.” I confess reading that while standing in the epicenter of the civil rights movement, learning about how costly the civil rights movement was to those who participated in it, felt like a punch to the gut. How committed am I to my faith, to this life of Love that Jesus calls me to? Am I willing to live it so completely that the risk of death is a secondary thought?

The Love Jesus calls us to live is a demanding Love. This Love isn’t content with the status quo. It demands that structures and systems get shaken up so that people can not merely survive but thrive. It insists on recognizing all persons as possessing the image of God. It always moves us to the margins of any group, any community, to build the center of community (and ministry!) there.

“And they’ll know we are Christians by our love.” Many of us belted this song out with gusto when we were young. Is the fire of that faith still burning? Where is Love leading you and your church today as you follow Jesus?

Jesus Is Calling

Facebook has been reminding me that five years ago I was the Holy Land with a group from the church I last served. I have loved the pictures that have popped up, reminding me of what a powerful trip it was. I have especially been drawn to the pictures of the Sea of Galilee. Traveling around Galilee, it is easy to imagine Jesus walking around, teaching, healing, and, especially, inviting people to follow him into a new way of living.

Those first disciples—fisherman going about their business—found their daily tasks interrupted by the One who broke through the darkness to bring light and life. They dropped their nets to join him in this new way of living, and invited others to do the same.

Since that time, all sorts of people have found their lives interrupted by Jesus. The broken have found restoration; the sick have found wholeness; those pushed to the side found themselves now in the  center of God’s love and care.

And each time someone has responded to this call, the world shifted as God’s Beloved Community took deeper form. By embracing the life Jesus offered, embodying his teaching and remaining faithful to loving God and loving others, these people have shared the Good News. As a result, others have joined this movement Jesus created.

The biblical story of the call of the disciples by the Sea of Galilee gets replayed in every life. Do you remember when Jesus first touched your life and invited you to follow him? How did your living change? How were the lives around you changed because of the ways you shared this love of God and neighbor?

Each one of us is called to join in this journey with Jesus. It doesn’t necessarily mean you are called to ordained ministry, but you ARE called to some form of ministry. How you choose to live as a disciple of Jesus will determine whether or not others will find their darkness turning to light because YOU lived the love of God so fully.

I will never forget reading, “The only Jesus someone may meet today is YOU.” Jesus has called you to follow him. May you follow him so closely that your life is a reflection of Him. And may others find themselves curious to discover more about the source of this light, life, and love.

Here Am I, Send Me!

I love Isaiah 6: 1-8. It is the call of the prophet of Isaiah, “Whom shall we send and who will go for us?” Isaiah doubts his worthiness, even though he has seen the Lord, “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!” Yet, he experiences a cleansing of the guilt of sin he has been carrying, and is able to respond, “Here am I, send me.”

God calls the most unlikely people to carry God’s message of saving love into the world. Isaiah felt unworthy, Moses was a murderer, Sarah laughed at what God had promised. Jesus picks unlikely ones as well: fishermen, tax collectors, a woman at the well…not the people you would automatically assume would be chosen for such sacred tasks.

God continues to ask, “Whom shall we send, and who will go for us?” Our task is to help one another hear and respond to God’s call. God has a particular task for each one of us: some are called to teach Sunday School and train up a new generation in the ways of Jesus. Others are called to create mission pathways so people can bring Good News in tangible ways to communities in crisis. Some are called to administrative work, to help the church use its resources to further its ministry. What has God called you to do? How have you responded, “Here am I, send me!”

I was blessed as a child to have someone recognize something in me that I wasn’t able to see in myself. One day when I was 11 years old, Ken White asked me if I ever thought about becoming a minister. His question rocked my world and forever changed my walk with Jesus. Through that simple question, God’s call for my life was given the space to grow.

Each church should be nurturing future leaders. How is yours doing it? Do you see the fruits of the Spirit in a young person’s life, just waiting to be encouraged to develop? Have you offered a spiritual nudge and asked, “Is God calling you to ordained ministry?” Are you staying alert and looking at those who might seem like unlikely candidates for such work? The teen who is always hanging out in the background of church activities, who seems to have no where else to go? The addict who has found sobriety whose joy at a new lease on life is contagious? The single mom with several children of her own yet still has the emotional bandwidth to be a mom to all the kids in the neighborhood?

When was the last time your church sent someone into ministry? If you are not nurturing the next generation of ministers, how will your church have the spiritual leadership to continue to be a living witness of God’s generous grace in the future?

May you and your congregation allow God to speak through you, “Whom shall we send, and who will go for us?” as you encourage deeper discipleship in one another, and may someone—may many people--respond, “Here I am, send me.”

2016...What a Wild Ride!

When I think back to 2016, I am surprised by the tears that fill my eyes. How does one sum up a year of so many emotions, changes, challenges, and new possibilities? How does one heart hold the prayers, hopes and love of so many? How can the mind comprehend the tectonic shifts that have occurred, both within one’s own life, the church and the world?

2016 began with my dad’s death. His health declined sharply at the end of 2015 and with the new year, he decided enough was enough. He died the way he lived: totally on his own terms. My relationship with Daddy was complicated, yet I am so aware of the gifts he imparted to me—my love of the outdoors, a mind that constantly questions, and a voracious appetite for reading and learning. Perhaps the greatest gift he gave was in his dying: it drew my sisters and brothers together in a deeper way than ever before. Divided by age (there is a nearly 30 year difference between me and the youngest), different mothers, and different upbringings, we found ourselves learning more about one another and delighting in our commonalities more than ever before.

I had a crisis of faith in the late winter-early spring. I have always been acutely aware of God’s presence and claim on my life. But suddenly, I felt adrift: where was God, and what did God want of my life? I began to hear that still, small voice, and began to follow, but WHOA! Was not expecting to be led THERE! On June 10, when Robin and I discerned together that yes, perhaps God was calling me to the episcopacy, the Holy Spirit burst in our lives in such a profound way and took over. The rest is, as they say, history.

My election meant a very fast transition, saying good-bye to a city that I have called home for 27 years. So many lessons learned there, friendships made, and experiences that have shaped me as a person and a pastor. These past 8 years, in particular, have been filled with so many lessons that have already served me well in my new ministry. The Glide community, so diverse, loving, and hopeful, have taught me so much. Folks invited me to share life with them, and opened my eyes and heart to worlds I would otherwise know nothing about. Daily, I had to confront my privilege. God kept showing up in the margins, and I learned more faith lessons there than in any seminary classroom.

Saying good-bye was hard, and filled our hearts with grief yet again. But it wasn’t the last time. Within days of moving to Colorado, Robin’s mother died unexpectedly. And then her dad had surgery followed by a small stroke. Yet, God kept showing up in the midst of it, surrounding us with a new community that spanned more than four states in the Mountain Sky Area. Robin and I regularly asked ourselves, “How did we fall in love so hard and fast with these people?”

2016…what a wild ride! Yet, through it all, I have only two words: “Thank you.”

Sometimes I Wish My Eyes Hadn't Been Opened

When I was in seminary in the early 1980's, the women at the school would sing together:

Sometimes I wish my eyes hadn’t been opened
Sometimes I wish I could no longer see
All of the pain and the hurt and the longing of my
Sisters and me as we try to be free*

The words were a reflection of the experience we shared as women entering into a bastion of male experience: theological education.  While called into ministry and pursuing a Master of Divinity, many of us would be unable to be ordained because of our gender.  Still, God's call was too compelling to ignore.

Sometimes I wish my eyes hadn’t been opened,
Just for an hour, how sweet it would be
Not to be struggling, not to be striving,
But just sleep securely in our slavery.*

Being in seminary ripped open my life in ways I hadn't anticipated. I grew up in a church where I was nurtured and mentored into ministry. Even though I had heard my call to ministry long before I met my first clergywoman, I never thought that my gender would have an impact on the journey to ordination or my participation in the larger church.

Try as I might to ignore sexism and the power of patriarchy, it was too great to deny once studying in seminary.  As other women shared their experiences, as I read the work of women scholars, and as I studied history, the sacred canopy of my worldview was torn into shreds as I learned of the sin of sexism. 

But now that I’ve seen with my eyes, I can’t close them,
Because deep inside me somewhere I’d still know
The road that my sisters and I have to travel:
My heart would say, "Yes" and my feet would say "Go!"*

Mary Daly (October 16, 1928 – January 3, 2010) was one of the scholars whose work changed my life.  With linguistic creativity, Daly critiqued patriarchy and the Church.  She was a "Revolting Hag" who challenged us to see the damage patriarchy was doing not only to women but to the entire planet.  Reading Mary Daly cracked open my mind and made me consider what it meant to seek ordination in a patriarchal social institution.  Because of Mary Daly, I was able to embrace the word "feminist" and seek to live as a "Spin-ster" whose creative acts birthed gyn/ecological justice.

Mary Daly passed away on January 3, 2010 but she still reminds us that "Courage to be is the key to the revelatory power of the feminist revolution."  As I give thanks for her life, her words and witness, I am recommitting myself to the task of feminism and daring to live with courage so that those who will come after me will find a world unencumbered by oppression due to gender, race, class, or sexual orientation.

Sometimes I wish my eyes hadn’t been opened,
But now that they have, I’m determined to see:
That somehow my sisters and I will be one day
The free people we were created to be.*


*(Words and Music By Carol Etzler, 1974 published by Sisters Unlimited, RR 1 Box 1420, Bridgeport, VT 05734)