If you take nothing more from this site, or read nothing more, remember that.
“The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the LORD lift up his countenanceupon you and give you peace.”
- Numbers 6:24-26
This is going to be short as it’s on my phone. I’m really wanting to blog but, ummm, the interwebs won’t let me on campus. I promise I will be blogging soon but until then, we’re gone for a while.
Peace.
So WordPress told me to do a post on my ways to procrastinate. I figured my lack-luster stats may have something to do with making the WordPress gods mad, so I decided to listen:
* Write this post. I have a self-evaluation to finish and reading to do and studying that needs to get done by Friday morning and I’m writing a blog post. Go me.
* Play guitar. I actually kind of really suck at 6-string and yet, when I don’t want to work, it ends up in my hands.
* Check my WordPress stats. I’m thinking this blog might be one great big pieces of procrastination…
* Wonder around the “Fresh Pressed” stuff to see if there is anything I can comment on, “Like”, and hopefully leech a visitor or two from. Hasn’t worked yet, but I have read some cool stuff.
* StumbleUpon. Nothing more needs to be said.
* Start a blog post to never be finished. I currently have a post about Amy Winehouse and Bradley Nowell that is actually kinda good I started weeks ago and a piece on egoism that I started on my adventure but will probably never finish. Oh, and I have the start to about six essays and a couple of books – using the term “start” very loosely – from the last few years. It happens more often that me procrastinating and not doing my reading for class.
* Complain to Nora about my crappy stats.
* Black Ops. Moving in to a house of people who play video games. I feel this will be even more prevalent.
* Netflix as much of a series as I can watch in a day.
* Check my WordPress stats again because someone may have looked.
* Facebook. The beginning of the end of my academic health in college.
* Homework when avoid housework.
* Pretty much anything but homework.
And then it’s usually way past a rational bed time, which means the work didn’t get done. I am the king of procrastination. Bow at my awe (and grab a controller).
- Peach
After that wholly-depressing post last night (which I still stand by) I decided that I needed to put something not horrible up this afternoon. So, without further ado or introduction, the sermon.
Exodus 3:1-15, Jonah 1:1-16
When I started seminary, there was one question I was asked more than any other. I have been asked it officially, like as part of applications for school, for starting the ordination process, and during interviews, personally, like by about every person I met when started school, and asked or randomly by people who are just curious. Oh, and I have also been asked by my atheist friends who wonder why I, someone who they had always respected, decided to betray that respect and not just decide that God was a control device and followed their atheist paths. And yes, that last one is mostly true.
The question I was asked is less of a question and more of a request: tell me about your call.
And I have cute stories about it, which I will gladly share and have gladly shared when asked, but my sense of call can be defined very easily and much more entertainingly than my cutesy stories: 13 years of kicking and screaming, about a month where I thought I could do this, then 8 more years of kicking and screaming, and then finally deciding that God was going to get God’s way if I came willingly or kicking and screaming so I decided to come willingly. And you know, once I stopped fighting it, things seemed to fall into place and roadblocks seemed to disappear.
I’ve often wondered, if there has been a sense of call in my life literally from my inception, and things have gone better since I decided to go into ministry, what was pulling me from answering the call? What was it that made me think that my path was more correct than God’s path? Why was my answer to the call consistently “no”?
The answer is so very simple, and one that I know I’ve preached about regularly this summer. It’s what stops good people from doing a lot of things:
I’m not good enough. I’m not worthy.
I can remember saying “My faith isn’t strong enough” when discussing feeling this call. Over and over again. “I’m not worthy.” And as far as excuses, that’s a pretty good one. Most people look to their pastor or minister as someone who is an achiever of “Christian Perfection” and I am definitely not capable of that. And not to ruin any surprises, but Mike and I aren’t achievers of that “Christian Perfection.”
I’ve found this feeling of being unworthy is fairly common among seminary students. A fellow student shared a story from when he was discussing seminary with his pastor. When he expressed that he felt unworthy, his pastor had a beautiful answer to his concern: You are unworthy, get over it.
It’s easy for me to stand up here and talk about the fall and sin and depravity and unworthiness, being true to my Pauline beliefs and following the Reform theology, but at the end of the day there is a call we all have from God to do the work of God’s creation no matter our own unrighteousness.
And the answer to that call is supposed to be a resounding yes.
Supposed to be. Like you’re supposed to eat healthy and save money and exercise regularly. Life is better and easier if you do these things. Reality is, though, that we don’t always do those things, or always answer God’s call with that loud and resounding “YES!” When that happens, God tends to not make our lives easier.
As I was writing this, I couldn’t help but think of Jonah. His is really a beautiful story of God getting God’s way. Jonah’s motives for not going to Ninevah may be different from my motives for not pursuing ministry but his story illustrates so very well how effective fighting God’s call isn’t.
The first 16 verses are about all of the illustration we need. God tells Jonah to go to Ninevah and, like all good followers of God, he goes the opposite direction and tries to escape. When he does that, God gets a little frustrated and a storm brews. The sailors are looking for a reason why and when they discover that Jonah is using their boat to run from God, they throw him overboard.
God was displeased and, through a little bit of unpleasantness, got Jonah to answer the call with a yes. And mind you, Jonah had to be a pretty decent preacher. He goes into town, covers about a third of the ground he is supposed to, gets frustrated, quits, and still they are convinced that they were sinning against God. Because of his message, they completely repent of their sins of their own volition, so completely in fact that God spares them.
Jonah is good. And yet, with how good he is, how much skill he has, he still ran from God’s call.
There is a lesson in that by itself; if God has blessed you with a skill, you should be using that skill for God’s will. But not everyone who God calls is given that supreme skill set to be the best option from a practical standpoint. Sometimes we are called to do things we are uncomfortable doing. We are sometimes called to do things we are untrained and unskilled in and called to trust that God knows what God’s doing.
I think most of us are more like Moses and less like Jonah. When God calls, we question not that God wants us to do work but rather question if God is really asking the right person. “I know you are calling me to do this, Lord, but really? Me?” The question Moses asks of God is a question I’ve asked as well: Who am I that I should go?
And when it comes to reasons why he shouldn’t be sent, Moses comes up with some good ones. “Oh my Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor even now that you have spoken to your servant; but I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.” That is a perfectly valid reason to think that he might not be the best choice for this particular job. Though he is familiar with the Pharaoh, having come from the royal family through adoption, he still figures he should at least be slightly capable to speaking in public, which he is claiming he isn’t.
God’s response is so telling for each of us: “Who gives speech to mortals? Who makes them mute or deaf, seeing or blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you are to speak.” There is a lesson here, too. Much like we shouldn’t rely on our own abilities and “greatness” to live our lives, we should also not rely on our own shortcomings to prevent us from living out God’s call. A friend of mine posted a very simple thought on the issue on Facebook one day: if God will see you to it, God will see you through it. If God calls you to something, God will give you the ability to do it.
Unfortunately, though, it isn’t only our practical shortcomings and lack of skills that drive us to not do what God calls us to do; it’s also our fear of our own unrighteousness. I can almost imagine what was going through Moses’s mind when he said “Who am I to go?”: I am a no-body in this land and a murder in my home land; I am not worthy; find someone who is more holy and more respected. And in my heart, I don’t think this question is an excuse; I really read this as he doesn’t believe he is worthy. He doesn’t think he is good enough.
You aren’t worthy; get over it.
God calls sinners. All sinners. The bible is full of sinners; Ruth, Elijah, Paul, Ester, John, David, Naomi, Sarah, Abel, Mary, and so many more names that we rise up as the ancestors of our church and as saints and every last one was a sinner. Frankly, when we have people like Moses and Noah as the greatest of their times, we should know that God calls sinners. A drunk was the only righteous man left on earth and a murder was called to save the entire Jewish people. These aren’t exactly the sort of people we would even interact with now and they are the saints of our faith. God can use anyone and does use anyone.
And when you look at these sinners that I list, they have done some amazing things. Elijah was so great that God came down and just took him to heaven, bypassing death completely. Mary gave birth to Jesus. David was arguably the greatest king of Israel. Each was great despite their fallenness.
We are all unworthy and yet, we are all as worthy of God’s call as our saints. We are all as worthy of doing God’s work. We are all as worthy as the next pastor or preacher to grace our paths. We are all God’s children and all have a call to answer.
So what is the answer to the call? Yes. Yes, Lord, I will do this task You have set before me, even though I’m fallen and may not believe I am capable. I know that if You call me and set a task before me, You will see me through it. And I know You love me. Period. Full stop. Amen.
This is short, sweet, and odd for me at this point. I’ve promised myself that I wouldn’t delve into depressive matters because that isn’t me anymore. I’m not that guy and frankly, with Nora (no link; this actually involves her so she’s my girlfriend, not someone who I link to occasionally) in my life, I no longer feel pulled to the angst of my teen and college years.
And with this, I still keep that promise to myself. I am experiencing the end of a short chapter of my life that I am very torn about ending. I know that it is time for me to get back to classes - I have been chomping at the bit to get started with exegesis and doctrine studies - but I feel the end of my ministry in the congregation. As I sit here, writing on this blog that is largely due to my ministry here and sitting in a house I will never see the inside of again after Wednesday, I struggle with how I should feel. I want to tear up with the love and compassion that I’ve felt yet I want to feel excited about closing another chapter of my life and having the joy of that chapter closing on a good note, without the pains of burn-out of the relief or something painful being over. And I truly am excited to get back to the academic part of my ministry.
So as I leave this place in a mere 72 hours, I look solely to God, knowing His goodness. God is good all of the time and I know that He brought me here and He guided my hand and He is guiding me even know as I write this piece. And I am reminded of a saying that my mom used to say:
“Some people are in your life for a moment, some for a season, and some for a lifetime.” This is a season of my life and I am glad that this congregation was in my life for it.
Peace, joy, love, and happiness to everyone who crosses my path on this ministry of mine,
- Robby
(P.S.: I did two things odd here. One, I intentionally called God “He” tonight; He is my father in this moment, no matter his true gender definition. Two, I signed with my name. Not sure why, but I did. Take that as you will.)
I once read that when you are trying to write, instead of waiting for inspiration you are just supposed to start writing.
This here is the result of me trying that. I suppose this could possibly go well.
I spent some time sitting with Jonah during my sermon prep (spoiler alert for the sermon: I used Jonah) and aside from realizing I’d never really read the whole story – really not a front-to-back Bible kind of guy – I spent some time thinking about Jonah and the bush. In my opinion, that’s a more important part of the story than the whale.
Here’s a retelling of that part of the story. Jonah is super-mad because God spared Nineveh. Ye olde Pat Roberts of sorts. So he storms off and sets up a shelter that shades most of him but not his head. God makes a bush grow so it will shade Jonah, making him happy, but then kills the bush, making him incredibly irate. God asks if he should be angry about the vine and Jonah’s response is, “Yes I should. I am so angry I could die!” Ye olde 13 year old teen drama queen.
And God’s response is so…Godlike…pun…hehehe…and pastoral that we can take comfort in it ourselves in similar situations. I tried getting it “short and sweet” but I can’t so here it is:
And the LORD said, “You pity the plant, for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night and perished in a night. And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?” – Jonah 4:10-11 ESV
And that’s the end. We have no idea if Jonah got the point or not but we certainly should. We spend our lives focused on these tiny little things and raise them with such significance. We get pissed when we don’t our way and we think God is giving to the wrong person or blessing the wrong sinner when we are going through so much ourselves. We care so much about things that are fleeting and less about God’s work in those things that matter.
And every people, every city, every race, every community is a loved creation of God, even those peoples who have fallen far from God’s love. And when one recognizes their failure and reaches to God for forgiveness and help, it is there waiting for us.
And just think, you’re usually worried about the darned fish, a part of the story that serves very little purpose.
I’m not an educator by profession (though I was told I should be at one point in my life) but I can see where the education system has failed. There are serious issues with it – requiring all students to belong in the middle, not ever being able to excel at or struggle with anything being a HUGE one from my educational experiences – but I will not claim to be someone who has any answers on how to fix things.
These guys do have some great suggestions.
There is a couple of things I don’t agree with – individual performance should not improve class grades in my opinion – but it gives a lot of really good ideas and practical ways on how to implement those ideas. If nothing else, it’s a neat point of contemplation for educators.
And don’t be thrown that it’s a cartoon/comic; just listen if the graphics drive you nuts. Like a Podcast, if anyone actually listens to those things anymore. Just seemed like high-tech talk radio to me but anyway…..
- Peach
I am so happy that it says “joyful noise” and not “beautiful noise” because about the only thing my singing has going for it is “joyful”.
Discuss how similar my singing is to dying cows in the comments.
