This week our brothers and sisters in Christ who are Southern Baptist debated yet again if women would be called as pastors and elders. In recent months our fellow Christians in the Methodist tradition have wrestled with whether those who are LGBTQ can be called by God to serve the church.
In scripture, God so often called the least likely candidates to speak out and offer their lives in sacrificial service. Moses, a known fugitive who had committed murder. Mary, an unwed mother. Paul, an ardent persecutor of Christians, just for starters. My own sense of call was so subtle and yet so persistent that I finally just couldn’t deny God’s claim on me any longer, so I relented and went to seminary.
Often, I see God claiming you. God calls folks to a purpose/vocation in life. A man with a demanding business career and heavy family responsibilities feels compelled to make it to choir practice every Wednesday and to sing on Sunday morning to usher others into God’s holy presence. A middle-aged couple called to marriage and a lifelong mutual love, though there are bumps along the road. A young doctor under a mountain of student debt who feels pulled to spend a week in Nicaragua attending to the poorest patients in the Western hemisphere. A gay couple called to be parents. God’s Spirit often fails to make an appointment.
Can you really exclude any category of human beings from God’s spiritual claim? Can we really regulate the work of the Spirit? I do understand that we need community accountability and standards. But I don’t understand blocking out a whole swath of God’s people as unable to hear God’s call to speak on behalf of God, to represent God’s compassionate love. Why would God create humans in God’s own image and then exclude some from serving?
Frederick Buechner once wrote: “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep hunger and the world’s deep need meet”. What is that place for you?
This month is Pride Month and over the years Christians have had various ways to use the word pride, sometimes negative and sometimes positive. I prefer the word joy or gratitude over pride. But I am a bit proud of, or at least grateful for, the opportunity of being part of a faith community like ours where we do not dare place limits on God’s ability to claim folks as God’s agents of grace.
Grace and Peace,
Carla
