Are You The One Who Is To Come, Or Shall We Look For Another?
A Sermon Preached by
Lauren Evans at
Six Mile Run Reformed Church
on December 12, 2010
Matthew 11: 2-11
Dank.
Cold.
Damp in the way that curls up inside you and chills you to the point that you are quite certain you’ve forgotten what warmth feels like.
John the Baptist sat in such a prison as he penned his message for Jesus, likely stripped of what little he had to his name, which, as scripture tells us, was hardly more than a robe of coarse camel hair… and possibly the remnants of locusts and honey left in his beard from his last breakfast as a free man.
Not the mental image one would conjure up when picturing the herald marking the coming of the Messiah. Likely not exactly what John’s mother Elizabeth had pictured when, though she had been barren all her life, she was told that she was to bear a son, a son that, according to Luke chapter 1, was supposed to bring with him “joy and gladness… for he will be great in the sight of the Lord.”1
Likely not exactly what John the Baptist himself had pictured for his life, either.
Which of us would consider having to spend the majority of our life as an ascetic, refraining from most of life’s comforts – soft clothing, a hot meal, the companionship and conversation of friends and family – to be an indicator that we are “great in the eyes of the Lord”? I think it is safe to assume that most of us, if we lacked such creature comforts, would assume that God’s blessing had taken a vacation, if not abandoned us entirely.
Before landing in jail (punishment received for speaking out against King Herod’s new wife, who happened also to be his sister-in-law), John the Baptist had, with a degree of joyful expectation, agreed to do whatever was required of the one who carved the path of the coming messiah. He preached, he promised, he baptized converts in the Jordan River, always pointing away from himself and towards the one who was still to come.
For John knew that the One Promised was sure to come, bringing salvation and joy to those who recognized and received him.
And yet…
John probably accepted the nastier parts of his job as necessary evils, worth putting up with because the payout promised to be incredible. But I suspect that there were none who would sing “Come Now Long Expected Jesus” with quite as much fervor as John the Baptist.
And from his cell in Herod’s jail, the desire for the promised savior to make his appearance and make everything better was probably stronger than ever. The Latin translation of John’s jail experience describes him as wrapped in vinculis, literally “in chains”. Captured and subdued, John the Baptizer couldn’t even continue with the job he had been given. There was no one to hear his preaching and no baptisms to be done in his prison cell.
He could take his ministry no further and the last he had seen of Jesus the Christ had been at his baptism some time before, at what felt like at this point, the distant past. He knew that Jesus had been up to something, had heard rumors of the miracles wrought from his hand and of his slowly growing following.
But it seemed to John that nothing that had been prophesied about Jesus in the Old Testament was coming to pass – the nations had not all united under the name of the Lord and the Israelites were still under the yoke of foreign law. The lion had not yet laid down with the lamb. He knew Jesus was told to be the Messiah the earth was aching for, but the world appeared unchanged to John, and he was aware that his own time on earth was rapidly running short.
Because he was one that had gained a reputation for speaking out against immoral practices, even those committed by people of great power and influence, he knew that just as easily as fetters could be clapped around his ankles, an axe-blade could be dropped upon his neck.2 Surely the one who had had lived his life in misery to prepare the way of the Lord would live to see the promises of his reign fulfilled! If Jesus was the Messiah, as John had announced, then why didn’t he do something? Why had Jesus not gotten to the business of establishing his kingdom?3
And so John the Baptist sends his message to Jesus. “Are you the One who is to come, or shall we look for another?”
‘I’ve been waiting an awfully long time,’ John seems to be saying. ‘Are you gonna do this thing, or what?’
Surely most of us are sympathetic to John the Baptist’s exasperation. After all, waiting for Jesus to come and work his wonders isn’t exactly new to us, either. The scriptures promise us that God has plans for us, plans that are for our good and not for our ill, to give us a future and a hope.4 But when we have spent the last sixteen months wandering in the harsh wilderness of joblessness, or are starting on our third year at the bottom of the transplant list, or have spent countless evenings on our knees praying for a loved one bound by chains of addiction, we may begin to wonder if we have been right to put our trust in God, or if we might not be better off looking for another, who might get done the things we expect of them.
We might wish that we had messengers of our own to send, reminding God that there’s still work to be done and not much time left in which to do it.
Advent is a time that reminds us that, while we wait in anticipation of the coming Savior, that waiting period is not always filled with joyful anticipation. Though we might believe firmly that Jesus Christ is Savior of the World, the one who redeems us and restores joy and peace to our brokenness, though we might be certain, as John the Baptist was certain, we are as likely as he is to wonder if Jesus is really the one to come or if, perhaps, we should be looking elsewhere for our help.
How blessed we are, then, that our God is not disheartened when we give in to our frustrations and voice our doubts! For Jesus did not respond to John the Baptist’s message with disappointment or anger, but by lovingly sending his followers to point out that God’s work was not yet finished but was being done!
John was stuck in prison and could not see beyond its damp and confining walls, but the work of Christ had already begun. Healing had begun, miraculous healings, of both body and spirit. The blind could see, the lame could walk and declared blessed were the poor and the meek, for theirs was the kingdom of God. Jesus’ response to John the Baptist’s tired question was, “Take heart, my beloved! I am at work, and my work is not yet done.”
Though he could not see for himself the miracles being performed by Christ, as a prophet, John the Baptist knew that the stories of Jesus’ works as reported to him by his disciples were signs of the coming Messiah foretold by John’s predecessors, the prophets of old.
“At that time the deaf will be able to hear words read from a scroll,” says Isaiah, “and the eyes of the blind will be able to see through deep darkness. The downtrodden will again rejoice in the Lord; the poor among mankind will take delight in the sovereign king of Israel.”5
“Then blind eyes will open, deaf ears will hear. Then the lame will leap like a deer, the mute tongue will shout for joy; for water will flow in the desert.”6
The things Jesus told John’s disciples to report to him were proof that Jesus was the Messiah John had promised, baptized, and introduced publically.7
Much of John’s frustration (understandable to us, for we have shared in it ourselves!) came from the expectation, that we also frequently share in, that God must work in the way that we anticipate, on a schedule that we name, to the end result that we desire. John the Baptist challenged Jesus in the light of his expectations – and his expectations – this is important! – his expectations weren’t bad ones to have! He expected the Messiah to come and be all that the scriptures had foretold, and he expected it to happen before his life was over. John’s question didn’t show a lack of faith on his part, but an honest and sincere desire for the Kingdom of God to arrive in all its terrible majesty.
Though perhaps we are impatient for its full and powerful arrival, we celebrate Advent together in part as a reminder that the healing work of Christ has long begun, for as it says later in Isaiah,
“[God’s people] shall return to the Lord, and he will show mercy to them, for he will freely forgive them. Indeed, my plans are not like your plans, and my deeds are not like your deeds… the promise that I make… is realized as I desire and is fulfilled as I intend.”8
And so, in that anticipation that is sometimes a heavy weight to bear, we celebrate this third week of Advent as the Week of Joy. The joy that the angel promised would be named by John the Baptist and claimed by Christ Jesus is a very real, world-upturning joy. It is the joy of a God who chose to walk incarnate upon the earth and draw us close to God’s side. It is the joy of a God who, through the life and death of Christ on the cross, rejoices with his reclaimed creation. It is the joy of a God who fulfills his promises and unwraps the chains of guilt and shame from around our weary shoulders. It is why, as we gather together in worship of this God, we stand together as the people of God and JOYFULLY proclaim,
“Hallelujah, Amen!”
—
1. Luke 1: 14-15
2. Waiting in Chains: Advent and John the Baptist, 2.
3. Jesus, John the Baptist, and the Jews, 2.
4. Jeremiah 29:11
5. Isaiah 29:18-19
6. Isaiah 35:4-6
7. Jesus, John the Baptist, and the Jews, 4.
8. Isaiah 55:7-11
I was doing some research for the daily devotional I’m writing for my youth at Delightfully Old Church* when I came across an advertisement for an upcoming Ligonier Ministries conference in Washington, D.C.
For those of you who are unaware, Ligonier Ministries is the 40-something-year-old ministry of R.C. Sproul, a Reformed theologian whom I’ve read since I was a wee, angsty teenager. Jack Bonavich, my mentor, introduced me to his writings when I was seventeen. My advisor in undergrad, a personal friend of R.C. Sproul, frequently spoke of him in his lectures. I don’t know exactly how he’d feel about me (as a woman in ministry is generally frowned upon in his particular church culture) but for the past seven or so years, I could safely say he’d feel pretty good about my theology.
I’ve mentioned before on here the conservative theological background I come from. I have been a 5-Point Calvinist for much of my adult Christian life (ignoring the fact that TULIP is a poor reflection of deeper Reformed theology). I love the concept of the Five Solas (Sola Scriptura, Sola Fide, Sola Gratia, Sola Christe, Soli Deo Gloria – only scripture, only faith, only grace, only Christ, all for the glory of God, respectively) that for a long time I considered having them tattooed somewhere on my person. I’ve read Calvin and Luther and turned my nose up at Wesley. Except for the whole “I have boobs and would like to teach in the church” thing, I’ve been on pretty much the same page as R.C. Sproul and his ilk (Robert Godfrey, Mike Horton, etc) for much of my Christian life.
Things are different, though, now that I’ve completed my first year of seminary and am starting my second. As I read through the description of the lectures, I felt myself responding noticeably different to them than I would have in the midst of my undergraduate degree. To start with, I rather quickly picked up on the fact that there were discounts available for “Pastors” and “Pastor’s Wives” as well as seminary students (thankfully, this had no gender stipulation). This is not shocking – the conference is being held by a representative of a tradition that will not even entertain the idea of a woman in ordained ministry.
And three years ago, such a designation would not have bothered me. And now, after dropping almost $100 for registration, I’m suddenly worried that I might end up lying about where I’m studying and what I’m planning to become simply to avoid potential ridicule and judgment. I handled it relatively well in undergrad (after all, being the only pre-seminary female theology major, and a PCUSA member to boot, at an LCMS university is not for those of thinner skin) but am out of practice after a year at a seminary where women are celebrated.
But the gender issues are not the only source of my confliction. (Side note – I positively HATE IT when gender issues are a source of my confliction.) I am curious and a bit nervous to see how I will receive the lectures at the conference. I went to a similar conference my first year of undergrad and sucked up every word spoken, eager and thirsty. The thrill of excitement I felt upon discovering the conference and the lineup of speakers dissipated as I realized that the woman I’ve become no longer wholly agrees with their definition of Christianity.
I have always been a strange amalgamation of “conservative” Orthodox theology and social liberalism. Princeton has forced me to see “liberalism” as a valid part of the body of Christ with something important to add to the universal journey. Perhaps this nervousness is from the anticipation of discomfort from “conservative” muscles that haven’t been stretched in quite awhile. I don’t know the source, exactly. But the nervousness? She is there.
*300-year-old church where I attend and will be starting my first church internship on September 12th.
—-
“That is enough,” he replied. – Luke 22:38b
Today is Holy Thursday. Maundy Thursday. The night when Jesus took the bread and the cup and said, “Take, eat, this is my body and my blood, broken and poured out for you.”
I have a leg of lamb cooking in my crock pot in the basement of my dormitory. Tonight, after the church services are over, five of us will gather in a tiny apartment around a slightly unstable wooden table and participate in the Seder. We are Christians, Gentiles. This is part of our history and tradition only because we have been grafted into the family of God by the salvific work of Christ, who adopted us as children, as co-heirs. We will eat the lamb and taste the bitter herbs. We will drink the kosher wine and speak Hebrew from the Haggadah. Together we will remember God’s faithfulness to his people in the Exodus from Egypt.
We will celebrate the Passover and we will weep on Good Friday and rejoice on Easter morning, for the work of God done a little under 2000 years ago was enough to save the world.
I got word today that my father did not get the job offer he was expecting to get. He is currently employed but is miserable and unsure of how much longer his company will continue his employment. After weeks of interviews, after being flown across the country to meet with the company, he got word that they were hiring someone else. The job that he thought would help secure his personal happiness and our family’s financial security will not be coming.
I expected to feel fear and trepidation at this news. I am sad for it, yes. But I am not fearful. For those who know me, being fearless when it comes to finances is not something I’m particularly familiar with. And yet, as I got off the phone with my mother who could not conceal her tears from me even from a distance of 3,000 miles, I felt no fear.
“I can’t believe that God is going to provide,” she told me. “I just can’t.”
I told her that I had enough faith for us both and shocked myself when I discovered that was true. God will provide for my family as he has provided for us since the very beginning. We hope that provision includes a new job that arrives in the nick of time that pays well and makes my father happy to do the work, but provision may not look like that.
The people of God expected the Messiah to arrive on a mighty steed, full of strength and fury and power. Instead, they received a carpenter born out of wedlock and in a manger, a Messiah who would die, scandalous and cursed upon a tree.
The disciples did not expect Jesus to die. For that matter, they did not particularly expect that he would rise again three days later. But he did die, and he did rise, and though it came in a form that none expected or would have ever wished for, mercy came.
And it was enough.
—
I am exactly seventy days into my seminary career. That’s approximately two months and two weeks (give or take a few days on either side – don’t judge me for my math skills). I am two and a half weeks away from finals (16 days to be exact) for the long Fall term.
I have a confession to make.
For the past seventy days (give or take a few days on either side) I have been bored.
Really, really bored.
I have, in large part, done this to myself. I entered seminary with an undergraduate degree in theology. There is not a required intro survey class available to me that would not have, to some degree, had a strong element of “been there, done that” to it. During the first week of orientation, I made the decision (that would later prove to bite me hard in the butt) not to advance place out of said survey classes. On top of that, I opted to take the Survey of Medieval Church History course as well, which was on the recommended Junior schedule on the PTS website, despite having taken a class with its exact title and two classes whose materials overlapped the subject matter and time period during undergrad.
Why, oh why, did I do that to myself?
One: I wanted to take the same classes my fellow Juniors were taking, that I might further connect to my incoming class.
Two: I wanted to go easy on myself for what I imagined would be a difficult transition into life on the east coast and seminary life in general.
Three: I seriously underestimated my ability to be really freaking bored.
As a direct result of me being really bored, I have become extraordinarily boring. Something has switched off in my brain here and I am no longer actively seeking ANYTHING. I do not learn – I have ceased trying to learn.
This? This is my “I am not ok with this state of affairs” face. (I have many faces.)
So internet, I am changing things.
Be on the lookout.
An adventure has begun.
Upcoming posts on: the so-called feminization of the church, the dominance of gender issues over theological issues (ie, can we talk about something other than my uterus for once, PLEASE?), and photo-posts from my east coast explorations (of which there will be MANY).
—
I want to explain to you what this feels like, sitting in this window seat just shy of two hundred years old as rain like hail pours down onto grass and pavement and trees and splashes me through the old windowsill that I have carelessly and carefully left open.
I am wrapped in a blanket, cold and damp and warm. And happy. For the first time in a month I am.
Happy.
Here.
There is hard thunder rattling through trees far older than even this building I’m nestled in.
There is glee in me. As I sit. As I stare. As I watch and listen as heavy rain falls harder, shouting, then whisper quiet.
Indecisive.
I keep getting surprised by this rain. Blindsided. Unaware until it runs down my cheeks and my shoulders and off my nose how heavy-laden it is.
It is beautiful; breathtaking. Breath-transforming as its fat raindrops take light from my lamp and explode in bright, glitttering color on the asphalt below.
I love this rain and its weighty footfalls.
I am lighter, somehow.
And today I aced my Greek quiz.
—
Filed under: seminary
I have been on the road now for 13 days – seven of those days have contained active driving. California to Tucson to El Paso to Austin to Dallas to Lonoke, Arkansas to Cookeville, Tennessee to Blacksburg, Virginia. Five days in Austin, two in Blacksburg (one of my best friends has been in the graduate program at Virginia Tech for the last year) and then back on the road tomorrow morning for Pennsylvania and finally, finally Princeton.
My truck, all packed up and ready to go - Mom and Dad’s, Southern California
Daisy Mae (my road trip mascot – a gift from a friend) and the middle of… somewhere.
Spending that kind of time alone on the road is bound to make a girl a little addle-minded. For the most part, however, I’ve really enjoyed the time I’ve had to myself. A bunch of my friends made me mixed cds to listen to on the drive – I’ve got over 23 cds of new music from close to a dozen people – that went a long way in keeping me entertained. Everything from 80s rock to opera to German pop to the Backstreet Boys (that last one was an exciting discovery – I have very little shame and rocked out openly in my truck). Beyond the music I’ve listened to David Sedaris’ audiobook memoirs (Me Talk Pretty Someday and When You Are Engulfed in Flames) and bits and pieces of the Harry Potter books. I attempted C.S. Lewis but found that, having used that soft British voice to put me to sleep in the past, his audiobooks weren’t a great choice for trying to stay awake on the road.
On the back country roads of Hutto, Texas, on my way to see an old friend from high school (and her two baby daughters!)
After much debating, I finally agreed to let my mom come with me part of the way – we parted in Austin after five days at my grandmother’s house. I spent a couple of days recording my grandmother’s memoirs onto a digital voice recorder and spent hours going through her old photographs – she had been a commissioned officer and nurse in the Navy during WWII – that’s where she met my grandfather, an injured soldier. After hours at her feet (or curled up against her side while she spoke – my grandmother is 87 years of awesome) I have begun to contemplate the possibility of serving some of my active ministry time (prior to PhD work, of course) as a Navy chaplain. It is becoming disconcertingly easy to picture myself in dress whites… but it’s just a thought. A distant possibility.
My grandmother, Mildred “Millie” King Evans, Navy officer, nurse and all around gorgeous woman.
Me and my Grammie – still stubborn, outspoken and fiercely independent at 87. She’s kind of my hero.
I was terribly homesick my first week away – my first Sunday away from church and friends was especially difficult. Today is my second Sunday away and the tug on my heart is a little less noticeable. I think that something changed when I started the second half of this trip alone. I think the part of me that has been scared and sad and lonely blended more fully in to the part of me that is ridiculously excited and anticipatory. I have been waiting for this for so long, have been waiting for Princeton and seminary for so damn long. I am less filled with dread and more filled with hunger than I was even in the months leading up to my departure.
A plague of locusts (or, you know, grasshoppers) at a gas station in Arkansas. I was there for 10 minutes and they took over my truck.
Memphis, Tennessee, after crossing the Mississippi River. Which is not, contrary to prior belief, anywhere in the vicinity of California and/or Nevada.
I am still scared. A little. But academia is where I thrive, theology is my first love and there are slightly-less-than-strangers there who are waiting to meet me so we can have real life conversations that don’t take place through a computer screen.
The Drill Field at Virginia Tech – one step closer to my new home.
So for now I trust in the Lord who is leading me down this path. I am keeping my ear inclined forward to seek Truth. I am trying to remember that to worship my own understanding is the height of folly. I am preparing myself to learn without letting go of all that I have already known.
God help me.
—
Been awhile since I blogged.
I’m leaving for my gigantic two-week road trip to Princeton in six days. I am moving out of my apartment in three days. So far, I have only managed to pack up four boxes of books and put my ridiculously huge amount of tv-on-dvd and regular dvds into two different also gigantic cd cases.
Like someone (Mary) recently mentioned, in order to pack up a place, you sort of have to clean it first. I am not good at the former which makes me automatically no good at the latter. There is so much to do that my eyes keep going crossed. So I decided to take a break from staring at the giant mess and empty boxes to write something.
I am excited about this move. Really, I am. No, honest. I’ve wanted to be at Princeton since my first year of college and I’m fulfilling the dream I’ve had of seminary since junior year of high school.
But the timing? It is less than perfect.
I’m starting this journey without someone I always assumed would be there. Jack was the man who got me pointed in this direction, who taught me theology and introduced me to my first love (church history). Over the years he became another father to me, called me his surrogate daughter, loved me and yelled at me when I was being stupid and insecure and pushed me forward when I was scared.
He pushed me and I went forward. I graduated with honors from a university with an extraordinary theological program, having studied under the biggest brain in Christian Apologetics. I found my voice, I found my steadiness. And then, two weeks before I graduated, he died, suddenly though his cancer had us all expecting it – we just didn’t expect it the way it happened.
It took me a year to find my ground again, to figure out where my feet went. And now my feet are headed off to Princeton with nothing but his memory beside me.
I’ve been dreaming of him more often, these days.
There are other things, of course, that are keeping my heart firmly facing the West right now. A very dear friend is very sick and I want to stay and fight beside him with the rest of our friends. There are friends here that I could never imagine leaving, still can’t imagine leaving. And in the middle of all the memories of this place that I’ve been trying to escape for a decade are all the good ones I can’t pull myself away from.
I’m staring at this speeding bullet and have to force myself to stay inside its path. It will not hit me, it will not destroy me, but it will take me with it to the other side of the country, to a new state with new people and new things to learn, away from friends and family and people that I love desperately.
And there’s still so much shit to pack.
This?
This is my panic face.
—
I grew up in a fairly traditional, relatively Reformed Presbyterian church, of the PC(USA) variety. There are, within the bounds of the PC(USA), churches that hold to wildly differing beliefs. It really all depends on what literal church you walk into. I have been in a Presbyterian church that preached television show theology from the pulpit, have heard of PC(USA) pastors declaring that “Jesus wasn’t *that* important – what’s important is that we all get along and LOOOOOOOOVE”, have heard pastors preach feeling good over feeling convicted, embraced over forgiven. This is the far end of the liberal spectrum in my denomination, and such churches certainly aren’t fair representations of the PC(USA) as a whole, though such churches do make up a defining part of the denomination.
The church I grew up in was not one of these churches. I have heard Law and Gospel preached from the pulpit nearly every Sunday (there are always a few that manage to clunk by without much focus on Jesus at all, but those are few and far between – relatively). I learned the significance of the Protestant Reformation and its theology from weekly theological education classes. I learned to treasure the Bible as the inerrant Word of God (with the understanding that errors may arise, are pretty much guaranteed to arise, in human interpretation of the Word). I learned that we are saved by Grace alone, by Faith alone, as a monergistic work on the part of God. I played no part in my salvation other than as the receiver of it. The beloved, helpless, dirty street urchin child of God.
I have called myself Reformed from the moment I began to understand the theology of the Reformation. I call myself Reformed because I believe its understanding and flushing out of Scripture to be more accurate (maybe not entirely accurate, as I am not willing to put all my weight behind any human interpretation) than all others. I believe it clings to the Cross and doesn’t try to bend itself (too much) to the opposing will of Man.
All of this is excessive preamble (I’ve been told I tell stories like Agatha Christie, but without all the people dying) is to explain that I consider myself to be Reformed. I understand and love Calvin, have read and loved Luther.
But there is one part of theology that I hold to that is repeatedly unsupported by Reformed tradtion. I hold, have always held, will likely always hold, that women are not to be excluded from the role of pastoral ministry. That the use of verses like 1 Timothy 2:10-11 (to forbid the ordination of women) are taken out of context, are made into an aberration of scriptural interpretation that doesn’t fit with an understanding of the chapter as a whole, the book as a whole, Paul as a whole.
I have repeatedly been told by friends I admire, professors whose words I have soaked up, theologians I have read and loved, that I am horrifyingly in error in my belief. That by determining that such prooftexts reference a “period commandment” and not an “eternal commandment” (which, I believe, is supported in an accurate translation of the text and hermeneutical interpretation of the context), I ought to be forced to give up my hold on the title “Reformed” and accept “liberal feminist” instead.
But while I am certainly liberal in some things (recycle, reduce and reuse, dammit! It’s not that hard!) I am NOT liberal in my theological views. And I am not a feminist by any means.
But this discordance between my view (the accepted PC(USA) view as well, which is why I stick to this denomination that I am not always happy with) and the view of the rest of the “Reformed” church is frequently a source of personal unrest. It feels wrong for me to insist that, while they are right in so many things, they are truly wrong in this. And yet…
And yet I see in scripture a place for women in ministry. And I see a place in the church for women in ministry. A need in the church for women in ministry. I am not settled yet on the idea that there is a place for women as the head pastor of a church, though perhaps that comes from an transference of the fact that I am not comfortable with the idea of *me* as the head pastor of a church. But I find it almost laughable to think that God is not calling women to a place of ordained ministry in the church and in the world, or that we can deny His call. I have been attempting to deny His call my entire life, and see how miserably I’ve failed in THAT endeavor.
I was raised in my church to have respect, reverence for The Truth. That there will always be The Truth, something that is real and is right beyond human perception. I am wary of allowing myself to adopt a theology in any part that is separate from The Truth, simply because it makes me feel better, more comfortable.
I have struggled since feeling that tug into ministry with the thought that maybe I was doing it for some deep-rooted, self-satisfying desire within myself. After fighting this path into seminary, screaming and clawing and begging for something else for most of the way, I can’t help but think that it is not me (and likely, not the other women like me, or at least not all of them) who are giving into this self-satisfying desire. Perhaps that guilt rests on the shoulders who find their traditional view more comfortable, easier to handle, than to consider that perhaps they’ve been wrong about Scripture this entire time and have been denying half of God’s called servants from completeing the ministry they were born to do.
So many thoughts tonight. Forgive the incoherent ones. They can’t all be winners.
—
I found these scribbled in the back of my writing notebook earlier today, written down some time after having a long conversation with my former youth pastor about my reluctance about seminary and ministry in general.
Putting these down here mostly because I’ll lose them if they aren’t in digital format.
In no particular order.
“You look at yourself and you only see the bad parts. You disqualify yourself from ministry before you ever get there.”
“Have your heroes, but don’t try to be them. Don’t try to be Jack. That’s not who you are called to be.”
“Be you in your ministry. Be you always. YOU are who God called, not you trying to be someone or something else.”
“All these things you’re bringing here, to this table, this is who you are. Don’t try to change who you are to fit someone else’s idea of ministry.”
“You use your emotions to hold people at arm’s length. If you could figure out how to use them to bring people in, you could have a powerful ministry.”
“You have great passion and great intelligence, and the two are constantly battling it out inside you. Let your head inform your heart.”
“You are living your life like most people never do.”
“Let the inquirer’s process be about real inquiry. Test it out, figure it out, listen. Make it about real inquiry, not just formality.”
“I think it takes you a long time to trust people. Years, even. And that’s not wrong – for you, that makes sense.”
“Was there ever a time when you felt with God that you weren’t on the outside with your nose pressed up against the glass?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Huh.”
“I think God is pleased with you. I really do.”
Just for safe keeping.
—
I’ve debated with myself about whether or not I’d reveal exactly which seminary I’ll be attending this coming fall. There is a certain comfort in remaining entirely anonymous. (As it turns out, I actually revealed myself as a Princeton seminarian several posts ago. Shame on me. I should pay more attention to myself.)
But half of my excitement (at least at the moment, 2:46am on Friday, June 12, an hour when, if I am awake, I am almost certainly over-thinking and emotional or ridiculously excited about something) comes from the fact that in 79 days I’ll be moving from this craptastic city in Southern California to what I can only describe as Camelot to me – Princeton, New Jersey.
It’s really the little things that are making me choke back squeals.
There are FARMS in Princeton. Real life farms. That I can visit. That grow FOOD. That I can EAT.
And I’m gonna get a BIKE. That’s YELLOW. With a BASKET. Maybe on the back of my seat, as having it between my handlebars might be a smidge too Susie Creamcheese.
And there’s a river. With trees. THAT CHANGE COLOR. Really, it’s the fact that they change color that gets to me. Pretty much the only time we see gold leaves in California is when a) we have a sudden, unexpected chills that completely freak out the local flora or b) when someone accidentally crashes their car into a tree and it dies.
As a result of this severe lack of trees whose leaves change color, over half the pictures I took while I visited the East coast for the first time since I was wee are of leaves.
I do not jest.
I cannot sleep tonight because I am too excited by the thought of yellow bikes, trees with changing leaves, farms with food I can buy and eat and old buildings made of brick and the ghosts of theologians I grew up practically worshipping. I am utterly flabbergasted with the realization that in 79 days, this will be my LIFE.
