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United Church of Paducah
4600 Buckner Lane
Paducah, KY 42001
(270) 442-3722
Worship Times
Sunday Service: 10:00a
Refreshments &
Fellowship: 11:15a
Christian Education
For All Ages:
11:20a - Noon
Nursery Services Provided Handicap Accessible
All Are Welcome!
A Congregation Of The
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From January 13, 2008
The Making of a Minister
Matthew 3: 13-17
People frequently assume I've always been a
pastor. Nope. Before this, I had a rewarding career in
higher education, one that prepared me for parish ministry
and which continues to influence my thinking about how you
and I can be the church together.
I talked about this a little at Tuesday night's Council
meeting. But not until I tossed out a question I know no one
expected. "Do you remember," I asked, "do you remember when
your ministry began?"
You should know right now that council meetings don't
typically begin this way. Usually I read a passage from
scripture, make what I hope is a helpful comment or two, and
then before we move into our agenda, I offer a prayer.
But Tuesday night was different. Do you remember when your
ministry began, I asked, looking around the circle and
inviting responses from the ministers gathered there.
It wasn't curiosity that inspired my question. It was a
combination of two things: today's gospel reading and my
sense that church folks don't get asked this question nearly
often enough. If you get asked at all.
When did our ministries begin, yours and mine?
Because we are each so different and our journeys so
marvelously varied, it would be safe to say that no two
answers could ever possibly be the same. And yet as varied
as they are, our answers are also identical. My ministry,
your ministry, his ministry, her ministry, everyone's
ministry begins when Jesus' did--at baptism.
The church understands that not only are we offered
forgiveness and brought fully into the community of Christ,
at baptism God's own Spirit touches us, commissions us, and
then sends us forth to grow into our God-blessed ministry.
Just as God touched, commissioned, and sent Jesus into the
world to grow into his.
Wait a minute, now. Don't misunderstand me here.
To say that we are commissioned to ministry at baptism is
not to suggest that those who are not baptized have no
ministry or that theirs is not blessed by God. That simply
is not so. Because of God's gift of Pentecost, we all share
in the Spirit's touch that transforms us from mere followers
of Jesus into ministers who carry on and extend his
ministry.
When we look more closely at what God is doing in and
through baptism, we begin to see that something enormously
profound is occurring, something I think Christians
throughout the ages have tended to overlook and undervalue.
Tot, teen, or full-blown adult, the day you and I are
baptized something remarkable happens. The very same Spirit
that descended upon Jesus at his baptism and animated his
public ministry also alights on us. In addition to
everything else that is happening within us when the Spirit
comes to us as baptism, God uses this moment to make us
ministers.
Now whether you actually felt the touch of the Spirit,
whether you felt authorized at that moment is another thing.
If you were still a babe in your parent's arms when you were
baptized, unless you were the most spiritually sensitive of
infants, you were probably oblivious to the Spirit's work in
you. And even if you were of voting age, as I was the day I
went forward, you may have walked away from baptism with a
wet forehead and heart full of gratitude but nothing you
imagine that Jesus must have felt as he waded back to the
riverbank.
It can take years, sometimes decades, for the Spirit's touch
at baptism to be comprehended, trusted, and translated into
something that feels like an authentic ministry.
You've probably heard it said that churches aren't gathering
places for saints so much as they are hospitals for sinners.
That metaphor doesn't work for me. Another metaphor is
church as family; that one is easier to embrace--especially
in this congregation.
But beyond church being family, I love the idea of church as
a college for ministers.
Besides college, where can you go and have permission to try
so many things on for size? Isn't that a key part of the
overall college experience?
In college, we take classes not simply because we must but
because we can. We take risks. We develop relationships with
people we would never otherwise meet and with whom we may
never agree. In college, we find and follow our own north
star, even if we meander and lose our way a few times. And
all the while, we are learning--about the world, about
others, about ourselves, about what is possible when we open
our minds, our hearts, and our lives.
When I say that for me church is like college, what I mean
is that I think this is the perfect place to enter into a
process of discovery about who we are and the ministry or
ministries to which the Spirit has called us.
Ministries blessed and authorized from the very beginning,
well before we discovered or developed them.
Like college, church can be the place to shine at something
we're already good at. (Like the landscaper at one church
who gladly oversaw the care of the church grounds.)
It's also a safe, supportive environment for taking on
something we may have never tried before. (Like my
parishioner with no experience in stewardship who discovered
a passion for helping folks think faithfully about their
giving to the church.).
And like college, church is an ideal setting for changing
"majors." (Like the long-time Sunday school teacher who
decided he wanted to try his hand at organizing a food
pantry).
If we want it to be, the church can be our campus. With one
wonderful exception--here we don't need to worry about our
grade.
You'll get no grade here. But you will get grace. Grace that
does the unthinkable: through your baptism, it insists that
even before you have taken that first step toward ministry,
already you are God's beloved, God's child, one who is
inherently pleasing to God.
When did your ministry begin? It began when God's Spirit
touched you and commissioned you to do what Jesus did: step
into the world to discover and grow into a ministry like
none other.
When did your ministry begin? The day something inside dared
trust that God can, will, and wants to work through you just
as surely as God worked through Jesus.
Let us pray:
Loving God, we can scarcely believe the scope of your grace
that reaches out to us at baptism and every day of our
lives. We praise you for your generosity and your open,
loving arms. We thank you for blessing and authorizing our
ministries--and before we've even begun.
Help us feel anew the freedom your grace imparts. Freedom to
discover our gifts. Freedom to try things out. Freedom to
find joy, satisfaction, and meaning in our ministries,
regardless of outcome.
Thank you for our vocation as ministers and for giving us
this place and this community in which to encounter,
explore, and experiment with our Spirit-blessed ministries.
Keep revealing to us who and how we are called to serve.
We thank and praise you as we follow in the way of our
friend and savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
(The service continues with a renewal of baptism.) Amen.
© Rev. Karen Winkel
United Church of Paducah (UCC) |
"Never place a period where God has placed a comma." - Gracie
Allen
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