vocation « Ed's Slipper

A while ago, I described my calling to ordained ministry. I explained how, through prayer and conversation with close friends and a variety of Elis, I gained assurance in that calling – to the point that I have stopped questioning it.

I also explained that I did not have a clear picture of the particulars of my future ministry, and that, at one time, I did struggle with this lack of clarity. Whilst the shape my ministry is to take is not much clearer, though, I have found that I was okay with that.

And so, trusting in my calling to the ministry, I ploughed on. I set my sights on this end goal, and worked towards it. I preached a few sermons. I got involved in a variety of ministries. I picked the liturgy for a service. In short, I’ve been busy. And since I started down this path, I have thought that doing this work was obeying God, because it was pursuing the calling I felt.

continuousdiscernment

Photo: Vladimir Kramer, public domain(Unsplash)

I still think this is true: I still think that it is extremely important to follow my calling, and to do everything that I can to fulfill it. But I fear that, in focusing on this, I have separated my calling from God. It has become “something to achieve”, for the glory of Christ, yes, but first and foremost an end in itself. So I was concentrating on my personal future, at the expense of both my present actions and the greater picture.

It is especially easy to fall into this trap when the vocation we follow is somehow religious. If the calling we pursue is secular (and let me stress here that secular callings are just as worthy as religious callings), then we don’t risk much to mistake it for its source. For better or for worse, the working out of a secular vocation will always be slightly distinct from religious activity, no matter how pervasive our faith is. But if the calling is a calling to a religious role, then it is easy to set the fulfillment of that call as the primary purpose of all our doings – religious and secular. Therefore, focusing on what we are called to rather than on the one who is calling us has particularly far-reaching consequences in the case of religious vocations.

This is why we need discernment, continuously. Even when we think we got it all figured out – what ministry we are called to, and a five-year plan to get there. Not because we necessarily need to further fine-tune this five-year plan, but because of what discernment means: constantly looking to God, and constantly being reminded that He is greater than the vocation we feel called to. Not because we doubt our vocation, but because God is present throughout our calling, not just at its end; and because we cannot reach this end on our own.

Let us not believe that we can sort out our vocation entirely; but let us, instead, turn to and trust in God for everything, including our calling and its fulfillment.

As you will know if you’re a regular reader of this blog, I delivered my first sermon last Sunday. I am incredibly grateful to all who prayed for me on that occasion; and I’ll reiterate that it went really well.

Photo taken from christmasstockimages.com, reused under CC License

Up until last week, whenever I read or heard “pray for your pastor”, I would never think much of it. I’m not sure what my excuses were; but I think that deep down I was thinking a combination of the following four things:

The preacher is more qualified than me. He will pray before preaching. That prayer will be better than mine.
The preacher will get the inspiration of the Holy Spirit anyway. There’s no need to pray.
That’s his job, for which he has been trained; he does not need any prayer in the first place
That’s for Sunday. Pleeeeeeenty of time.

These are the most insidious of arguments, because they each hold a tiny nugget of truth. That makes them ring “true-ish”; and makes them all the easier to use as excuses. But each of these arguments is also twisted. Let’s go through them again:

The preacher has some level of qualifications; and yes, he will pray before preaching (as well as, hopefully, through the week!). It does not mean that his prayer is better than yours. On the contrary, writing a sermon is no easy task; and it comes with its burdens, stresses, and feelings of low self-esteem. These may impede the preacher’s prayers for his own sermon: for instance, he may feel like he should have done a bit more preparation and he can’t present that work to God (that would be stupid, but stressed people do stupid things). Then your prayer is truly needed; and the knowledge that he is prayed for makes the preacher bolder in his own sermon-writing.
The Holy Spirit will inspire the preacher. But that does not supersede the need for prayer (or preparation). There is a famous joke about a young curate who, every week, spent hours preparing his sermons. He was mocked by a very Pentecostal colleague who told him “I only wait to hear from the Spirit”. Enthused by the idea, our young curate decides to try it out. The next week, when they meet, the Pentecostal colleague asks: “So, did the Spirit speak to you? What did He say?” The curate answers “Yes. He said ‘you’ve been very lazy this week’.”
Hopefully, the preacher has undergone some form of formal training. It will generally be the case; and where not, he should receive some form of support by those who are trained. But no training can fully prepare for the sharing of the living Word – or else, that Word becomes dead; and preaching merely a mix of manipulation and of teaching of old doctrine. Only through prayer can we ensure that what the preacher says will genuinely touch the hearts and minds of the congregation.
The sermon will be delivered on Sunday. It will, generally, have been written beforehand. Especially in the case of someone preaching for the first time, this will take place days, nay, weeks in advance. Prayer is necessary at all stages of the sermon-crafting, up to the delivery and even beyond that. Additionally, as I’m sure you’ll find, Sunday isn’t that far around the corner.

So pray for your pastor. Pray for his health, his energy, his drive, the inspiration of the Holy Spirit – through the week. Pray that he may be a true imitator of Christ, and that he inspire you to be, in turn, imitators of Christ. Pray that he may move you, challenge you, and speak words relevant to you and to the rest of the congregation. Pray that he may move himself, and be once again reminded with great awe of his own nature as a beloved child before God.

What’s your excuse? What will your prayer be?

—

Note: given recent news about female episcopate, it might be worth saying that, in the above article and, I’m sure, in many places through the blog, I have used the masculine as a generic term. It is not a theological statement! In this case, the preacher is a “he”, but might as well be a “she”. I find dual writing “he or she” tedious and cumbersome for the reader as well as for the writer; and abhor the abbreviation “s/he”. The plural sometimes works, it felt very odd to use it here. So if your pastor is female, I will leave it to you, reader, to make the appropriate substitutions!

Ed's Slipper

About predestination and smaller matters

vocation

Continuous discernment

Pray for your pastor