Observing Vocation

Last updated on: October 14, 2015 at 7:59 pm by Amy Butler

Observing Vocation 2015-10-14T19:59:27-04:00 Amy Butler

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

I spent last week in Chicago, part of which was spent working on a book proposal. This experience was much more labor and emotion intensive than I’d anticipated. Several questions floated on the periphery of my consciousness all week, questions like: If I write about my life, what is the consistent thread running through the story? And, so many crazy/amazing/ridiculous things have happened to me–which of those things have resonance for that theme? And, why would anybody want to read this? Here’s a little reflection I wrote as part of that process, published over at Baptist News Global this week.

That day as I stood in front of the gathered congregation, I could feel their dismay — an almost desperate exasperation and lack of hope at the state of their community. It was my first congregational meeting as the pastor.

To say that I was wholly unprepared for leading congregational meetings, much less many of the other pastoral duties I’d been recently called upon to perform, may be rather an understatement. Still, as is my way, I endeavored to be as over-prepared as I could. I read up on Roberts Rules of Order; I scoured past congregational meeting minutes; I made a list of all the office volunteers to thank publicly; I looked and looked for a prayer or devotional reading that might communicate in some deep way all that my young and naïve pastor’s heart believed for this church.

Perhaps it was inexperience that led me to believe that this current state of affairs in the church was not its sad end, as so many seemed to think. Sitting in my very first history of Baptists course in college I learned the astounding idea that God’s Spirit might show up wherever she will, and that her action in the world is unpredictable. This shocking awareness was what allowed me to even consider the possibility that I might become a pastor myself, so it makes sense that as I stood up to face my congregation at that first business meeting, I just assumed that God’s Spirit was showing up, that we should just welcome this force that seems to blow in to the most unlikely places in the most unlikely ways, unhinging certainties and mixing things up, creating new possibilities we’d never considered. After all, isn’t it fundamental to our faith to understand that God’s way in the world is a way of insistent and perpetual recreation, where situations we’re sure are beyond redemption can finally find their way to hope again?

After fumbling through my report, in which I mistakenly left off the list of volunteers to publicly thank the longest-tenured and most difficult older member of the congregation, I finally got to my closing prayer. Earlier that week as I’d struggled to write a closing prayer in preparation, I soon realized I didn’t have the words I felt I needed. That week, in a frantic attempt to come up with something, I stumbled across what is commonly known as the Prayer of Oscar Romero, although it was not written and never prayed by him. The prayer speaks of taking the long view; its theme is blessing the work we do right now, in the immediacy of life, when we cannot see what the future holds, sure that the work of becoming is ever-ongoing. It proclaims the truth that the kingdom of God always lies beyond us, and that the substance of our work is found in living into a future we do not experience but believe with all our heart will come.

Those are lofty words for a novice pastor in her first congregational meeting but they named with such depth the possibility I could see in front of me.

From that lectern on that day, I’m sure I thought the task ahead was a professional task, one for which I’d prepared for years.

Since then, I’ve come to learn that the words of this prayer, words that call for becoming at every turn of this human journey, thread their way through my own life, inviting me to a rigorous engagement that relentlessly unfolds all around me.

I’ve come to believe that there is extended to each of us a perpetual invitation to live into the possibility God holds for each of our lives, and a divine insistence that we — and the world around us — can be about better things.

I think the words of this prayer are truer than I suspected, even as I read them with quavering voice at that very first congregational meeting of my first pastorate. Walking the human journey at God’s invitation plants in each of us, even in the darkest moments, an invitation to something better.

This pull, this understanding of my life and my calling as one small part of God’s grand work of redemption, has saved my life again and again. It has offered me an identity and purpose; it has invited me into holy places I never would have gone otherwise; it has given me words and meaning to ascribe to the darkest parts of my human living; it has planted the story of my life firmly within a larger narrative; it has helped me become the pastor.

Answering the Call

Practicing Discipleship

Previous Post

March 16, 2015

Cliché

Next Post

March 30, 2015 Conflicted

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Answering the Call Being the Church Curating Wisdom Laughing Out Loud Living in Relationship Practicing Discipleship Reclaiming Baptist Speaking from the Pulpit Uncategorized

Select a Month July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005

Search for:

Observing Vocation

Recent Posts

Recent Comments

Archives

Categories

Meta

Who refused to defile himself with the king's food and wine?