Sometimes when people ask me why I wear a clerical collar when many pastors do not, I tell them it’s so when I look in the mirror I can remember that I’m a pastor. No one is more surprised than me that I am here doing this.
In the same way being a Christian was not my idea or my doing, neither was being a pastor. I am working on that.īut there’s a deeper reason I was at least uncomfortable with today’s celebration. I know logically that the illness that caused my absence is not my fault, but I’m still working through some guilt that perhaps some of you understand who have been through a serious illness. Now that I am back, I am still only partly here. I feel I have let the congregation down by being out two months for medical leave, two months when I was not available to you. To be honest, I’m not feeling that great about my ministry right now. When I first found out this was happening I didn’t like the idea at all. Today we celebrate ten years of ordained ministry. I heard the voice of Jesus in the people of the congregation who welcomed me in spite of my doubts and even my downright disbelief.Īnd once God created this faith in me, I couldn’t help but (eventually) share it. I head the voice of Jesus in God’s Word as it was read and preached. Like Paul, I encountered the resurrected Christ. Why would I want to go back on everything I had said and believed I was? Why would I want to be one of THOSE Christians?īut I could no more choose not to believe in God than I could choose to disbelieve the Law of Gravity. I did not choose to believe Jesus is for the world – and for me – exactly who he claims to be. You know about how God’s Word worked on me and in me as I sat there with my arms crossed each week.Īnd you know how, months later, I realized. She was certainly worth what I considered a wasted hour each week. Karen told me that if I wanted to date her I would have to go to church with her. Most of you know the story of how I ended up in church. I believed, as I have said before, that I was Too Smart for God. That is because I can identify with Paul’s experience.Īlthough I didn’t throw Christians into jail like Paul before I became one myself at 33 years old, I did reject their attempts to tell me about their faith. He had experienced the walls built between insiders and outsiders, and he wanted the church to experience – and to demonstrate – the awesome inclusiveness of God’s grace. Paul had experienced bondage to the law and to sin and death, and he had experienced the joy of freedom that comes with faith in Christ. In his letter to the Galatians, Paul was angry at anything – or anyone – that contradicted or got in the way of the message of Grace he was called to preach.
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