Don’t you just love the way God uses nature to bring God’s powerful presence up close and personal for humans, and it all just takes our breath away? God is present to Moses in a burning bush. God grabs up Elijah with a whirlwind, and Elisha is left gaping in wonder, watching the chariot of fire and horses of fire whisk his beloved mentor away. God catches our attention and then points us in the life-path that God knows is best for us. Now, we may or may not have had a clue about that God-blessed life-path before God catches our attention, we may resist God’s leadings for quite a while…I know I did! But when we do finally say, yes, Lord, I am yours, then, as the Shaker song reminds us, we “…come down where we ought to be, and when we find ourselves in the place just right, t’will be in the valley of love and delight.”
Today, I’m going to share my “call story.” We all have different call stories, and God called me to pastoral ministry. It is my prayer that this call story will help us to be open to the sometimes-surprising ways that God calls each one of us to do God’s work.
First, to give you a brief background on my relationship with God’s church. As a young child, my parents raised me up in the Congregational church. I would take my dolls to church and line them up in the pew and sit myself next to them and show them how to check off each item of liturgy, as we finished each prayer or hymn! I was active in the youth group at my church, and active in the state-wide church youth organization during my teen years. My sophomore year in college, I was invited by another student to go to a Quaker Meeting on a Friday night. Not your typical thing to do on a Friday night at college, but I said yes, and was blessed to journey with the Quakers for 13 years. When my children reached school age, I wanted them to have the benefit of Christian education, and my Quaker Meeting did not at that time have an established First Day School. So, I went church shopping and found the local Methodist church had a great Sunday School program. Within a year of joining the Methodist church, I spoke with my pastor about my interest in preaching. After a year-long study of what I fondly call the “Big Blue Book”, a discernment study with one’s pastor, I signed up to go to Annual Conference with my pastor.
At Annual Conference, clergy and laity gather to do the business of the church, but also, to experience some really great worship together! I knew that at one of the worship services, the Bishop stands at the front of the sanctuary and invites those hearing a call to pastoral ministry to come forward. Traditionally, everyone sings a special hymn (Here I Am Lord was the hymn when I heard the call to ministry). Everyone remains seated during the hymn, so that those who hear the call and walk forward to the Bishop can be seen by all, but especially by their pastor, so that their pastor can come forward and pray with them about this special call.
I finished the very last chapter of the Big Blue Book with my pastor on the first day of Annual Conference. I asked my pastor how I would know if I was ready to accept this call. She suggested I might do something that John Wesley, founder of Methodism, would do when he was trying to discern God’s will for him. He would take the Bible, put it on its spine on a table, and let it fall open. He would then read the first verse or passage of scripture he saw and consider how God was guiding him through that scripture.
So I walked back to my room and let the Bible fall open. I read the scripture, pondered it, slept on it, and the next morning at breakfast, told my pastor about the passage I read. Her eyes got big, she said, “you mean to say the Bible fell open to the passing of the mantle?!” I said, well, yes. But I couldn’t understand my pastor’s excitement. I mean, I was no Elisha, and I had no cloak that could part the water when striking a stream. But my pastor explained that this is a classic call story about being chosen by God to be a leader of God’s people. She explained that I needed to trust that even if God has not given me Elijah’s cloak, God will surely give me whatever I need, to take on this leadership in pastoral ministry.
I admit I was a little skeptical. Me, a minister? Was I really ready? What if I got cold feet, at the service where the Bishop calls people forward for ministry? What would I do? So, the night of the special service, I made a plan to sit with a dear friend, a retired United Methodist pastor named Phil Palmer. I reasoned that if I went forward, he’d be overjoyed for me. But if I chose not to, he would still support me and love me. Phil had health issues and was in a wheelchair. Shortly before the call part of the service, Phil was not feeling well, and his wife took him back to their room. I became anxious and distracted, wondering if I could go through with this now. I looked around the chapel, filled with about 1,400 people, so crowded the pews overflowed and it was standing room only.
Maybe if I could help out somewhere, I’d not feel so anxious. I noticed a woman getting the communion elements ready at the rear of the sanctuary. I walked over to offer my help. She told me her name was Carol, and she told me she was missing a basket of bread. I offered to run to the cafeteria to get a basket of leftover rolls from supper. I returned with the rolls. Now, let’s take a moment to think about this, my friends. Don’t you think it’s a little odd for a person in charge of communion for 1,400 people, to suddenly be short one basket of bread? But did I question it? No, I didn’t give it a thought. I just went and got the rolls for her. She took the rolls and thanked me, this woman I did not know and had never seen before. She then said, “Elizabeth, everything is now ready. Why don’t we go and sit down and enjoy the worship.” I looked at her with some surprise…how did she know my name? I didn’t think I’d told her. I looked around at the crowded chapel, seeing no open seating anywhere. But who was I to question a woman who clearly appeared to know exactly what she was doing. So I followed her down the aisle. She came to a pew about midway down the aisle, and pointed to it, asking if I’d like to sit there. My brothers and sisters in Christ, I kid you not…the pew was completely empty. But did I think it odd that an entire pew was completely empty, while people were standing at the back of the chapel with no place to sit? No. I didn’t give it another thought. I just entered the pew and sat down with my new friend, Carol.
When the Bishop made the call to come forward if God is calling you to pastoral ministry, we suddenly turned to each other and said, at the same time, “Is it time?” And then we both got up and walked forward to the call. Now, did I think it odd that this woman whom I had only just met happened to be going forward to the same call that I heard for myself? No. I just joyfully went forward, grateful that she was at my side in this joyous moment.
At the front of the chapel, I lost sight of Carol in the whirlwind of people coming forward to the call, and so many pastors coming up to stand with us and pray with us. Everyone was singing. There was a lot of crying going on, or maybe it was just me? I know I was crying tears of joy!
The service ended and I was on a mission to find Carol and talk with her about this holy experience. I saw my pastor waiting outside for me, and I ran to her, asking her where I could find Carol, and explaining how we had walked up together to the call, and I had lost track of her and I had to find her. My pastor looked at me curiously. Then she softly whispered, in an awed voice, “Elizabeth, I was up there. I was charged with taking all of the names of those who came forward to the call. Elizabeth, there was no one named Carol.” Then she paused, …and quietly added, “Carol must have been an angel God sent you, to help you come forward to the call.”
My brothers and sisters in Christ, that is why I have the privilege and joy of serving as your pastor. God sent me an angel. Yes, God still sends angels, my friends, in this 21st century. And whatever else we need, so that we can do God’s work, with holy confidence, with tears, and with joy!
We all are called by God to do God’s work, and that work takes many forms, besides pastoral work. And we are often called to that work in surprising, odd and holy ways, such as my angel named Carol.
Carol clearly knew that I needed what Elisha asked of Elijah. I needed a double portion of Carol’s spirit, to fill me with the holy confidence to carry me forward to the call, and to then sustain me in my ministry as I go to minister where God leads me.
Did you notice a similarity between the scripture that informed my call to ministry and what happened between myself and Carol in the chapel? You will notice that in the Elijah/Elisha story, Elisha insists upon following Elijah, even tho Elijah tells him he is not to follow. And this happens a total of three times. You will notice that three times something odd happens in the chapel, but I do not question it, I just do what Carol needs me to do. The bread, the pew, and the turning to one another to ask, “is it time?” then going forward together to the call.
My friends in Christ, God works in amazing and surprising ways, encouraging our every step. The question is, do we trust and follow, and accept God’s will for our lives? I did, and it was one of two best choices I’ve ever made in my life (the other being marrying that handsome fellow seated in the back, my husband Harbour)! And as hard work as it has been, to follow no matter what, it is that holy journey with God that makes every step we take one of peace and joy in the Lord. I invite each one of you to be alert to where God may be calling you to a special task, and the sometimes surprising ways that God lets you know that you are being called.
I’ll close my call story by sharing with you another fitting piece of scripture: Hebrews 13:2, “Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.”
Amen.
Pastor Elizabeth Bailey-Mitchell