By Rev. Dr. Fritz Ritsch
January 15, 2012
St. Stephen Presbyterian Church
Fort Worth, TX
The Saturday Evening Post recently ran a story that checked up on another story they published over 100 years ago: an article written in December of 1900 predicting what will happen in the 20th Century. The old article got a lot of predictions right. It predicted that the average American would be 1 to 2 inches taller. It predicted digital photography: “Photographs will be telegraphed from any distance. If there be a battle in China, a hundred years hence, snapshots of its most striking events will be published in the newspapers an hour later.” It even predicted wireless technology. All in all, pretty amazing.
It also got some things wrong. It predicted that restaurants will deliver food to homes in pneumatic tubes, and that when we’re done eating, we’ll send the dishes to the sink via pneumatic tubes.
Predicting can be fun. We in the church often like to engage in predicting. What are God’s plans—for our lives, for the world? Where will God take us over the next few years? We can make educated guesses, based on what’s presently going on.
But the fact is, we can‘t be sure.
The call of the young boy Samuel, who served the high priest Eli, happens in a time when it wasn’t so clear when God was speaking. “Now the word of God was rare in those days; visions were not widespread.”
So, not so different from today.
Yet still, in that time, God called, and Samuel had to answer. It had been so long since God had spoken, that at first Samuel and Eli didn’t realize what was happening. They mistook it for a dream, even for an annoyance. But in the end, they recognized God’s call for what it was—because God insisted. God didn’t stop calling.
But in the times of Jesus, at least according to the Gospel of John, things were a bit different. John the Baptist sees a vision of a dove landing on Jesus at the time of his baptism, saying, “This is my Son.” Two of John’s disciples consider just hearing that story enough evidence to decide to follow Jesus. Other disciples are impressed with other things about Jesus. Jesus tells Nathaniel what he was doing when no one was looking; Nathaniel is so blown away he immediately becomes a disciple. Jesus gets called “Son of God,” “Lamb of God,” all these titles that proclaim him messiah; people don’t seem to doubt it. To them, at least, it’s obvious who Jesus is. So they follow him.
Before us stand those whom God has called to serve as the church’s elders, deacons, and trustees for the next few years. They’re called to serve at an amazing, challenging time in the life of the church. We’re embarking on a capital campaign. We’ve built a strong base of newer members. We’ve got more children than ever. As to what’s going on in the world around us, we’re still in the midst of an economic downturn, which might be improving or might not. The whole world is dealing with economic crisis, and in practical terms that means that jobs are at risk, including for folks in our community. Troops are returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, and both they and the nation face huge transition issues.
These church leaders are tasked with discerning God’s will for St. Stephen. They probably all wish that discerning God’s call was just as clear and direct as it appears to be in John’s story of the calling of the disciples. Then we’d know for sure what was the right path to take, what was the correct direction to follow! Then we’d know the future God intends for the church and the world!
But there’s an important point to be made here. There’s a difference between being called to serve the Lord and knowing what God’s will for the future might be. John the Baptist seems perfectly happy to tell the world Jesus is the Lamb of God. A little later we’ll find him uncertain, confused—Jesus is not the kind of Messiah John was expecting. Right at the beginning, all of Jesus’ new disciples are all excited. They want to go to Jesus’ house for a sleepover. Simon gets renamed Peter “The Rock.” They think things are going to be great, because they’re the messiah’s best friends. None of them have a clue that what lies ahead is Jesus’ arrest and crucifixion. Peter doesn’t know that his rocklike character will crumble and he will deny Jesus three times. They aren’t expecting the cross. They didn’t sign up for that.
When we’re called to serve Jesus Christ, we lose control of the future. This may seem counterintuitive. After all, when we choose officers in the church, they are carefully chosen by a nominating committee who screen people according to the church’s perceived needs and the candidates’ perceived gifts. They are elected, trained and examined based on a very set Presbyterian process. It all seems very practical and clear-cut.
But once they are called, all bets are off. There’s no telling where God will guide and lead the church. It doesn’t matter whether we never literally hear the voice of God, or whether we are absolutely sure beyond a shadow of a doubt about what God has in mind. When we are called we’ve surrendered our wills—not to the church, or to the PCUSA—we’ve surrendered our wills to Jesus Christ, who will challenge us to do things we never thought we’d do, and to face challenges we fear, and to do things we don’t think we or the church ought to do. And even if we’ve been clear from Day One that God called us to be officers, we will hit a point where we’ll say, “I didn’t sign up for that.”
But we did. We’ve all signed up for it. Whether we’re pastors or officers or just regular old members of the church, what we all signed up to do is to be disciples. And that means following Jesus–not our preconceived notions of the church’s future, or our too fond commitment to the church’s past, or our overheated opinions of what is right or appropriate for the church or the world, or our strong beliefs about what it is that St. Stephen or Presbyterians actually stand for. We are called to follow Jesus.
That means that often we’ll face the unexpected and be called on to do things we never thought we’d do. That means that we’ll be called upon to find Jesus in precisely the places we’re certain He could never be. That means that we’ll certainly be called on to make sacrifices, because serving Jesus always requires sacrifice. These leaders before us will certainly face difficult choices and be forced to make hard decisions.
It also means they—and the church–will be challenged to do greater things than we ever thought it was possible for St. Stephen to do. We’ll take on greater responsibilities as we seek to serve God and neighbor, and discover that not only can we do what we thought was impossible, but we can enjoy it, too.
It means we’ll try things and make mistakes, and have to throw ourselves on the mercy and grace of God. Yes, we’ll learn we’re not perfect. But that’s essential to true discipleship—trusting God to forgive us and renew us when we fail is the ultimate proof that we trust in God’s grace rather than our own work and ability.
And we’ll have to forgive and love and support one another through whatever trials come to us. And we’ll be challenged to build new and stronger relationships with one another, with our neighbors, with our community, and with God. In the end, each of these officers, and each member of the St. Stephen family, will find his or her relationship with God stronger and deeper, and the church strengthened and more committed to its calling to love God and neighbor and to serve Jesus Christ.
So those are my predictions for the Officer Class of 2014. I base this in part on the lessons of the outgoing class of 2011, and on every class that preceded them. But I also base them on what a call to be a disciple of Jesus Christ always means: It means that we are His now and all bets are off.
So get ready.