Lent Day 10: One Thing I Ask

Grapevine window, Union Presbyterian Church, Endicott, NY, ca. 1907

One thing I ask of the LORD; 
   this I seek:
to live in the house of the LORD
   all the days of my life,
to behold the beauty of the LORD,
   and to inquire in his temple.
~Psalm 27:4

From the first time I heard this psalm (sung, as I mentioned yesterday), this was the portion that grabbed my heart and gave it a squeeze. I don't know whether that was before or after I experienced my very memorable call to ordained ministry (it involved an Amy Grant song, a drive on Route 128 outside Boston, and an interview with the first Protestant woman minister I would ever meet). I believe that, for most of my life, I've felt this call, but there were many roadblocks. The chief of these was that it seemed to be a call outside the church I loved, in which I was nurtured, where I learned my faith, and where, for years, I served.  Fourteen years passed between that call and the day of my ordination.

So, what is the psalmist referring to? Specifically? They are singing of the temple in Jerusalem-- the first temple, which scripture and tradition tell us was built by Solomon, the son who succeeded David on the throne. David had wanted to build the temple, but God had sent David an urgent message via the prophet Nathan: this was not David's work to do. It would go to his successor. 

The temple was considered the literal home of God on earth. The holy of holies--the space which contained the Ark of the Covenant--resided in the temple. The presence of the Covenant was connected with  the presence of God in the wilderness sojourn when Moses conferred with God on a regular basis. Now, it was in the most sacred space--accessible to humans only one day each year, when the high priest would enter to make offerings on behalf of all the people, for the forgiveness of their sins.

To be in the temple was to be near God. Elsewhere, the psalmist sings, 

For a day in your courts is better
   than a thousand elsewhere.
I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God
   than live in the tents of wickedness.
~Psalm 84:10

All God's covenant people were called upon to travel to the temple as frequently as possible, to make offerings and to experience the great festivals there, the greatest of which was Passover. To this day the traditional ending of the Passover seder is, "Next year, in Jerusalem,"in every home where it is celebrated. Love of the temple wasn't reserved for the anointed priests; all God's people loved the temple. All God's people desired to be near God.

It's hard for those of us in mainline Christianity to relate to this deep love of a single place of worship. Muslims understand it, they who are called to Mecca each year. Latter Day Saints have a greater understanding of it, as they have a their most beloved temple in Salt Lake City, Utah. Roman Catholics probably have a closer understanding, with Vatican City as the home to the Pope, their great spiritual leader. 

We love our churches, but we don't consider any of them the sole locus of God on earth (nor do Muslims or the LDS or Catholics).  We do, however, understand that when we gather, the body of Christ is present, because we are that body. In our churches we can and do experience the presence of God. We experience it in one another. 

But God has been set loose on the earth. God is everywhere, and we can also experience God's presence in a blazing sunset, in the deep darkness of a forest, on the summit of a mountain, or gazing upon the first crocuses in our garden or savoring our first cup of tea or coffee. We can experience the presence of God in soul-stirring music, in the hand of someone offering us comfort, in the bonds of love with other human beings. God is everywhere--thank God! 

God is Love.

 

Lent Day 8: Yes, but....

Augustine of Hippo, philosopher, theologian, and famously honest pray-er allegedly prayed, 

"O Lord, make me chaste--but not yet."

Sometimes we want to say "yes," but something holds us back. 

I've written about my experience of being called to ministry in a little essay in this terrific book, as well as in this recent sermon. What I haven't written about, is the fourteen year gap between my call and my ordination.

I describe the beginning of that fourteen year journey in the sermon:

And then it hit me, like a bolt of lightning to the chest. That was what I wanted, or that was what God wanted of me, or something like that: ordination. To be a minister, to be a pastor. And I was so elated that I threw my arms up into the air...

...[But] as quickly as the elation came, it was replaced with a kind of resignation bordering on despair, because I did not see a path.

I was born and raised in the Roman Catholic Church. I attended Catholic schools for sixteen successive years (first grade through college), and then obtained my first Master's degree from one. I was deeply immersed in the life of my church. It gave me joy, it fed my soul, it offered a place where I could share my gifts... to an extent.

But now I felt God was calling me to do something that my church would not permit, would not even entertain. (Still true--five years after my lightning bolt to the chest, the beloved Pope John Paul II declared the issue of women's ordination closed, and seemed to indicate that theologians should neither write nor speak of it. Recently Pope Francis issued a book of Canon Law that outlines the penalties of excommunication for those who ordain women, as well as for the women who are ordained.) 

I did not want to leave the church of my childhood. But the God to whom that church had introduced me seemed to be making her intentions clear. As another Catholic woman who experienced that same call has stated, "If you were born to do something, you resist it at your own peril.”

In fact, I couldn't even contemplate leaving the church I loved. At the time lived in the greater Boston area, and attended the university parish at Boston College. I sang in the choir. Once, during my grad school tenure, I had been invited to preach at a campus mass in another chapel. But there seemed to be no direction to take my sense of call, until I moved away from Boston and landed in the Southern Tier of New York.

For a year I visited Catholic churches. Displaced from a church home where women's gifts had been lifted up, I saw no such thing in the places I visited. In Boston I had, perhaps, lived in a bubble that suggested change was just around the corner. Now, the realities of life outside the big, liberal (in some ways) city had opened my eyes to the reality that change was not, in fact, coming any time soon.

I was in the wilderness. But I was also a young mother, who was finishing a degree long-distance, and who longed for some kind of church home.

I started attending an Episcopal Church. After a couple of years I joined it, and had my daughter baptized there. 

And I grieved, even as I began to have a glimmer of hope that I might finally be able to answer my call. I worked for the church for two years as a Christian Educator, and then took another position at a Presbyterian Church (USA) congregation, where, finally, I experienced a call as powerful as the one I'd felt in 1989. During church one day I watched as Deacons and Elders were ordained and installed. For the first time, I listened to the ordination vows, and one lodged firmly in my heart: 

Do you trust in Jesus Christ your Savior, acknowledge him Lord and all and Head of the Church, and through him believe on one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit?

"Lord of all and Head of the Church." I had been excluded from answering my call by a church that seemed to believe a living human male was head of the church, and could, thus, determine single-handedly who could answer that call. Now I was in a church where Christ, as Head, could continue to guide us, because, as our UCC siblings constantly remind us, "God is still speaking." 

That day, that moment of being called again, set me on the path to saying "Yes" to God's urgent earlier call. I embarked on a path of discernment, accompanied by my congregation and the wider church. I went to seminary. And fourteen years following that first call, almost to the day, I was able to say the ordination vows myself. 

Today's Reminder of the Day from A Sanctified Art is:

Saying "yes" can
be holy, when
that yes moves
you closer to
God and closer
to your true self.

Sometimes we're called by God to something, and our answer is, like Augustine, "yes, but..." I don't regret my long and meandering path to ministry. I believe it brought me to exactly the place I was meant to be. I know it brought me closer to God and to my true self. There was pain along the way, to be sure.  I struggled and, at times, I truly grieved what was not to be. But God is infinitely wise and infinitely patient, and I am so grateful for who I am and where I am, by her grace. 

I'm so grateful for being able, at last, to say a resounding, joyful "yes."

May such a "yes" be possible for all of us, when it's God calling.

Stoles. Lots of 'em.