The Priesthood of all Believers

Been struggling with this concept of late. In this, my self-imposed exile from regular church attendance, intentional effort to listen and hear where God is leading, here in the quiet. There are a few passages in scripture that speak to the responsibility of all believers to take up the mantle of priesthood -- a holy nation-- a royal priesthood-- chosen -- living stones rejected by men (humans) but chosen by God and on and on and on. Somehow, though, this has not been the way the church structure is built. We talk about it. We promote it. We study it in scripture and we preach about it, but we build up organizational structures that are antithetical to these precepts. I'm as guilty as any having bought into the structure. Granted, I had help.

On my second "attempt" toward ordination, though I was a part of the ministry team, where I was on the preaching rotation, I preached, I taught, I prayed etc., but during communion, I was forbidden to stand in a certain place, or to assist with serving the elements of bread and wine because I was not ordained. On my third "attempt" toward ordination (different denomination this time) I served in any manner I was called on, preaching, teaching, praying etc., including assisting with serving the elements. Actually, upon reflection, I was doing all of that before I attempted the third attempt. The one thing that was really considered above my pay grade was the "blessing of the elements", which for you non-churchy types, is the prayer that is said over the bread and wine which consecrates it and makes it .... holy. Pretty sure, after typing that, that I don't have the correct level of reverence for this as I should. Probably why my "third attempt" at ordination failed-- because I lack the proper amount of reverence. But that's for another posting. And yeah, I realize there's some snark in there.

In the last month, I've been asked to preside over a memorial service; I've been asked if I would preside over a wedding, I've been asked to deliver the prayer, because "you're a minister, right?" I froze, sort of like that proverbial deer in headlights. I didn't know what to say. While noting that my heart was pounding, I explained that I was not ordained, but that I would be happy to -- help--pray--assist-- in whatever manner needed. My heart pounds still while recalling these moments.

So, circling back to the title of this post, and the reason actually for this blog--- hearing God's voice, following where God leads, discerning the fullness of this journey I've been on for the past 16 years. I believed, because I was taught to believe that the way to serve God in an "official" capacity was to become ordained. On that journey there have been three definitive attempts to do just that. The first attempt was halted because of a life change that resulted in a move from one state to another. The second attempt was halted due to a supernatural intervention -- can't call it anything else, the third attempt was halted via committee. Because I'm a total believer in a supernatural God, I have to now know that this experience, taken in total, is purposeful for what God is calling me to. For whatever reason, these experiences were necessary for me to come to the end of all that I know, or thought I knew, and for me to now lean on the Holy Spirit to lead, guide, reveal, enlighten and ..... dispatch.

Speak Lord. Your servant is listening.

Pentecost

Although I have absented myself from traditional church routine these past months, I find that I am a bit hardwired to the "church year". There are days that I can move throughout life without giving church a second thought. That is not to say that I am not thinking about God or praying on some level, indeed, God is like an under the skin, constantly active underlying hum of my awareness most of the time. Probably all of the time. I say most of the time because there are times that I experience "the hum" as more back burner than others. I think that is how God's Spirit, the Holy Spirit, works in us. A constant feed that we can consciously tap into or simply open to. So, today is one of those high holy Christian church observances, Pentecost, which is typically recognized as the birth of the Christian church. I haven't always known this. I've attended church most of my life. Around age 6 I began attending a Pentecostal church with our neighbors, the family of my playmates. I was Sunday schooled for years in that tradition, but I don't think I learned about Pentecost. I moved on from that tradition to a Baptist tradition -- American, missionary and southern-- where I was Sunday schooled and bible studied and sermoned at -- but do not recall learning the significance of Pentecost. It was only during my journey through Methodism -- several different flavors of Methodism-- and my seminary studies that the full import of Pentecost pierced the veil of my understanding. And it is only during this Sabbath rest from church participation that I get the irony.

It is curious to me that we (we the church) observe this holy hush period of reflection called Advent leading up to the traditional observance of the birth of Jesus. Then there is this six weeks of reflection on sacrifice leading up to the traditional observance of Jesus' death and Resurrection. Now we are at the traditional observance of the post resurrection experience called Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit, the promised comforter, teacher, truth revealer, power giving, spirit of God descended on Jesus' followers who were waiting, as instructed, huddled together in fear of the Roman and Jewish authorities, in the upper room. Waiting.  Praying.  Waiting. Praying.  Waiting.  Praying. Tradition says, for about fifty days. The book of Acts chronicles the final descending of the Holy Spirit into that upper room as a rather violent, windy, fire like experience that left those in that room forever changed. So changed that not only did their language change, but their understanding of other languages changed. They waited. They prayed. Until their change came through a Holy visitation.

Such a beautiful thing to me is church tradition. The irony to me is that for all the acknowledgements of the day, the many days, the meaning of them, the hope of them, seems ........ lost in the observation. It is also ironic that only during this self-imposed exile, during which I am compelled to wait and pray, that I get this.

Un-Moored

It's Holy Week in Christian Circles. It's the first Holy Week in nearly 20 years that I have intentionally absented myself from the traditional ebb and flow that begins with Lent, through Palm Sunday, the deliberate embrace of the heartbreak of Good Friday, to the Hallelujah chorus of Easter. I read the status messages of my Christian friends as they acknowledge the day and the season we are in, and I am moved in the same way that I would be if I was sitting beside them. I know what time it is; what day it is; and what season it is. I am moved by the universal embrace and celebration of our collective salvation as The Church.  I am not moved or motivated to make my way to the building, any building, where these celebrations are occurring.  Yet, I remember. I celebrate. I remember that the cost for my redemption was a price I could not pay.  I remember that my redemption was paid for with blood and death.  I remember that it was love for me, for ME, that held my Savior to the cross.  And while it is today that we acknowledge the horrendous price, it is also today, and everyday, that I say Hallelujah to the Lamb of God who was slain but lives. I raise my heart and voice to celebrate and praise the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Most likely I will not be among that number who gather to celebrate in the traditional building on Sunday morning. It is an odd, but OK for now, feeling.  Walking in the quiet means that I am not choosing a path, at least not right now.  Truth is that there are multiple paths that present themselves, but none in which Holy Spirit has said "here is a path, walk therein." So I will walk forward, in the quiet, prayerfully observing the shiny objects on the side of the road. Pausing occasionally to act or speak as I am compelled, but then continuing on the road, to a destination yet unrevealed.  A discovery (maybe re-discovery) this week as I was pondering being un-moored (set adrift), my direct encounters with the presence of God consistently happen in these periods of quiet dis-quiet. The quiet dis-quiet. Ahhhh ... Thank you God for that revelation.  But that is for another post! Wishing any who visit here a blessed Happy Easter. He is Risen!

Sacred Conversation about Race—part 2

It’s so hard to get perspective on anything when the noisemakers crowd out the voices of the truth tellers.  My perspective on the media has changed how I take in information. During the 2008 election I made an intentional effort to read, watch and listen to different news sources, not the ones that shared my particular views on a given matter.  It was enlightening, and disappointing, to learn that a single sound bite that is factually in error could make its way across the media universe and be touted, verbatim, as fact. I was amazed that what I thought was basic journalism – fact checking – was virtually ignored. I was shocked that opinions of the noisemakers then became the facts. No fact checking. No resource citations. Just simple opinion becomes facts. At one point I was so frustrated by the noisemakers that I posted on a blog that I followed what I now refer to as Sacred Conversation Part 1 (below).  I felt a little better getting that out of my system and shortly after I took a media fast— no TV news, no talk radio, stopped reading beyond the headlines of the newspaper.  I realized that it was making me sick—soul sick.  I share it now because not a lot has changed since 2008.  The precipitating incident is new, well sort of new. . But we, humanity, is still stuck in this place where healing does not seem possible.  The “fixer” in me wants to believe that maybe if we could stop talking at each other with our respective armor up, rather than to each other with our hearts open, then maybe there is hope for us, hope for humanity.  It’s hard to find the hope in the midst of the noise.  Sometimes we have to absent ourselves from the noise.  I guess maybe that’s what Jesus did when he left the crowds that followed him to find a quiet place to commune with his Father.  Finding the quiet place to commune.  Oh yeah, that’s what this blog is all about ………….

Soul sick….Spirit sick …. If my spirit is sick, then you God, the spirit that lives in me, You, you are sick, grieved is probably the right word. You are grieved to see your children, the ones that make up the world, that you so loved, wounding each other out of our own woundedness.  ‘Cause that’s where it comes from, right?  We hurt inside, so we project that hurt outside.  We are broken inside, so we use our words, our hands, our created instruments as weapons of warfare.  It’s easier to lash out then to rise above.  It’s hard for us God, to rise above.  But your Word says that all things are possible, and that we can do all things, when we look to you, when we depend on you as the source of our strength, when we look to you as the source for our very breath.  We, your children, need your help to rise above.  We need your help to deal with each other with armor down, and hearts open.  Help us, help me, to rise above.  Thank you God for helping us.  Thank you God for your Holy Breath.  Thank you Jesus for showing the way.  Amen.  Amen.

Sacred Conversation about Race, part 1 (originally posted in the God’s Politics yahoo group)

May 2008

“Because I've been deep into my textbooks I have not been following the dialogue on this group very closely. While perusing the topics, I noted the conversation about Rev. Wright and all the supposed
controversy surrounding his remarks.  A question that still seemed to be lingering was where or when Rev. Wright accused the US. Government of injecting African Americans with the virus that causes
AIDS.  I would be surprised if anyone could ever find such a definitive statement by Rev. Wright or anyone else.  What you might find is plenty of speculation among African Americans on why this
could be possible.  Rev. Wright would have been accurately reporting, this speculation. I too, can attest to the speculation that exists.  It was an extremely frustrating thing to deal with in the decade that
I worked in the HIV prevention field.  After HIV Prevention, I shifted into the minority health field. It was then that my real education began and how I have come to understand, not agree, but understand why some African Americans believe it could be possible. During the intensity of the Rev. Wright media storm, frustration and anger motivated me to post the following at a God's Politics blog. I apologize for its length, but I believe it may answer the question.......
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As a 50 yr old, middle class, professional, African American woman in the US, I struggle with the uneducated comments made here in this and other forums about how much has changed in the last 40 years, and how African Americans just simply "need to get over it" and the supposed "racism" of Rev. Dr. Wright and how he and others are just out of touch and factually wrong.  My generation is perhaps the first to experience the "fruit" of desegregation.  I remember my mother's stories of separate entrances, sitting on the back of the buses etc. But I now have my own stories about being denied housing and how that although I now live, work, play and worship in an integrated environment there are frequent small and large reminders that I am still not always welcome or safe everywhere I go.  I am still somewhat amused by the reactions I get upon meeting whites face to face when they have only spoken with me previously by phone.  My point here is that, yes, there have been a lot of changes, but there is still a lot of unacknowledged pain and injustice that is just under the surface of race relations in this country. The only outlet for some of this has historically been the African American church. This was the only place where it was "safe" to talk about this.  For those of you who do not know how dangerous it was, then I invite you to visit the website "Without Sanctuary" to learn why "hanging nooses" could be considered American terrorism by many African Americans.  For those of you who do not understand why African Americans may believe that AIDS was "manufactured" then I invite you to read the book "Medical Apartheid, The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present" published in 2006.  Read this if you have the stomach for it.  I would invite you to read about
the government sponsored "Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment" which lasted from 1932 - 1972.  In terms of how far we have come, I would invite you to read "Unequal Treatment: Confronting Racial and Ethnic
Disparities in Health Care" which is an Institute of Medicine study released in 2002. "We" haven't come as far as we would like to think. That said, to really examine how far we have come then you must at
least know where we started.  "Before the Mayflower, A History of Black America, by Lerone Bennett Jr, is a must read if anyone really wants to "seek first to understand".  Finally, I'm not convinced that African Americans want an apology.  Speaking for myself at least, NO, that is not what I want.  What I would like to see in my lifetime is an acknowledgement that these things happened, and because of this history a continuing culture and system of privilege exists for Whites today.  This systematic injustice has and continues to result in disadvantage for African Americans and other minorities. What do we do about it? We make the effort to talk about it, even when, especially when, it's painful and makes our stomachs tight (like mine is right now). We stay in the conversation. There is a saying in the recovery movement -- "you can't heal what you don't feel." We (African Americans) need to talk about the pain of our history and everyday experiences without having to worry about offending Whites. Not talking about it leads to festering wounds that never heal. Whites should work at educating themselves about the history that wasn't taught in their schools, and listening without becoming defensive. All of us need to learn how to talk and listen without attacking, belittling or shutting the other down. I would like to feel a sense of hope that it is possible for the collective "WE" to go on a journey of discovery of that which unites rather than divides. I am saddened that this does not seem possible in my lifetime. **********************************************

I'm more encouraged now then I was a couple of months ago when I posted this. If you made it all the way to here, thanks for reading. It is because of you that I am encouraged.

Shalom”

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Fast forward to March 2012—it’s not the Rev. Wright controversy this year.  Rev. Wright’s public reputation was destroyed in 2008.  This year it’s Trayvon Martin, who was profiled, judged guilty, and who lost his life.  And the noisemakers have geared up.  Armor is up.  Hearts are closed.  Let us all try to find a quiet place. 

Getting to, staying in, the quiet place~

Abba.. How? How do those of us who know you, those who hear you calling us, how do we get and stay quiet when the voices of the world, when the cries of those who surround us crowd out all else?  This has been my challenge this week, o’God. This week when the media screams out inflammatory reports of pain, and injustice, and war, and the ongoing and forever present man against man, woman against woman, humanity against humanity tirade.  The voices, o’God. How do I tune them out? Do you even want me to tune them out?  While I desire to be still and listen, maybe it is your desire that I remain open to hearing the voices. There then is the challenge… to remain open to the voices.. the voices that align with my own spirit and heart, and the voices that rankle, that rattle, that force me to clench my jaws tight so that I will not speak words that I can’t take back, words that would pierce the hearts of my sister, my brother.  So that I will not lash out.  Truth is that you never tune out the voices. You hear us. You watch us.  I imagine that it hurts you.  It hurts you to watch your children hate on each other with words and actions.  You, who loved us so much, who loves us so much…. who has given us the prime example and definition of love, through the life and death of your Son.  For you so loved the world that you gave us the embodiment of love… can we remember to walk in, practice being in that place of love?  Help us…

Our walk of faith ...

...at least in the Christian tradition, is personal, but never private. Jesus Christ, who personally delivered the good news, asked those who follow him to spread that good news, that the kingdom is God is here, that we are loved, we are forgiven, our relationship with our Creator is restored. Spreading the good news was an instruction for all of Jesus' followers. Some followers are compelled to respond to Jesus' instruction through the established offices of the church. But what happens when that path is blocked, or cut off? It may be as simple as shifting one's focus. But when one's focus has been on responding to God's call, and the chosen path is blocked, shifting one's focus is life altering.

So what does one, who heard God call her name, do when the questions have been asked and answered, but the responses given did not pass the test of the decision makers? What does one do when “the process” results in the final answer being “No”? The answers, the comfort, offered by friends and loved ones …”choose a different path”, “choose a different church”, serve in this way or that, “grow where you are planted.” All responses that I might have given to others in this same scenario, in my efforts to sooth and comfort. If only it was that simple.
Responding to God’s call has never been about choice. At least not for me. It has always been about moving in the flow of a Holy Spirit who leads, guides, nudges, and occasionally bops me on the head. As the Spirit guided, doors opened, others closed. Opportunities to serve God’s kingdom abounded, sometimes they dried up. Even when things were difficult, confusing, or challenging, there was never a sense of being off track. Sometimes the road was winding. Sometimes there was a fork in the road. Always there was that small voice asking … “Do you trust me?” Always, my answer was yes. My answer is yes. Even now, especially now, when the voice says “be still, find the quiet.”

Being still meant stop. Easy. Sort of. Not really. Find the quiet, should have been easy. Wasn’t. Isn’t. Finding the quiet is difficult, partly because I’ve got popcorn popping in my brain. My natural tendency is to pray-journal my way out of the chaos inside my head. But that’s a private thing. And all of the things that are popping in my brain are matters of faith. Which is personal, but never private. So here then is the new thing for me. Pray-Journaling out loud. Kinda risky. Kinda naked feeling. Saying “Yes” anyway. Yes Lord. Yes.
Jdw 3/20/12