“WILL GOD BE
PLEASED?”
A
Sermon for May 10, 2015
The
Ordination of Will Tanner
At
PEACE UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST
1.
It
might have been my second or third year here, Will, when I sat down to read a
performance review done by the Personnel Committee at the time. And while there was all kinds of helpful
stuff in that review, constructive feedback, I naturally zeroed in on the
strangest and most unexpected criticism.
For there, in quotes, at the bottom of page four, was this nugget: “His
scuffed up shoes are embarrassing. Can’t
our minister wear decent footwear on Sunday morning?” I was ticked off for days.
You’ll
remember, Will, that by that point, we had already broken new ground in the
marriage equality movement. By that
point, we had built a broad-based interfaith organization working on affordable
housing and immigration reform. By that
point, I had sat with a dozen congregants and wept and prayed with them in
their last days. Did any of this
matter? Was anybody paying
attention? Again and again, my eyes were
drawn like magnets to the bottom of page four: “His scuffed up shoes are
embarrassing. Can’t our minister wear
decent footwear on Sunday morning?” Twelve
years later, I’m glad to report that I’m almost over it. Just about.
Will,
there will be days when the promises you make today, and those we make to you,
bewilder and befuddle you. And there
will be days when the superficiality of the church grieves you. Micah is so clear: “What does the Sovereign
require of you, but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly
with your God?” Micah’s so clear, but
often enough the church isn’t. And there
will be days when the gap between the two—the gap between Micah and the
church—makes no sense, when it puzzles you, when it even makes you crazy. On those days, Will, please know in your
heart of hearts, that you’re not alone.
You’re giving your life to a project that is at one and the same time
strangely thrilling, terribly important and profoundly exasperating. And it’s always been so.
But
please, know this too. What we feel in
our hearts is a tiny piece of what’s going on. What we see with our eyes is just part of the
puzzle. And what we absorb in our egos,
well, it’s what we absorb in our egos.
There’s so much more to the gospel, so much more to the church, so much
more to the ways of God. And thank God for that. Because God is always doing more, sowing
silent seeds, working out purposes we cannot see or even really know.
For
example. I soon discovered the identity
of my shoe-critic. She made it easy when
she came to me weeks later and kind of out-ed herself. “I just don’t see,” Henrietta said in the
receiving line one Sunday, after worship.
“I just don’t see why you have to wear shoes like that. Can’t you show a little class?” I mean, just like that. “Can’t you show a little class?” And then she pointed at my feet (like this) so
that seven or eight others could see what she saw. I still get a little jumpy just thinking
about the moment. Seven, eight
congregants examining my footwear. You
can’t make this stuff up.
But
here’s the thing. And it’s an important
thing, Will. When Henrietta died a
couple of years later, she left the church more than a quarter of a million
dollars, a huge and generous bequest. I
half-expected to see some provision in there for new shoes for the pastor, but
that was pure foolishness on my part.
Because something else was going on, something else had been going on
all along. That quarter of a million
dollars came without any strings attached, for the good of our mission, and our
extravagant welcome, and all the other things we were just then starting to do
together.
For
all her bluster in the receiving line, for all her surly skepticism about the
value of pastoral leadership, Henrietta had taken the words of Micah and the
commitments we share here to heart.
Deeply, profoundly to heart. She
sought justice, and loved expansively (in her own idiosyncratic way), and (as
best she could) walked humbly with her God.
And her gift made it possible—at just the right time—for the church to
take important steps forward. Speaking
boldly for gay rights and the full inclusion of all God’s children in church
and society. Advancing a vision of the
kingdom on earth as we worked with other institutions for affordable housing
and immigration reform and health care access for the poor. Breaking new ground with new music, and all
the other arts, in worship and community life.
I
have to tell you, Will, I think of Henrietta every day, when I arrive here for
work. And I’m no longer thinking about
what she said about the shoes, or the color of my tie. I’m thinking about what it means to do
justice and love kindness and walk humbly with my God. I’m thinking about her quirky way of taking
Micah to heart and following through on her promises. And I’m thinking about God’s strange sense of
humor in doing holy work through people like us and pastors like me and saints
like dear Henrietta Van Valkenburg.
2.
In
the to and fro of everyday ministry, in the push and pull of congregational
life, it’s so wise to have texts and stories that ring with clarity when we
need them. And I know, Will, that Micah
is one of those texts you count on. “God
has showed you, O people, O Israel, O church.
God has showed you what is good.
And what does the Sovereign require of you, but to do justice, and to
love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” Like the best of scripture, Micah’s words
summon the life-force within us; they rouse the holy passion, the spirit of
God. You’ve chosen them this afternoon,
Will, because you want not only to be ordained, but to be summoned, not only to
be ordained, but to be roused to minister.
So
I hope you’ll hold these words in your heart, I hope you’ll invite them to rouse
your spirit. I call on you to be
surprised by new meanings and expanding possibilities and ever deepening
resonances. We believe, in this circle,
that God is still speaking, always speaking.
And if you hold Micah’s word, Micah’s utterance in your heart, if you
listen to the still speaking God, God will feed your heart and stretch your
ministry and renew your vision. Again
and again and again. Do justice and love
kindness and walk humbly. That’s a
lifetime right there.
But
it’s the question posed in verse seven that seems particularly compelling, even
crucial, for all of us in ministry and for the church itself.
WILL
GOD BE PLEASED? WILL GOD BE
PLEASED?
In
a world, Will, that is strangely oriented to consumption and expansion and
appetite, the question for you every day is not: HOW DO I PAD MY RESUME, or
WHAT WILL MAKE THE CHURCH FOLKS HAPPY, or even WHAT WILL BE POLITICALLY CORRECT
in a given moment. In a world that
measures success by GNP and wisdom by GPA and ministry by ‘buns in the seats,’
the question for you is not: HOW CAN I IMPRESS THE HOME OFFICE, or even WHAT
ARE THE BEST PRACTICES IN CONGREGATIONAL LIFE.
No,
Will, the question for you and for us, the compelling and crucial question is:
“Will God be pleased?”
Will
God be pleased by my speaking today, by the words I choose and the ways that I
use them? Will God be pleased by the
attention I give to people today, by the way I listen and welcome and make
space for their dreams? Will God be
pleased by the stands I take for the marginalized, for the invisible, for the
poor? Will God be pleased by the ways I
take care of myself, by the way I play and the way I rest and the way I grow?
Will,
some days in your ministry will be great days.
Guaranteed. And some days, not so
great. You may or may not be successful
in reaching that sullen 16-year-old with your loving kindness and good humor. You may or may not be effective in turning
the hearts of your congregation to mercy and courage and tenderness in the
midst of conflict. But week to week, day
to day, in season and out of season, the question remains, Micah’s question:
“WILL GOD BE PLEASED?”
You
may or may not wow them every week and win all the battles. You may or may not sleep well at night. But if you’re asking “WILL GOD BE
PLEASED?”—you’re asking the right question, Micah’s question, and the pastor’s
question. And everything else will
follow, I think. Justice,
lovingkindness, humility. And a life of
shining grace and radiant love.
3.
In
a pastor’s study somewhere, a dozen or so years ago, a woman sat down and asked
her pastor for help. She’d lost two
daughters, two teenage daughters, in an awful accident on Highway 17. Their car had been sideswiped off the road, by
a drunk driver returning from a day at the beach. She’d grieved these unimaginable losses for
weeks, months, a couple of years. With
the help of her church and her faith, she’d put some pieces back together and
learned to live a little and laugh a little again. But now she needed even more help. Now she needed even more direction. She’d been dreaming lately—dreaming, thinking,
praying—about the drunk driver, the other woman that day, the one who killed
her daughters. She’d been wondering what
it was like for her in prison. And she’d
been thinking about writing a letter.
And now she needed God to show her a way forward. And she
asked her pastor for help.
Will,
I don’t know how that conversation went or the questions that were asked or the
prayers they said together. I don’t know
how often she returned to ask for help or test new ideas or just weep in her
pastor’s study. What I know is that,
weeks later, the woman wrote her letter, opened up a correspondence and got to
know the other. I know that they became
close, against all odds, that they shared stories and hope and grief, and that
eventually they experienced a bond that was something like a gift, something
like God’s gift in their lives. These
days, they travel all over California—to schools, prisons, churches—sharing
their experience of addiction and loss, unimaginable loss, but also of friendship
and forgiveness. I met them at a prayer
breakfast in town, just this week.
And
I can’t help thinking this afternoon, Will, about that pastor. I can’t help thinking about their time
together in her study. I can’t help
wondering where the conversation went, whether they read scripture together, if
any advice was shared or maybe just time and space and prayer.
There
are no scripts, Will, for the calling you accept today. There are no manuals that easily or clearly
describe the work you’ll do with a grieving mother, or a bulimic teen, or an
80-year-old grandfather coming out to his grandchildren for the very first
time. I know that, over time, you’ll
come to do this work in your own inimitable way, out of your own precious
experience, drawing on your own God-given heart. Undoubtedly, you’ll wonder from time to time
whether any of it even matters. Whether
the tears, the laughter, the silence, the prayers—whether the strange work you
do tilts the scales that matter toward justice and mercy at all. But I’m here to say—with your friends, with
your mentors, with your church—that it does and it will. What you do, what we do, what we all do
together in the church announces possibilities that are not only precious in
the world, but indispensable.
Possibilities like forgiveness between a no-longer-drunk-driver and a
broken-hearted-but-Christ-empowered mother.
Possibilities like reconciliation in a home where no one was talking,
but now they are. Possibilities like a
more compassionate Framingham, in a more equitable commonwealth, and even the
kingdom of heaven on earth.
We’re
not ordaining you a superhero this afternoon.
And we’re not ordaining you to rid the world of all disease and the
abominable scourge of modern war. And
we’re not ordaining you to solve all the problems of the 21st
century church. We’re ordaining you to
sit with grieving mothers and imagine something more than grief. We’re ordaining you to hold the hands of
bulimic teens and see in them the image of God.
We’re ordaining you to announce possibilities the world (and even the
church) can so easily forget: possibilities like forgiveness and reconciliation,
possibilities like justice and equity, possibilities like joy and
authenticity.
Most
importantly, we’re ordaining you, Will, to let the light of God shine in your
eyes, and in your prayers, and in your life.
Let it shine. Let it shine. Let it shine.
Those of us in this congregation have watched that light, your light, and
enjoyed that light, your light, and been humbled by that light, your light, for
decades. It’s always been yours. It’s always been you. You have an inner compass, a God-given
compass, pointing you toward justice and righteousness and fearless integrity. You have a huge heart that knows already, has
always known, what love is and what love requires. So let God’s light shine in your ministry, in
your life, in the church. Just let it
shine. Let it shine because that’s what
light does. Let it shine because that’s
what you do. Let it shine because that,
in the end, is what’s most pleasing to God.
Will God be pleased, Will? That’s
the question. It’s always the question. Will God be pleased? And the answer is. Oh, yes.
Oh, yes, Will Tanner. She’s been
pleased all along.
Amen.
