High Calling Magazine

The official publication of The Francis Asbury Society

Our Higher Calling
BY JOY MOORE

Our higher calling to serve God is more than the privileges of liberation, but a responsibility to be accountable. At thirteen, I accepted that responsibility. By that time, I understood that being a Christian did not simply render the benefits of a celestial bodyguard, a spiritual Santa or a partisan promoter of social justice wisdom. Being a Christian involves a commitment to serve as an ambassador for Christ. Certainly God provides and protects; answers prayers and calls for social action. Nonetheless, this vocation would be less about my ability to get a response from God and more about my response-ability to God.

Christian ministry is the commission to invite others to learn that they inhabit the divine story. When told during ordination, to preach the word, it was not to tote-and-quote Scripture, but to communicate the continued action of God that is recorded in a historically particular text and promised in the outpouring of God's Spirit. The biblical narrative is God's story and the Church lives out the final chapters until Christ returns.

It may seem easier to promote causes, criticism, and commands. Focusing on miracles; promising blessings and getting one's own life in order has popular appeal in any generation. Such advertised teaching has captured the Christian community from liberation theology to Oprah- styled spirituality; from camp meeting revivals to psychology advise-styled radio programs. Many references to the biblical story serve to proof-text a subject rather than subject our lives to a transforming encounter with God. Whether you label the message liberal or conservative, too often clergy become political spokespersons, activists, or guards of political correctness.

I've been asked many times to speak because I am female. The expectation is that I would forward the fight for women's equality. And once a year, for Women's Day or UMW Sunday, even those who disagree with my ordination will allow a brief testimony from a woman with an agenda. They put up their guard, and I go on the offensive. Allow me to illustrate:

It was actually the rural congregation to which I was appointed. A family in the congregation had heard enough sermons from the previous pastors on pacifism and environmental responsibility that they had decided to leave the church during the next pastoral change. Upon learning that I was to be the next pastor, the husband said, "We've got to go for her first sermon...watch the 'stuff' hit the fan." (His language was more expressive).

Having learned from Billy Graham that one only preaches one message: John 3:16, I attempted to present that message. The couple left the service agreeing that such a safe first sermon was simply to win approval. Expecting a bait and switch, they returned the next week, to see the fireworks. Following Graham's advice, I chose another passage of Scripture and attempted another creative presentation of the same message - God's love demonstrated in Jesus. After a few more weeks of such sermons, I was greeted by the husband upon his leaving the sanctuary. He had brought a Bible that Sunday, and as he left he waved it in front of my face and questioned "You really believe this stuff, don't you?". "Yes. I do" was all I could respond.

That began several months that he and I debated the reliability of Scripture, the existence of God and the person and work of Jesus Christ. He had been on his guard for a frontal attack by me against his sexism and racism. It hadn't occurred to him, that as a Christian with a pulpit, I might challenge his faith in Jesus as Son, Savior and Lord. With that guard down, the Holy Spirit was able to stir up within him a hunger for God's righteousness. Today, he is a trained Lay Speaker.

I am undeniably female and unapologetically Black, but what matters most, is that I am unashamedly Christian. It is not my vocation to be a spokesperson for women's rights. For some people my race or gender will prevent them from prayerfully seeking that God might use me as His witness. They expect me to be an expert in issues of feminism or racism. If I am not focused on the faith, their distraction can become my distraction. Instead of offering Christ, I can get lost fighting for rights, proving points and citing scriptures out of context. So I've not been what some thought I should be. I pray I have in some way offered a hint that God is interested more in individuals rather than issues.

I still believe that it was not a coincidence that my grandmother was an ordained Baptist preacher. Nor that I was baptized by a woman and ordained by a woman. I consider these God-incidences, a confirmation that I am hearing God's call for my life. I didn't want to be a preacher. But like Jeremiah, God's story can't stay locked inside me. I want the life I live to cause people to seek to know more about my hope than my heritage; more about my God than my gender.

I have the responsibility to tell the story of how God demonstrates an incessant agility to meet people at the point of our deepest need. My understanding of this task originates with the biblical narrative, which reveals a culturally relevant, socially active vocation of the people of God to tell the story of God's involvement in human history. This divine intrusion is not simply to right wrongs, whether they be injustice, poverty or immorality. Rather it is God's demonstration of eternal love that restores the brokenness of the fall by giving us the grace to live holy lives that reflect our birthmark-Made in the Image of God. In the building of this spiritual awareness, I recognize that I am not doing things for God, but in my very being, I am exercising an ability to respond to God's invitation to join His-story.


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