I am looking forward to being part of a leadership team — hoping to serve the needs of weary United Methodist pastoral leaders of the Texas Annual Conference at a retreat next week in Galveston. (So much has happened over the course of the last five years or so – in our world, our nation, our denomination – to knock the wind out of our clergy. Like the prophet of old, many wonder if “these dry bones can live” – the “dry bones” which are individuals and the fuller body.)
Among the things I will be sharing with retreatants is an invitation for them to remember their “first call” — their first coming to Christ… and the importance of being true to and in that primal, foundational relationship.
You’d think it’s a given – holding onto these “first calls” as we progress into and through our “second calls” of ministry.
Take it from me, though. I know. What Buechner said about the loss of our “original, shimmering selves” can be easily adapted to describe the diminishment and loss of our “first calls” over time – so that…
The original, shimmering “first call” gets buried so deep that most of us end up hardly living out of it at all. Instead we live out all [sorts of other, lesser calls], which we are constantly putting on and taking off like coats and hats against the world’s weather.
It’s true to the Biblical witness.
- There in the Revelation of John (2:1-4), we read words from the Spirit of Jesus…
To the angel of the church in Ephesus write:
I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance… You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary.
Yet, I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first Love.
Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first.
- Elsewhere in John’s Gospel (15:5), we see not just their connection to one another but the primacy (i.e., the foundational nature) of the “first call”:
I am the vine; you are the branches.
If you remain in me and I in you
(there’s the “first call”),
you will bear much fruit
(and, there’s the “second call”)…
apart from me you can do nothing.
In his Maturing in the Christian Life: A Pastor’s Guide, Neill Q. Hamilton laments this “first call” neglect among today’s clergy, writing…
The bitter irony is that Protestant clergy are the least churched members of their churches although they are always in church. The constant offering of the means of grace largely passes them by. It is as though the world’s famous chefs, as a group, suffered from malnutrition bordering on starvation. Clergy must come out of the kitchen and sit at table to be fed like the rest. (p. 138)
Yes, ever before Jesus commanded his followers to “Go and Tell,” he invited them to “Come and See.” It is, in fact, an invitation which is and must be received as new and fresh every day!
