One of the most effective pastors I know was talking recently about the day she answered God’s call to ministry. It was near the end of the summer, 20-some years ago, after one of those long, classic “Oh-no-not-me-Lord” struggles. On the morning in question, she left the San Juan Island camp where she worked to take her day off in town. There were plenty of friends to wave her off. Counselor of the year, blonde and high-energy, she was the kind of person whose absence produced a noticeable drop in the camp’s fun-factor.
On this particular afternoon, she proceeded to a lovely little jewelry store on the resort side of town, purchased a plain silver band and took it to a chapel at the edge of the Pacific. After long moments of seeking God in prayer, she placed the ring on her own finger and made her vow. Sunlight fell through the stained glass, purple against her skin. A sense of fullness welled up. Leaving the chapel, she stood for a moment looking out across the sea. After a quiet supper, she returned to the camp, the glow of the afternoon still on her face.
Immediately, things began to go wrong. Her cabin had been involved in a fight. A petty jealousy that had been simmering between counselors blew up. Her friends stopped talking to her. One of her girls was expelled. The camp mascot was hit by a car. The young man on the kitchen crew who had been so attentive was seen walking in the moonlight with someone else.
After just two weeks of wearing that silver band – the silver band that had seemed so luminous when she first put it on her finger, the sliver band that she’d intended to wear always as a reminder of her vow, the silver ring that was supposed to be a sign to her and to the world of her faithfulness – she took it off. It was the middle of the afternoon. She was swimming with the two friends she had left in the world. She threw it as far as she could, she said, in the general direction of Japan and watched it splash. “Nobody,” my friend said with a chuckle as she finished the story, “nobody calls herself.”
Nobody calls herself to ministry. Nobody calls himself to faith. Not only is two weeks pretty much the record for running the race Hebrews 11 describes under your own steam, but most of us would have to admit that, left on our own, we’d still be looking for the starting gate. Nobody takes off after Jesus’ disappearing back and follows him through the gullies, along the ridge lines and across the fields of life by themselves. It takes much more than that. The writer of the book of Hebrews has a picturesque way of putting it: It takes a cloud.
It takes a cloud. It takes a village. It takes, heaven help us Presbyterians, a committee.
It takes the grace of God working through what the wonderful old preacher, Carlyle Marney, called “the balcony people” of your life. It takes the Aunt Bettys and the Uncle Jacks of your life — everyone who has ever cheered you on. It takes youth pastors and that young woman you heard preach once when you were 11. It takes parents and professors and countless grandmothers. None of us hear and answer God’s call on our own. Not the saints who answer the roll when it was called up yonder and not those of us who answer it here below. Let us give thanks for the spiritual giants and sweethearts and cheerleaders of our spiritual lives. And let us strive to be them.
JANA CHILDERS is dean and vice president for academic affairs at San Francisco Theological Seminary.
