Sermon for September 29

So…

Have you ever felt like, perhaps, you weren’t really ready to be a leader?

I remember way back in Junior High offering to run for my homeroom’s president, way back when they did thinks like that. Our student senate had an elected representative from each homeroom.

I lost. The vote was 25-1. I’m the only one who voted for me. Then I got asked to run for Senior Patrol leader in my troop. I lost that vote too, but got asked to serve as the SPL’s assistant.

Have you ever felt like, perhaps, you weren’t really ready to be a leader?

It’s the time of year when the congregation’s Nominating Committee starts looking at our officers, that is Elders and Deacons, and tries to figure out who they think God may be calling into service for the next three years.

Let’s be clear. Being on the Nominating Committee is a hard job! Because many of us have no time, no energy, no particular experience that would make us good choices. And at least some of us don’t want to be leaders.

Plus, many of us have no idea what an elder does, nor what a deacon does in this particular congregation. Many of us think that the folks who are officers, ordained to be so, must be super spiritual, or super talented, or have strange and exotic spiritual gifts, like showing up to meetings.

Or maybe they are just nuts!

Elders oversee the church. They think and dream about the future, about what God might like this congregation to be doing over the next year, five years, twenty years, and they deal with the nuts and bolts of running an institution with electric bills, insurance, and staff.

It’s a mixture of pragmatic, who shovels the snow and who preaches and prays. They consider salaries and how often to celebrate communion. They think about whether we should do four Christmas Eve services, so everyone can celebrate the birth of Christ, and they if we can get a concrete sidewalk in before winter.

Yes, they are mature members of the congregation, often who bring rich personal experiences into the conversation. Yes, they are also folks who believe deeply in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.

But they are also folks who though massively busy, are willing to sacrifice their energy, intelligence, imagination and love, to make this community of faith the most faithful it can be!

And our Deacons are similar, except in one regard. Instead of looking out for the spiritual and temporal work of the church, they are focused on the needs of the neediest among us.

They make Thanksgiving baskets, some sixty last year, and purchase, assemble, and deliver backpack food supplies for 20 children each month, a total of 80 plus bags with two breakfasts and two lunches for the weekend in each one.

They honor our Senior church folks with two legacy lunches each year, they run a hospital supply closet, they manage a food pantry that is now feeding almost 30 families a month. They hustle, and pray, and help, and care!

To be an officer requires time. It requires energy. It can be challenging to work with a Session of nine Elders and a board of 13 Deacons. So, if you can’t do the time, the energy, intelligence, imagination, or love, don’t!

You certainly don’t want to be wasting other people’s energy, intelligence, imagination, and love by not being there and not doing your part!

But…

If you see a burning bush that is not consumed, be aware!

God may be calling you!

You get to choose whether to answer, whether to approach, but as God reminded Moses, be aware of the ground upon which you are walking – because this ground and that ground, all of it, is God’s!

And lest you think perhaps that you have a pre-condition that disqualifies you from leadership, remember God called Moses.

Yep, he certainly was a hero of the Old Testament.

An adopted son of Pharaoh, an Israelite, for sure.

But Moses was also a murderer who ran from the law and hid in Midian tending sheep until God’s theophany, a burning bush, caught his eye.

By all accounts Moses should have been disqualified. But God doesn’t work in human ways. God chooses whom God chooses, even the likes of you and I.

And God called. And Moses response, well, was a bit wishy-washy?

Who Am I, he said?

Who am I to be doing any of this stuff you are telling me I am supposed to do, or am going to do?

As in, going and telling Pharaoh to let your people go! Not only is Pharaoh going to laugh me out of Egypt, but so are the Israelites, your people.

I got nothing, he said.

Or so Moses thought. Just like a lot of us think.

We got nothing. But God has always been in the business of using quite unlikely characters, with quite unusual ideas to do God’s work.

Several years ago, Briana Moore, now Briana Moore Sudarto, was on the Board of Deacons, having been elected a few years earlier as a Youth Deacon, and then had come back as a young adult.

She suggested the idea of a 5K to raise money for back then, the Building Fund. All the Deacons who were there back then will tell you that they thought she was nuts. They were polite about it, but since none of them were interested in running 5K couldn’t imagine who would. But Briana could. She ran, and she had lots of friends her age who ran, and they would come to a 5K, more than they would come to anything else.

And so, our Deacon’s, believing in two of our congregation’s values, “No Rules Church”, and “We can try anything once” said a reluctant yes.

Who could have imagined that this past Deacon’s 5K would raise $5500 for the Ronald McDonald House, the charity that housed Briana and Steve and family in both Albany and Pittsburgh while Liliana was cared for, and has done so for countess others, all because one person said yes to serving?

Not everyone can lead. Even Moses believed he couldn’t lead.

Moses tried that one, told God he couldn’t, even said “Who Am I to lead”, to which God responded that Moses wasn’t going to lead by himself, that God if fact was coming along too.

So…

Maybe you are feeling that, perhaps, you aren’t ready to be a leader?

Ok. Lord, cue the burning bush!

Amen!