Hebrews 12:1-2
Deuteronomy 26:1-11
“Staying On Course”
Preached Friday, June 14, 2024 at East Ohio Annual Conference
I had a preaching professor in seminary who told us that every preacher really only has one or two sermons inside of them. While sometimes we may pull something out of left field, most of the time, we preach a re-iteration of our core sermons, that is the Good News, The Gospel, that the Spirit has given us and thus laid the foundation of all we are called to preach.
This morning I know I am speaking to a room of preachers and people who have heard a lot of sermons. So I am just going to go ahead and show my hand to you, telling you what my one sermon is that I will be preaching a reiteration of this morning.
The Good News that I proclaim when I preach is this: You are a beloved child of God. Everyone born is a beloved child of God. God loves you and me and us so much that there is no power in all of creation that can separate us from that love. God loves you and me and us so much that God took on flesh, coming to us as Emmanuel, God-With-Us, Jesus, and has redeemed us and plans to redeem all of creation until we are all drawn into God’s Love and all shall be well, all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.
Or - put even more simply, the Good News I proclaim when I preach is simply this: You are Loved.
Now here’s the catch: While nothing can separate us from the Love of God, we can forget our core identities as God’s beloved children. It is too easy to get distracted, to get lost, to stray off the course of living out our lives as God’s beloved.
For me, my job, and my position as a clergyperson, actually is my biggest temptation to lose sight of God’s love for me. Let me explain and maybe you will relate.
When I was asked to preach at Annual Conference, I went straight to our theme Scripture to see where my brain would take me: Our theme Scripture for this Annual Conference is Isaiah 40:31: “but those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”
I am not a runner but the thought of running and not growing weary, of walking and not growing faint, makes me think of a race and thus my brain automatically went to Hebrews 12: “let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us.”
And so I asked myself: What is the race that I am called to run and not grow weary (or to walk and not get faint - 26 weeks pregnant or not, as I said, I’m no runner)... and where did my mind automatically take me? Straight to my job as a clergyperson. I always say ministry is a marathon for me. I am 32 years old. I have been in full-time ministry since I was commissioned as a provisional elder at 25. Unless God does something radical in my life, this is the calling I have discerned and hope to follow for the next 30 or more years.
And let me tell you - doesn’t that sound exhausting? Just saying that, thinking about the next 30 some years of my life as a clergyperson, can actually make me feel weary and faint. If you’re a clergyperson in this room, any status, any position, any length of time you’ve been doing ministry, if you have felt weary or faint in your time of service - can you give me an “Amen”? Yupp. Heard a chorus around the room.
The statistics on clergy burnout, which have been a topic of discussion, for certainly the last 4 years if not longer, are staggering and truthful. All the following statistics are from the Barna Group’s Resilient Pastor Report, 2022:
Pastor’s overall well-being, including spiritual, physical, mental and emotional health, from 2015 to 2017, all dropped:
- “Spiritual well-being dropped from 37% to 14%
- Physical well-being fell from 24% to 9%
- Mental and emotional health plummeted from 39% to 11%
- Overall quality of life dipped from 42% to 18%”
- From 2015 to 2022, Pastor burnout has increased from 11% to 40% - that’s a 400% increase.
- And it’s important to say that the statistics are not the same across the board: clergy under 45 and women have higher rates of burnout and dissatisfaction. More young and female clergy are considering leaving ministry than their older and male counterparts.
Friends, fellow beloved children of God, alarm bells should be going off around us. If we are paying attention, we certainly can see how we are living out these statistics every day, in our churches, Conference, and lives. I do see on our Annual Conference schedule we have two learning sessions with the Rev. Dr. Ronald Bell entitled “Wholeness, Well-Being, & Resilience.” I am hopeful that these sessions will speak into our weariness, our exhaustion, and our burnout and offer solutions for being able to continue to live out our callings in healthy, life-giving, and God-serving ways. I will say that the solutions need to be at every level: individual and systemic within our churches, Conference, the wider UMC, and our culture as a whole.
Because I do recognize that not every person I am talking to in this room is a clergyperson. Thank you for listening to me - hopefully with open ears and hearts as you consider your home churches and pastors and their well-being. And, I also want to speak into the marathons you may feel weary and faint from running.
Our wider capitalistic culture is one that falls into the sinful trap of the Protestant Work Ethic. Clergy and laity alike are susceptible to this way of life that is not life-giving and not rooted in the Gospel. Our capitalistic culture of the Protestant Work Ethic tells us our value comes from what we produce. And not produce as in Fruit of the Spirit but produce in terms of economical gain, of blood, sweat, and tears poured into the cog of the economy, how much we grind, how much and how well we run the rat race. This can be applicable in any profession and stage of life. How many hours we work, how many meetings we have, how much we earn, how far we advance, what our supervisors or evaluations say about us… And that also all translates to the house we live in, the cars we drive, how many children we have and how they behave, how many and how luxurious of vacations we can take, whether we can afford the fancy lattes, etc., etc.. It can also be related to our extra-curricular or even church duties and volunteerism as Christians. Many of you in this room are pouring so much into keeping your churches running…and do you ever find yourself fixating on the numbers instead of the fruit? How many people came to that program? What were last week’s giving numbers? Is the church lawn mowed up to par? It’s all related.
And so I asked clergy who have felt weary or faint to say “Amen” - now can anyone in this room who is weary and faint from running the race of the Protestant Work Ethic say “Amen”? Let that response speak for itself. We are tired.
And that’s because we’re running the wrong race. We are on the wrong course entirely.
I said that my job as a clergyperson is my biggest temptation that makes me lose sight of God’s love for me. And this is what I meant by that. When I hear the Scriptures about running and not growing weary, walking and not growing faint, and running the race with perseverance - if that race that I am running is one based on my job, what I produce in a capitalistic culture, then I will grow weary, I will grow faint, and I will not persevere. It doesn’t matter what the job is - church work or non-profit work or accounting work or healthcare work or raising children work or or or or or…
Instead I need to listen to myself preach my core sermon that I reiterate again and again: You are a beloved child of God. Everyone born is a beloved child of God. God loves you and me and us so much that there is no power in all of creation that can separate us from that love. God loves you and me and us so much that God took on flesh, coming to us as Emmanuel, God-With-Us, Jesus, and has redeemed us and plans to redeem all of creation until we are all drawn into God’s Love and all shall be well, all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.
Or, put more simply: the course that we are called to run our races on - it is the course of Love. The race, the marathon, the course that we are all called to run - or walk - is one of living our whole lives centered in Love. Centered in our identities as beloved children of God. Centered in living out the greatest commandments to love God and to love neighbor as self. When we forget this, when we lose sight, when the rat race tempts us to run it instead - we go off course and lose sight of what really matters.
It’s kind of like when our Bishop says that we need to keep the main thing the the main thing, but the main thing isn’t our job titles, or how many hours we serve the church, or even the work we do - the main thing is our identities as beloved children of God.
So how can we stay on course? How can we keep ourselves centered in our God-given identities in a world that has so many tempting and demanding off-ramps to other courses that aren’t Love?
Which brings to me our text from Deuteronomy this morning…and, before that, the Disney movie Moana.
As I was preparing for my Board of Ministry interviews for my ordination, I could not stop listening to the Moana soundtrack. I even jokingly told someone that if I was asked which Biblical person I most relate to, I would answer: Moana. Because her story is one that reminds us of the importance of remembering who you are, keeping centered in our identities. Which, for us as Christians, is that of beloved children of God.
For those who don’t know the basic plot of Moana: Moana is the daughter of the village chief who has always dreamed of leaving her island - something they don’t do. But the Ocean chooses her to take a journey that will restore harmony to the land and health to her island…a journey that not only saves her community but one that is a journey of self discovery too. And there comes a scene in the movie where she is defeated, she has lost her purpose, and she doesn’t know who she is anymore, what to do, where to go...and it is in this scene that she is reminded of who she is.
The ghost of her grandmother appears to her and starts to remind her who she is:
“I know a girl from an island
She stands apart from the crowd
She loves the sea and her people
She makes her whole family proud.”
She sings, “Moana, listen, do you know who you are?”
And then Moana begins to sing her own story:
“Who am I?
I am the girl who loves my island
I'm the girl who loves the sea
It calls me…”
She sings - cause it’s Disney - but she is really telling herself her story. Through reciting her story, she is reminded not only of the facts but who she is at her core - the type of person she is, what she is capable of, what her purpose is. She is re-centered, re-invigorated, and re-empowered to be the person she was called to be. She is back on the right course.
In the words of Moana, “so come what may, I know the way!” Amidst the competing narratives trying to tell us who we are, the demands of our productivity and output, the temptation of the rat race - if we know who we are, if we know our story, we then know who we are, we know Who’s we are, and we know the way. We know the course of Love that we are called to stay on.
And this was a vitally important message, not just in the movie Moana but in the book of Deuteronomy: that the Israelities remember their story. The commandment to remember their story is given over 30 times in this book. It is the drumbeat keeping the rhythm throughout the book. Over and over again, the Biblical writers say don’t forget your story! Don’t forget where you came from! Don’t forget what God has done for us. Don’t forget who you are.
So, what is the story of the Israelites, the story they can’t forget as presented in Deuteronomy?
That story begins: my ancestor was a wandering Aramean. This refers to Jacob - you know Jacob, son of Isaac and Rebekah, brother of Esau, Jacob who stole his brother’s birthright, who married Leah and Rachel, who wrestled with God, that Jacob. And it refers to him as a destitute vagrant, a wandering Aramean, because it was him and his family that took refuge in Egypt, and then as a people in Egypt, being afflicted in to slavery, and then being led out of slavery, to wander in the desert, and finally come to the promised land. The story they are commanded to remember and to retell over 30 times in the book of Deuteronomy, it is the story of who their ancestors are. It is a story of hardship, trial, and tribulation. And it is also a story of the goodness and greatness of God and the fulfillment of God’s promises. This is the story they were commanded not to forget. And not only were they commanded not to forget it, but they were to recite it yearly in the temple, giving an offering, a tithe to the Lord - and then, this tithe wasn’t kept by the temple, no, it was used to throw a great feast for all, for those who brought the offerings and those who didn’t have anything to bring: the destitute, the widow, the orphan - all feasting together at the table. When they remembered their story, it connected them to the generous heart of God. Their story reminded them that they belonged to God and God was good to them. Their story reminded them that it was only by the grace of God that they had been saved. And so, from knowing their story, through letting it be the drumbeat, that led them through their lives, their story overflowed in their actions of generosity as they gave their first fruits to a joyous feast. Their story kept them on the course of Love - for themselves and for their whole community.
Friends, fellow beloved children of God, what story are you telling yourselves to keep yourselves and your whole communities, on the course of Love?
One of the stories I tell myself is that I am a person of three covenants, and they go in this order:
My first covenant was made in my Baptism, that I am a beloved child of God, claimed by and for Love. And that is the number one thing in my life that matters. Am I living in God’s Love? Am I staying on the course of Love? Am I loving God and neighbor as self? Everything else pales in comparison to the importance of this covenant and how it shapes my identity. How it is my identity.
My second covenant was made in my marriage - to my husband, my children, and family. That together we are living in love that reflects God’s love. That I am making them and their well-being and our relationships together a priority that we may continue to grow in Love.
And lastly is my third covenant, that was made in my ordination. But regardless of your clergy status or your secular job, this may apply to you too. Yes, my commitment to serve God’s church is extremely important. It is one of the three major covenants, the stories I tell myself that shape my life and keep me on track, but it’s third…and down here below the others. Because of the complicated ways it’s tied to people’s opinions and demands of me that aren’t God’s opinions and demands of me. Too often I have seen people sacrifice their first two covenants for the benefit of the third - wandering off God’s course of Love for them.
So again, friends, fellow beloved children of God, what story are you telling yourselves to keep yourselves and your whole communities, on the course of Love?
Maybe like me it is a story of three covenants, or perhaps you shape your story in a different way. However you tell your story to yourself, to your community, and to God - tell it in such a way that it centers your identity as a beloved child of God. That God loves you SO much that no power in all creation can separate you from that Love. That YOU, yes, you, are a beloved child of God and nothing, not even the times you wander off course, are going to change that.
And so my closing blessing for you is this: May you run and not grow weary. May you walk and not grow faint. May you run the race with perseverance. May you stay on the course of Love and always find your way back to it when you wander. May you know that you are a Beloved Child of God.
Amen.
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