August 3, 2008

Called

by Julianne Stosktad

Note: This is the sermon Pastor Julianne preached after announcing that she will be leaving FCCSR at the end of October to begin training as a Jail Chaplain. Click here to read the letter of resignation she sent to the church.

The Moses story is one of my all time favorite Bible stories for a number of reasons. I love his curiosity: he saw the bush glowing with a fire that was greater than of this world and he turned to look at it. God noticed him and called from the fire. Moses is very reluctant to accept this call. He gives all kinds of complaints and excuses. He doesn't know how he can do it, and nevertheless he answered the call and went on to become the greatest leader of the Jews, leading them from slavery and oppression into freedom. Indeed, his journey is a metaphor for our human journey. No matter how privileged we think we are, we are all oppressed in different ways. We are all slaves locked up by different fears, by different prejudices, by different things. So Moses' story is the story for each one of us.

Today I want to focus on his mysterious call. His call is like my mysterious call to become a minister of the marginalized. I hope you can begin to understand this. Call is a very strange thing. I went to seminary fifteen years ago simply to grow closer to God, to be with people who were also seekers. I fully intended to remain a teacher, but I found myself called into the church to be a parish minister. I struggled deeply with this call. What was it? Was it real? I went into therapy for a whole year with a very sweet nun who kept laughing at me because she could see I was so deeply called by God into a new life. but I couldn't see it. I kept making up excuses. Finally one day, I realized that it was in the answering of this call that I would be more fully alive. It felt like a leaping off a cliff into an unknown. And I had to trust that God was with me and God was calling me in this way. I have not ever doubted that call or looked back with regrets.

I am a little wiser now and have struggled only half a year with the counsel of wise ones who understand the mysterious nature of God's call. Once again, I trust this call to jail ministry is God's call. From my experience calls come in most unlikely ways. Yet in this call, we always have choice to accept or not. One is never forced but rather invited into something new, something mysterious, something of greater vitality and life. God respects our freedom. For me the call is where I see the burning bush; the passion, the fire drawing me towards it light a moth to a flame. This fire ignites something within my soul that is reflected back and forth, magnified through me somehow. Call always involves trust and a leap of a not knowing, a surrender of my will to a larger stronger will. For me a strong independent woman who likes to understand and to be in charge, it is not easy to leave the known, the comfortable, the safety and love of this place. I know it's a shock for you to receive my resignation letter telling of my call to go into marginalized ministries. It's not your choice, and that makes it much harder. I hope you can come to understand and accept my response to this very strong call.

For nearly a year now, I have been going to the San Francisco County jail each week to teach spirituality classes. I take BART into the city. I walk down Seventh Street which is a little scary and smelly. I go into the jail with all it security and locks and I teach, first a class for the men and then a second class to women. Both groups are dual and triple diagnosed, which means that they all suffer mental illnesses and are all addicted to at least one - - many of them two different substances. In the jail, they're in a special community, because this population cannot be integrated into the normal prison population.

Each week, I am very surprised by the powerful presence of God I see. I have not been hiding my experiences from you. I have written about them in the "Whirling Dervish" meditations. I have preached about them. This July we even had a worship service modeled on my jail classes. I've been sharing my call all along with you. Perhaps you like me can now say with the twenty-twenty wisdom of hindsight, "Oh, I saw it, but just didn't know what that was."

And so when I finally understood what I experienced in the jail as a call, I wrestled deeply with what to do with this call. Was it possible for me to continue as Pastor here and do jail ministry? I realized that I couldn't do both, because I'm not that young and I wouldn't want to short change you. So I had to make a very hard, a very painful choice. But I hope you understand, it's a choice for Life. It's a choice of trusting God, and it's indeed a huge leap of faith and truly the fruit of the spirit of mission present in this church.

You--you are the community that built Pilgrim Park, with an holy inspiration to give the majority of your church land to affordable housing project. And recently to refurbish the place, build a community center that is so beautiful. At yesterday's picnic, the children of Pilgrim Park once again brought tears to my eyes. They are a beautiful rainbow: of every color, from so many different countries, all playing together, so happy. I spoke to a Muslim woman and we spoke about our common prayer for peace, and how both of us prayed the world could have what people have in Pilgrim Park, a safe, beautiful garden to live in together with people from all over the world. You, you had that vision and you made it happen, right here. Don't take it for granted; that's extraordinary.

You-you, this little church--have the amazing energy to support a project, feeding hungry children in Mexico. For ten years now, you have raised $45,000 a year. You have been doing this for ten years. Some of us have just returned from a Mission trip to Cuernavaca visiting the projects we support. What an amazing empowered Spirit is found here. Everybody doesn't have to agree with everything but we can all agree that it is a great opening of our hearts to support such an effort. Nobody wants any child in this whole world to suffer or be hungry and here we are working concretely to help.

How amazing: feeding hungry children, affordable housing, serving the poor. This spirit has awakened in me and burned with a passion I'm kind of surprised about in my heart. It's like I got curious and I went closer to the burning bush of mission and I am amazed at how truly I am changed . This is holy ground, this call. I hope you see how it's from you.

Another beautiful flower that I've seen in this place in the last week is your council. You can rely on their wisdom and their strength. We have worked together to see how we can best do the transition. I want you to know that you can go to any of them and talk about whatever it is that's on your heart and that together--with the pastor and the council and the Pastor Relations Committee, the leadership is here for this time and beyond. What I saw, in the way the council came together was their deep love for this church, the abiding passion, was that I saw the very best flowering of what UCC can and is meant to be. Everyone is concerned about the best for the church. I have met twice with the Council and their blessing is coming forth already. I want to say clearly there's absolutely nothing wrong in this church. I'm not mad at anyone or anything. In fact, my love and appreciation for this community is much stronger than ever. There are no hidden problems. I hope you realize how very strong and very clear is your spirit, here on the hill. I hope you know that. If you haven't understood that yet, look at your reflection alive in me.

So, lastly, I'm going to ask you for one more big important gift. And that is that we all commit to praying for each other, even more strongly in this time of transition. Every day, on and on. When we pray, we're bringing God, the Spirit, Jesus, we're calling this force into our midst. When we connect with God and with each other through prayer we are most powerfully bringing the power of love here. I know it sounds really hokey, but I want you to know that all the people I have ever prayed for or prayed with are an absolute part of me. When we pray, that part, I can't explain how, maybe someday in the great hereafter, we'll all, go, "Oh, that was how!" When we pray, we really become one; we become the body of Christ. I hope that you realize that this is a very profound consolation. It is what Jesus was talking about at the Last Supper. He was talking about how we can be connected forever, with our love and our prayer to each other, to Him and to God. And we, slow of mind, lead-footed, clay-vesseled people, only get tiny glimpses of the glory of which he spoke. The promises of our unity, the promises of that powerful sustaining love is here, though we can see only dimly now. Let us trust a little more in this church, as we pray ourselves through these next months. Because I know the blessings that we cannot see are around us. And afterwards I'll have a brief time for questions, in case someone has some questions that I haven't clarified.

Question: Would you mind telling me what the title of one of your lectures in jail is like?

Answer: A title, no. I think the biggest, strongest thing I want to tell them every week is that God's grace is there for them. The most amazing love is shined upon them but that their job is that they have to open their hands and receive it. When receive it then they are changed and have to make changes in their lives. Every week, I tell them the same thing. They look at me blankly and every week, I keep telling them that. But you know I could tell all of you that too. When anyone really receives that love, they are forever changed.

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