I recently had the privilege of charging a congregation at the installation of their new pastor. Since it was Advent, it shaped my own reflections on the impact of the story on our ministry. I share it with you as I leave for a few days to be with my daughter for Christmas.
It is a wonderful moment in a congregation’s life and in a pastor’s life when they begin their journey together.
It’s especially exciting when this happens during the Advent season.
Advent is a time of expectation – full of hope.
I have been asked to charge this congregation at this time of the installation of your new pastor. Here is my charge.
I charge Springwood Church to help redeem Salem Presbytery and the Presbyterian Church – and while you are at it why not revitalize the world wide Body of Christ.
If you think I’m crazy to suggest such a thing, and you are inclined to be cynical that anything so earthshaking could begin here, let me remind you of that ancient cynic who said, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”
And if you are about to respond, but that was about Jesus, I would remind you that you are the Body of Christ.
Like that teenage girl named Mary so long ago, you too are invited to bear the word of God to a hurting world.
It might as well begin here, even as it began there on that hillside in far away Galilee.
Think of how our faith contradicts the common cynicism of our world.
In a world run by men, God spoke to a woman.
In a world that bowed to men of power like Ceasar Augustus, God entered the world in the form of a fragile baby.
In a world that always reports the headlines of what is happening in the major metropolitan centers, that which really changed the world happened in an almost forgotten village in a 3rd rate colony in an out of the way corner of the mighty Roman empire.
Wiki Leaks may report on the conversations of the powerful but it was some lowly shepherds in the middle of the night who heard and proclaimed God’s truth in the world.
Only God knows what may be beginning this night at Springwood church that can bring healing and hope to our world.
And while you wait in expectation this Advent season, commit yourself to care for the pastor that God has sent to you.
Protect her against herself and her tendency to overwork.
Plead with her to take time to breathe in God’s spirit so that she might be the vehicle of that spirit for this congregation.
Expect to be challenged and even uncomfortable at times when she brings you God’s word.
And when things don’t go smoothly, join with her in listening for the presence of God. After all, things weren’t going right when they crucified Jesus, but God spoke truth in those troubled times that redeemed the world.
Let God’s word of redemption begin here.
In the words of that great theologian Luc Picard of the Starship Enterprise, “Make it so.”
