Are You Up for the Job?

Have you heard about the confidential report on several candidates being considered for a pastorate at a local church? Let me share just a few with you:

Noah: Former pastorate of 120 years with not even one convert. Prone to unrealistic building projects.

Moses: A modest and meek man, but a poor communicator, even stuttering at times. Sometimes blows his stack and acts rashly. Some say he left an earlier church over a murder charge.

David: The most promising leader of all until we discovered the affair he had with his neighbor’s wife.

Jonah: Refused God’s call until he was forced to obey by getting swallowed up by a great fish. He told us the fish later spit him out on the shore near here. We hung up.

Peter: Too blue collar. Has a bad temper – even had been known to curse. Aggressive, but a loose cannon.

Paul: Powerful CEO-type leader and fascinating preacher. However, short on tact and has been known to preach all night.

Timothy: Too young!

Methuselah: Too old… WAY too old!

Jesus: Has had popular times, but once his church grew to 5000 he managed to offend them all, and then this church dwindled down to twelve people. Seldom stays in one place very long. And, of course, he’s single! 

This just reminds me never to be too quick to judge! God works through all kinds of people – even people we’d never expect – even people like you and me.

Pastor and scholar Eugene Peterson once wrote, “God, it turns out, does not require good people in order to do good work. As one medieval saying has it, “God draws straight lines with a crooked stick.” He can do work with us, whatever the moral and spiritual condition in which he finds us. God, we realize does some of his best work using the most unlikely people.”

Our prayer today comes out of my tradition’s book of common worship. Let us pray: Eternal God, you call us to ventures of which we cannot see the ending, by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown. Give us faith to go out with courage, not knowing where we go, but only that your hand is leading us and your love supporting us; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.