A Season of Sanctification

On August 30th, 2015, I will be ordained as an Elder of Community of Christ (CofC).  The sacrament of ordination will take place at Kirkwood Community of Christ, my home congregation, in which I've been called to the priesthood.  Those who know me will understand that this is a life-changing event for me.  You'll understand why, when I sat at the kitchen table in their home and our pastors told me that I had been called as an Elder, my first response was to cry tears of joyful relief.  At that moment, I felt a release from my fears that, after all the years and determined effort I'd put into earning the education and undergoing the training to be a professional minister, it might not be God's calling for me.

I never had a "burning bush" kind of call story to share in seminary; I had the memory of a progression of decisions.  First, as a sophomore at CofC's Graceland University, I decided I loved religion enough to make it my major and to ultimately structure my professional life around it.  This was a gut-level conviction that happened without input from logical concerns, like what I would ever do for money.   Every step after that - becoming more and more involved in campus ministries, consulting the career advisory department about my options for making money being religious, taking career assessments, learning about chaplaincy, going to seminary in order to become a chaplain - simply seemed to make sense.  There were no prophetic dreams, only a simple, calm conviction that this is a right thing for me to do.

For awhile, I worried that I'd simply called myself to ministry.  That would maybe be a positive example of self-empowerment from the humanist perspective, and I've been pretty darn humanist all along.  But from my perspective now as a baptized and confirmed member of Community of Christ, it's felt wrong.  We're a church that proclaims God's continuing revelation, the belief that God continues to communicate to us, as individuals and as a church, what it is God wants us to be doing.  We believe that all are called, and while all people are empowered to offer ministry in their daily lives, a prophetic call to ordination is what gives a person the authority to be a minister within the religious functions of the church.  We have a lay priesthood structure, meaning that many adult members of any given congregation have been ordained to various offices of the priesthood and serve avocationally, making their money in other careers.  The fact that I've gone to seminary, earned a Master of Divinity, and become a paid minister without the authority of ordination is very unorthodox.  I've worried that I might be wrong to assert myself this way, without the explicit approval of God and the church. 

When I received my calling to the priesthood, I began to know that I am good enough for God, and that God has called me to ministry.  The tears I cried when I was called were cleansing in that way.  Of course, my mind is prone to doubt, and it's not done yet.  But I've come to believe that my best chance at having a peaceful and righteous heart when I receive the sacrament of ordination is to center myself in that "simple, calm conviction" again.

So, beginning today on August 3rd, I'm entering into my very own:

SEASON OF SANCTIFICATION

A Time of Intentional Preparation
for the Sacrament of Ordination

August 3^rd – 30^th, 2015

1.       PRAYER: Pray every day, at 6 AM, 12 PM and 6 PM.[1]

2.       SCRIPTURES: Read the Books of Psalms, Luke & Revelation.

3.       COVENANT: Recommit to keeping the 10 Commandments.[2]

4.    DIET & EXERCISE: Resist sugar; give up soda; walk 30 minutes & drink 100 oz. of water every day.

---

[1] Pray memorized Merton prayer, and an extemporaneous prayer for sustaining strength
and guidance.

[2] Most challenging bits: No lying, envying, taking God’s name in vain (no cursing in general); practice the Sabbath; be careful not to worship anything but God.

To be sanctified is to be made holy, and to be set apart for God's purposes.  In creating a "Season of Sanctification", I wanted to challenge myself to practice new disciplines that would prepare me, both physically and spiritually, to enter into ordained ministry fully focused on God.  Compiling this ambitious list of goals required that I be honest with myself about my sins, and over the next four weeks, I'll be undergoing a prayerful effort to get right with God.

I'll be blogging often in an effort to reflect on and integrate what I learn from the experience.  I welcome your prayers of support.

* * * * *

THE THEO-LOGIC:

Historically, our church, as a part of the Mormon movement, has emphasized sanctification through works.  We've believed that we can get ourselves right with God through hard work towards God's good, both in terms of how we live well in our own bodies and how we promote wellness (health, wisdom, justice, wholeness) throughout God's creation.  There's a lot of strength and conviction in that perspective, and I find it incredibly empowering.  But if we believe that we must successfully  fulfill duties and follow rules in order to be saved by God, then any failure, perceived or actual, could be devastating. This is why grace is such an important counterbalance.  Community of Christ today emphasizes God's grace as a gift given freely to all people, which means that God loves and accepts us even when we "miss the mark".  But sometimes I feel that we've gone a little far in the opposite direction, and are too hesitant to make it clear that we need to make intentional and difficult changes in our behavior, because it's not good enough to keep making mistakes.  God deserves better, and we deserve better.  To be better, we need both works and grace.  We need to try hard to be righteous, and we're reassured that we'll be forgiven if we don't succeed - but then we have to try again.

There Are Ashes on My Face

I'm almost surprised to see that I haven't posted in over a year.  ALMOST surprised, but then I remember that I have very little discipline and not a lot of patience for translating the mental chaos into useful words.  But today seems like a good day to start again! 

It's also a good day to participate in a religious ritual steeped in centuries' worth of meaning and identity.  My denomination (Community of Christ/RLDS/progressive Mormon) doesn't practice this ritual, but that's one of the many beautiful things about being a hospital chaplain - slipping into the chapel for new religious experiences.  

Ash Wednesday.

Or: I have a smudge on my face, and I'm still not sure what it means.

As an avidly pro-death-awareness kinda gal, I dug right into the, "From dust you come, and to dust you will return."  I learned from context clues that's not so exciting a prospect for a lot of the other folks getting smudged (if the ashes were sage rather than palm, we'd have some intriguing interfaith potential here).

All snark aside, the significance of bearing this mark so far, for me, is that I genuinely felt something when the priest, a colleague whom I like very much, made the sign of the cross on my brow.  And when I, as a non-Catholic, brought up the rear for the communion line and received a blessing instead - something like, "May God bless you and protect you" - I felt that, too.  In my own religious context, these experiences are absolutely sacramental.  The fact that I feel a connection with the clergyperson enacting the sacramental encounter, and believe that he meant what he said, adds another layer of oomph.

Additionally, bearing the mark of the ashes today will be significant because, a year and a half after my baptism and confirmation, I still don't claim the Christian identity very easily or very often.  That's largely because I serve a diverse community and need to be pastorally accessible.  But I figure, since I found myself moved to say, "Merry Christmas" to more strangers in this one last holiday season in this hospital than in all the years previous, I want to be intentional about wearing ashes today.

Finally, I've decided to be very intentional about trying to do Lent for realsies this year.  Today, I'm giving up comfort snacking.  I'm sure you can appreciate that hospital chaplains are as likely as nurses or social workers to get emotionally exhausted midday and head to the gift shop for cheap candy (seriously, why is it across the hall from my office and why are Lemonheads $0.20?!), or to the cafeteria for fried food (seriously, WHY do they serve chicken strips and onion rings every single day at a hospital with a dedicated diabetes department?).  So, for 40 days I'm going to resist soda, candy, fried things, and everything else that makes me feel like I have cotton candy-brain.

That starts tomorrow, right?

P.S. Here's an ash selfie I'm too ashamed to post on Facebook after reading Patheos' thoughtful #AshTag article - which really got me thinking about participating this year.