Ministry anniversaries: baptism and ordination!

Today I celebrated the fifth anniversary of my ordination, and the 33rd anniversary of my baptism (yes, same day!). I wrote the following for our church newsletter in honor of the occasion.

“But we have this treasure in clay jars…” (2 Cor. 4:7)

            On August 28, 2016, I celebrated (with all of you!) the fifth anniversary of my ordination. This day is extra special to me, because on it I also celebrated the 33^rd anniversary of my baptism! The significance of this correlation is not lost of me; I have always found it immensely meaningful. And so, on this fifth anniversary of this event, I wanted to reflect a bit on that with you.

Me with Pastor Dad

            My dad preached at my ordination – one of the special gifts of having a pastor dad! He has preached the gospel to me my whole life, and it seemed only right that he would do so on this special day as well. The sermon focused especially on the epistle lesson for the day: Paul’s metaphor of God’s people as clay jars. After describing the beauty of the gospel in which God shines light into the darkness through Jesus Christ, Paul adds, “But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us.” There was one moment in particular from that sermon that still sticks with me, drawing on a line just before this metaphor: “’We do not lose heart,’” Pastor Johnson said. “Yes, I’m here to tell you that’s a part of the challenge. [Paul] goes on to recite some of the realities of ministry—and really, the realities of the Christian life: affliction, perplexity, persecution. That’s what Johanna has signed up for, you know. She signed up for a life that sometimes makes one lose heart.” As he spoke these words, I could feel a pit in my stomach. Dad, what you are doing? I thought. This is supposed to be a joyous day! Why are you freaking me out? I thought about the moving truck already making its way across the country with all my earthly belongings, and the two churches in western New York who had called this wet-behind-the-ears young woman to lead them, and started to wonder if maybe this was all a mistake.

            But then he went on. “Yes, that’s what she signed up for—twenty-eight years ago, when she was baptized!” And a larger picture became beautifully clear. He was right: my call to ministry had come long before what I told my candidacy committee (which was that I had received said call while serving as a missionary in Slovakia). It came that Sunday morning at Clovis United Methodist

Baptism day, Grandpa Dick, Mom, Dad, and baby Johanna

Church, on August 28, 1983, on which my Grandpa Dick poured water over my head and said I was baptized in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit – that moment in which I was named and claimed by God as God’s daughter, in which I was given the gifts for ministry. It was not until 20-some years later that I realized those gifts for ministry included the gifts for the particular ministry of Word and Sacrament.

            I have held onto that these five years of serving as your pastor. I have held onto the deeply held belief that each of us is immensely gifted for different sorts of ministry, each so important. I have held onto the knowledge that pastors are not “set above” anyone else, so much as “set apart” for the particular ministry to which they are called. And I have been grateful to see the ways you bunch of baptized ministers have shown me this truth over and over.

            Perhaps most of all, I have held onto it each time I am reminded of my clay pot-ness: the brokenness and vulnerability that I share with every other human being on earth. Another quote from that ordination sermon: “[Being a clay pot] means, of course, that we human beings are weak and frail, subject to being broken, chipped, cracked. We aren’t even called ‘fine china’—just earthen vessels, nothing too attractive, nothing too special, just ordinary people with ordinary talents and ordinary longings and ordinary pains and troubles. That doesn’t change when you are ordained. We are, all of us, clay pots.”

            As a pastor stands to make her ordination vows, she offers the same answer to each of four questions: “I will, and I ask God to help me.” This has been my prayer each day I have served you: God, help me fulfill the hopes and expectations of this strange and wondrous calling. God, help me be the servant you have equipped. God, help me to love when it is hard to love, help me to hear your Word when the sounds of the world are so loud, help me to see Christ in all people. I will do my best to fulfill this calling, and I ask you, God, to help me.”

"I will and I ask God to help me."

            May this be the prayer of every minister of God, every baptized believer, every called member of the Body of Christ. I know it will continue to be mine, as I walk further along this remarkable road of ordained ministry. Thank you for accompanying me this far, and thank God for you!

                                                                                    God’s baptized child,

                                                                                    Pastor Johanna