Isaiah 53:6-13; Roman 8:22-27; Matthew 5:1-12
Called to be a pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada - a missional, prophetic, and diaconal church. Called to be a minister of Word and Sacrament. Called to speak the truth God has given us to speak and to share the means of grace God has given us to share.
Each pastor who is here today will have a different description of what a pastor should do, as will each person here who isn't a pastor. The tasks listed in the ordination service are lengthy and aspirational, something to inspire us, not components of a checklist to follow. Pastoring is about discerning what is needed by the people we serve while holding fast to the core of the office. Not an easy balance.
To start, however, we look to Jesus and to what we see him doing and saying in Scripture. And what we see in today's Gospel reading is that Jesus is speaking words of blessing that are simultaneously words of... well... woe. "Blessed are those who..." followed in the Gospel of Luke with "woe to those who..." Now I know we aren't looking at the Gospel of Luke this morning - we have chosen to go with Matthew, but we can't overlook that these words of Jesus, like all his words, like Jesus himself, evoke hope for some and invoke fear in others. Jesus, like his mother before him, was given the word of God to proclaim that God acts for the wellbeing of the downtrodden and the powerless, which means overturning the oppressor and the powerful. Jesus speaks these words as a prophet, he speaks God's words, on this occasion not privately to a few friends in a closed room, but publicly, in a crowd, where all can hear. This is one of the core things pastors are called to do. To speak God's truth publicly, whether that truth comforts the afflicted or afflicts the comfortable, as the saying goes, not in private to our friends, but to the community at large.
It is no easy task. Being a pastor is challenging, especially today. The standard trope about comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable is complicated. Especially when we realize that the afflicted and the comfortable exist within the same community, and indeed are even the same people. Most people we encounter whom we consider to be comfortable and powerful are powerless in certain arenas of their lives - we are all captive to the capitalist economy, for example, and in that captivity we are suffering. Likewise, people whom we consider to be afflicted and powerless, they too have power and agency and are quite comfortable in other areas of their life. We all participate in an anthropocentric culture that oppresses our non-human relations, and most of us are quite comfortable living that way. To know who is comfortable so we can speak the words that afflict them and who is afflicted so we can speak the words that comfort them, that takes wisdom very few of us have.
And because the communities whom we serve are complicated and indiscernible mixtures of both comfortable and afflicted, both sinner and saint, pastors must always be prepared, then, that our words will not be heard as we mean them to be - we may mean to afflict and find that our words leave people feeling very comfortable. We may mean to offer comfort and listeners find themselves afflicted.
This, actually, is one of the most humbling things about being a pastor. That we don't have nearly as much power or wisdom or influence over our listeners as we think we do, or as we think we ought to have. Not only are our words heard other than we mean them to be be, but by and large, the world does not actually even care that much about what we have to say. Our words are quickly forgotten, like this sermon might be, or ignored. To be a pastor is to be humbled, over and over again, by our mistakes, by being ignored, by being misinterpreted.
This is not a bad thing. Because humbleness drives us to God, who reaches us in Christ. And this is what we know about God - taught to us by one of God's most important prophets, Isaiah - "For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there until they have watered the earth... so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose and succeed in in the thing for which I sent it." You see, it is not our words that have power, that transform hearts and minds. It is God's words that do that. We are honoured enough to be, but we are only, God’s vessels and God’s mouthpieces. We ground ourselves, we remain open to the Spirit, we pray for guidance, and when God chooses, it is God's words that come forth. It is, in fact, only then that God's words come forth. And when they do, the result is transformation. The result is that God's words afflict where affliction is needed and comfort where comfort is needed, even at the same time. The result is that the Good News, that Christ brings about our reconciliation with one another and with God, comes to pass. The result is that the truth that God speaks through us, the future that God hopes for us, becomes our present reality. The result is that we publicly preach the Word.
But what happens when our own human limitations muffle the Word or get it confused or get lost in translation? Every preacher here has preached at least one sermon that was terrible. Every person here has heard at least one sermon that was truly dreadful. The decision to accept the accept the office of pastor is a decision to accept the responsibility of regular, usually weekly, preaching. There are bound to be failed sermons in there, on more than one occasion. Sermons that go on too long. Sermons that are irrelevant. Sermons that wound. Sermons that accidentally drive a hearer away from God. The burden of the office of preaching is that this can happen unintentionally. But. There is a reason that the call to pastor is a call to the ministry of Word and Sacrament.
The Sacraments - baptism and holy Communion - are the means of grace. They are God's unequivocal embrace of everyone who comes forward, they are God's ultimate reconciliation in the moment in which they are received, and it is impossible for anybody to do them wrong. Seriously. This is the body of Christ given for you. This is the blood of Christ shed for you. You are baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The simplest of words accompanied by the simplest of actions, powered by God. Our readings today don't directly reference the Sacraments but they are the most important of Jesus' actions, and they are grace not just for the recipients but for those who preside. You can give a bad sermon (you will give a bad sermon), but you can’t possibly give bad Communion.
To be a minister of Word and Sacrament, then, is to be challenged to preach the Word faithfully and regularly while also being blessed to administer the Sacraments, to promiscuously and flagrantly share God's grace with all who request it. Here, mistakes are not possible, because in the Sacraments we find God most powerfully and most purely at work. This reality is the pastor's greatest comfort, and her congregants' comfort as well.
To follow Jesus as a pastor and as a minister of Word and Sacrament is to throw ourselves entirely on God's mercy and grace. Yet as Paul reminds us, "the Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know how to pray (or preach) as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes." And so because we have the promise of grace through the Sacraments and the presence of Christ's Spirit in our weakness, we can be bold in accepting the call to be pastor, and give thanks to God for God’s Word and God’s grace given and shared among us. Thanks be to God. Amen.
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