these notes sought to offer a vision of Christian discipleship that would inspire, and even make one glad that God had called one to walk this particular path. Does that seem too pious or idealistic or happy? Perhaps it does, especially if such inspiration overlooks or ignores the messiness of ministry and the challenges of bearing faithful witness to Jesus Christ today. But neither ministry nor theological education, however rigorously undertaken, is a dreary thing. The task is overwhelming and there is plenty of reason to be discouraged, especially when we look at our own resources. Still, in the witness of both Israel and the church there bursts out, unaccountably, the praise of God and the joy of being called into this work. The psalmist is not reluctant to confess just such joy in being glad to come into the house of the Lord. Jesus is not afraid to speak of a joy that cannot be taken away from those who follow him. Paul sings in, among other places, prison. “Why this juice and joy?” as the poet asks. Indeed. That is the underlying question behind all these notes, the question I hoped our students would engage. Unless one sees the vision and can rejoice in it, theological education and the ministry it seeks to support become exceedingly boring things. The God of Jesus Christ, however, is not boring, and neither is theological education that seeks to serve this God by preparing women and men for ministry. It is the intent of these notes to bear witness to this eternally rich and ever surprising God who calls us all to rejoice and be glad in his service.
Although these notes were written over a period of 13 years, I have not arranged them chronologically but rather according to certain themes or categories. Some of these categories, like ministry itself, overlap. I have also included a homily for entering students in 2010, and a sermon preached before Charlotte Presbytery toward the end of my service at the seminary.
The original audience for these notes was a group of students who were preparing for ministry at Union Presbyterian Seminary’s Charlotte campus. The work of ministry possesses its own idiom and seeks to foster its own set of skills and virtues. But since this work is carried out on behalf of the whole church and for the sake of its mission, there is no part of it or its preparation that can be divorced from the joys and challenges of Christian discipleship. That is why these notes may be of interest to pilgrims who are not studying for the ordained ministry but who are facing the same joys and challenges in seeking to live the Christian life. In making these notes available to a wider audience, the dean who first wrote them hopes they will strengthen any who venture on to this path. To employ a theological term often scorned today but worth recovering, these notes seek to serve as an element of sanctification in the lives of those who follow Jesus Christ.
Chapter 1: Beginnings
January 3, 2007
The New Year begins with prayer. One of the forms of prayer which the church has used over time is called a “collect,” or more simply, “prayer for the day.” Such a prayer is usually a short acknowledgement of God’s grace combined with a direct and specific appeal for God’s help. One of the collects suggested for New Year’s Day reads as follows: “Eternal God, who has brought thy servants to the beginning of another year: Pardon, we humbly beseech thee, our transgressions in the past, and graciously abide with us all the days of our life; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”1
We notice right away the “thees” and “thous,” the fact that we haven’t “beseeched” anyone for some time or used the word “abide” except in a hymn. Still, I invite you to look again at this prayer and what it is asking. It begins by remembering that it is the Lord God who has brought us to this day. We are not here by accident, and certainly not by virtue of our own achievements. No, we are here because the gracious Lord God “has brought thy servants to the beginning of another year.” And like most collects, this little prayer contains a blunt and direct demand, basing such not on the urgency or virtues of those praying but on the acknowledged character of that One who graciously invites such claims. “Pardon,” the prayer asks. At the beginning of the new year, “pardon us.” The new year can only begin with God’s grace, and because of that, we are bold and right to pray, at the beginning, “pardon.” It is out of God’s own gracious forgiveness that we are enabled to begin at all. And the aim of this little prayer is very clear: that God would “graciously abide with us all the days of our life.” This is not a prayer for riches or straight “A’s” or an untroubled semester but simply a prayer that God “would graciously abide with us”—than which there is no greater gift, no higher delight—“all the days of our life.”
The prayer concludes with the simple acknowledgement that as the beginning of this new year belongs to God, so are our endings entrusted to him. A helpful word to begin a new year and a new term together.
September 4, 2007
Recently I was asked to lead a Bible study on the book of Acts. Theologians are sometimes accused of straying rather far from the biblical text so this was a good opportunity for me to dig deeply into scripture itself. One of the treasures I dug up was the discovery of the difference between “they” and “them” and “we” and “us.”
The main character in the book of Acts is the Holy Spirit, who, empowers the early church to flourish and grow in faith through the witness of various apostles, martyrs, saints, and heroes of the faith. Mostly it is a story about “them”: Peter, Stephen, Phillip, and Paul. But at Acts 16:10 the story shifts. In describing one of the Apostle Paul’s journeys, Luke writes: “When he had seen the vision, we immediately tried to cross over to Macedonia, being convinced that God had called us to proclaim the good news to them.” A big change. Up until this point, the narrative had been a story about “they” and “them.” But somewhere along the way, that story became a story about “we” and “us”.
I think that this kind of shift is true for every seminarian. For some time our faith has been a story about “them”: our parents, teachers, pastors, friends, heroes and heroines, near and more distant neighbors whose witness has been as compelling as it has been somewhat detached. But at some point in following “their” story, even when we have followed it only from afar or with more or less growing interest, at some point we have come to see “their” story as including “us.” Not that the story is about “us” anymore than it is about “them,” but that their story engages “us” in its narrative, sweeping “us” along a river from whose bank we had formerly been only spectators.
I am thinking particularly of our first-year students, who may have thought about seminary for a long time or may be only just now dipping their toes into the water, but who are sensing that the pronouns have begun to change, the winds have shifted, the direction has become less general and more vocational, even specific. The strange thing about all of this is that when the story becomes “our” story, the landscape becomes more interesting, the path, even in all its difficulty, more clear, the questions more compelling, sharp, and even possessing a curious delight. I don’t know about Luke, but I do know that beginning seminary, as scary as such a prospect may seem to some, may also provide an occasion for joy, a rejoicing that is happy to be getting underway, leaving the handwringing and self-analysis behind, and hitting the road. It is a long road with its own challenges, but on this road are “good companions” with whom to walk, and best of all, the good companion, who, in breaking bread with us, puts an end to our being a “they” or “them” and enables us to become, in his company, a “we” and an “us.”
January 2, 2008
When my wife and I lived in Scotland, we discovered that the Scots reserved most of their winter holiday partying for New Year’s, not Christmas. Which is not to say that they did not celebrate Christmas (and even more these days) but only to note that by culture and formation they marked the passing of the old year and the coming of the new with special enthusiasm. It was a Scot (Robert Burns), after all, who gave us the song, “Auld Lang Syne.” In any case, “Hogmanay” is what they called the new year celebration, an occasion for much whooping and hollering, imbibing
