The Stole From His Mama

To all that has been, thanks. To all that shall be, yes. - Dag Hammaskjold

Sometimes, I think it can be easy to forget why I got into ministry in the first place.

Or maybe said another way, I love getting reminded of why I got into ministry. Just a chance to peak my head above the fray and see what it was that first drew me into this work.

I won't go into a fit of complaining. I think everyone's work gets filled with lots of stuff they'd rather not do, stuff that can bog down and overshadow the real reason they got into that line of work in the first place.

I got in to ministry because I was mentored by youth ministers who took me seriously, who gave me space to question and grow. I wanted to be that kind of mentor for young people like me, who struggle to find their place, who aren't comfortable with easy answers. I got in to ministry because, ultimately, I was possessed by this idea of a man named Jesus - a man who defied and subverted expectations, who felt kinship with the poor, dispossessed and marginalized, who welcomed in radicals and outsiders, and who preached salvation not through personal morality but through healing, justice, and transformation.

Much of the time, however, my work finds me writing newsletters, recruiting volunteers, turning in receipts, and purchasing snacks (teenagers are always hungry). I like to think behind all of this is something of what I was so captured by when I followed a calling to ministry. But it can be easy to lose sight of that.

This week, I got that little reminder - of what's really important, what's really real. Of why I got in this work in the first place, and still stay in this work to this day.

It's a day I've come to look forward to every year. Our children's minister uses October to highlight preaching and pastors for the children of our church. And so she invites the pastors of the church to come and share how they preach, how they minister, why they wanted to become a minister.

For me, it's become a little bit of ministry "show and tell" on the day that I'm invited. We ministers really have some wonderful trinkets of the trade - chalice and paten sets from unique places, special Bibles written in strange languages, treasured gifts from churches and church members previously served. We use them so often (or in some cases so little) that their sacredness becomes forgotten. They are tools of our craft, no different than a hammer is for a builder, or a set of paint brushes is for a painter.

Sharing them with our church's children and seeing their faces light up with wonder reminds me that they are sacred and peculiar mysteries. They point to what we Christians believe to be the sacred and peculiar mystery behind all of life.

I bring my clergy robe, and my Greek and Hebrew Bibles. I share with them how the Bible was actually written in ancient languages that we do our best to understand. I carefully turn the pages of my Hebrew Bible, showing them how it goes from right to left instead of left to right on the page. Inevitably, the precocious one of the bunch will ask if I can still read and translate it, and I have to admit that I can't. It's now a secret knowledge I've long forgotten. But, I tell them, I can still read and understand the Greek New Testament pretty well! They're less impressed with this - the Greek letters looking more like a language they know than the strange Semitic markings of Hebrew.

And then I share with them my most treasured ministry gifts - the collection of stoles that I draw from to wear as part of my clergy attire. A rainbow of colors, each one corresponds to a season of the Christian calendar, marking the holy days and the life of Christ as we cycle through Advent to Easter to Ordinary time and back again.

I share that each one of them is special to me. I show the one I received for my graduation from seminary and remember the day I wore the gentle green and bright gold stole as I was hooded and sent out into the world. And I share with them how most of the other stoles were handmade by my mother. I tenderly turn them over and show where she embroidered scripture on the back of each one of them. I run my hands over where she inscribed her name and the date. And then the loving words: "A gift for my son."

I try to impress upon the kids that they need to be treated with care. It is show and tell after all, and all they want to do is touch, and turn, and hold, and see for themselves.

I don't know what it was that came over me but on this day, this year, I decided to just give in, and let them see, and feel, and touch. I took up three or four of the stoles and said to the group, "Ok, who wants to try on a stole?"

I started going one by one around the room, letting them place it on their shoulders, and seeing what it feels like.

And then, something happened to make me stop myself. A bright little girl with curly hair came scrambling to the front. "I want to try it on," she said eagerly.

I paused. And for a moment, all the stories came rushing to my head. Stories of women I knew. The stories of the first time they saw a woman step into a pulpit. The stories of the first person who told them they could be a minister, that they could preach, that they were gifted.

Or, sadly, the stories of when they were first told that they were not supposed to preach, or be a minister, or stand in a pulpit.

The stories that began for them a journey of wonder, of calling, of seeking and finding.

Or, for the latter, stories that began a much more difficult journey. Of having to seek and find, without any help. Of feeling called, but not being heard.

I raised the stole over her head, and placed it onto her shoulders. As I looked into her beaming eyes, I found myself saying, "You look just like a minister."

She smiled and ran to show her mother what she looked like in a stole. A week later, her mother sent me a note and told me how her daughter was still talking about how she got to wear "the stole from his mama."

I have no idea if, years from now, she or any other little girl from that morning will remember that moment. Or if any of them will find themselves feeling called to ministry or anything like it. I hope that they do. That if they don't remember me, or my poor Hebrew skills, or anything else from that morning, that they at least remember someone looking at them and seeing each one of them as someone God can call to ministry, or to do anything else in this world. That despite those who later may tell them "No," they remember much more the "Yes" that was spoken to them as a child.

To me, that's why I got into ministry in the first place. To help people hear God's "Yes" over the loud din of the world's "No." To see little ones light up as they hear the good news that God calls each one of us. To walk with them as they go through the peaks and the valleys of growing in that calling.

And I'm grateful for that moment - a moment among many others - that reminds me of why I first said "Yes," to this calling.