The vestry of The Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd in Lexington, where I am serving as Interim Rector, is accepting applications from its members to serve on the Rector Nominating Committee. This committee will guide the process from a parish self-study all the way through to the time when they will present nominations of two or three priests to the vestry, which will extend a call.
The search for a rector is a process of mutual discernment. Just as the Rector Nominating Committee and Vestry will be looking at potential rectors, those potential rectors will also be looking at the parish. In fact, we have to assume that a number of people have already been looking at the parish and diocesan websites.
Just as the parish hopes the priest that is finally called will be who he or she claims to be, the parish must also hope to be the parish it claims to be! In this mutual discernment, parish leaders and prospective rectors will not be looking for perfection, in the sense of being complete and without errors or flaws. What everyone will be looking for is authenticity!
The serch for authenticity in the discernment process is sort of like peeling back the layers of an onion. Nobody can predict the outcome of this discernment process. Permit me to share an example of how unpredictable the process of calling a spiritual leader can be.
Fifty-seven years ago, two Baptist congregations that were looking for a new pastor both wanted the same young man, a recent graduate of Boston University School of Theology. They wanted to meet him and listen to him preach. He asked each committee, “About what shall I preach?” They both responded, “Preach about your dreams and visions.”
When the people from the First Baptist Church in Chattanooga heard him, they did not believe his vision for the City of God and rejected him as a possible pastor. Although surprised and shaken, the young man did not lose confidence in the dreams and visions God had given him.
When people from a Montgomery, Alabama congregation heard him preach, they believed his vision, called him to be their pastor, and he accepted. Within a few months, a black woman of that city named Rosa Parks, refused to go to the back of the bus and the African American leadership of Montgomery turned to their newest pastoral leader, The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. of The Dexter Avenue Baptist Church for leadership. He led a crusade to tear down the walls of legal segregation. His authentic witness to what he had seen and heard cost him his life in 1968. But because of his witness, others heard and saw the vision, dreamed the dream, and continue to carry on the work.
The right pastor at the right church at the right moment in history. Who could have predicted it? Who could have predicted what would happen two millennia after a young Jewish carpenter invited a dozen average people in the remote hills of Galilee to follow him?
This is for certain: the disciples, the people of Dexter Avenue, and Dr. King were listening when the call came and they responded in trust and authenticity when they heard it. They knew they weren't perfect but they trusted God to empower them to do what needed doing and to make them the people God was calling them to be. And that’s the task that lies ahead of any community of faith that is in transition and any member of the clergy who is under consideration to be their new spiritual leader.
"It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the Living God" (Hebrews 10:31) but when in trust we place ourselves in God's hands, God forms us, shapes us, and does more with us than we can possibly do with ourselves. God With Us makes authenticity possible.