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One Friday I had kind of a rough morning. The usual: making sure three children are dressed and fed, with homework done, projects for the day ready to go, lunches made, or one dollar, two quarters, a nickel and a snack if they're buying. A monkey-wrench thrown into the routine was when my older daughter said she didn't feel well. She had all kinds of legitimate symptoms, so I let her stay home. The symptoms all miraculously disappeared. In the meantime, I had to make a whole series of phone calls to arrange child care for a supposedly sick child, which made me run late in getting my youngest child to school. I looked at the clock. "I'm gonna be late." I looked down at my pajamas and slipper socks. "I guess I could just drop her off at the door," I reasoned with myself. "No one will see me. I don't have to get out of the car." I hopped into the car, hair and teeth unbrushed, in my pajamas. I think I need to describe the pajamas. They were a joke gift from members of our church family who had just gone to Disney World, who know I do morning prayers outside in my backyard each day. So ... as a joke they gave me these wild, funky pajamas, in a lovely box, with a note: "For your morning prayers." Specifically, the pajamas are a big white jumpsuit, covered with brightly colored Mickey Mouse and friends. As I'm driving toward the school, I'm repeating the litany, "Oh, but I won't see anyone. I'll just drop her off at the door." But as she's getting out of the car, there, walking into the elementary school, is a tall, curly-haired woman, looking very sleek and professional with her business suit and briefcase. Could that be? It IS! My college roommate, now a successful engineer, whom I see once every several years at our college reunions. She glances in my direction, she recognizes the car, she sees me, she jogs over to the car, in her shiny black pumps. She opens the door, takes one look at me and says, "Oh! It's 'The Reverend'!"

The truth is, I'm both. I am both a sometimes frazzled, overwhelmed, but conscientious single mom, and a "Reverend." Which is why I prefer the word "pastor." I find it hard to live up to that "Reverend" title. But I am a woman of God.

When I was first ordained, I tried to fit the mold, to look like other pastors I had known. This was especially difficult because I'd never known a woman pastor. I wore my hair tied back, no make-up, gray suits. One of my best and oldest friends came to visit me. She walked in and said to me, "Girl, you look awful! What's with the suit?" It just wasn't me, and you see, God called me!

Today we see how God called a mere boy, Samuel, and how God called Philip and Nathaniel. We know God called Peter and Paul, and all the other disciples, and they were all so different from each other. But God needed each one of them with their unique personalities and gifts, because Peter could reach people Paul could not, and Paul could reach people John couldn't, and you, because of who you are, can reach people I cannot. God is calling each of us to respond, like the young boy Samuel, "Here I am!" God is calling you to share the unique and particular gifts that only you have to share with the body of Christ -- the Church -- in our world today, which badly needs all of us. Then God calls you and me, in our own way, to invite others to come along. Like Philip invited Nathaniel to "come and see."

You don't have to try to fit somebody else's mold. You don't have to be like some saintly person you know or read about. You just have to be the best you, for as you grow more and more in your relationship with God, you will grow more and more into the person God would have you be.

Thomas Moore wrote that God's call is arresting and disrupting! Think of Samuel. Life will never be the same if you say, "Yes," to God's call! Life will become a never-ending adventure! Just when you get it all figured out, God will call you to something new. But, oh, it will be grand ... and glorious!

It's like the movie Godspell, a modern retelling of the Gospel of Saint Matthew. In the contemporary rendition, the story takes place in New York City. You see the crowds milling at an intersection of two major avenues. It's all in black and white. Then you hear God calling, and one face in the crowd, one person, says, "Yes," to being a disciple, and is colorized amidst all the black and white.

At the end of the film there is the scene of Jesus' crucifixion ... and resurrection ... and then the disciples go back into the crowds -- into the world. The world is still black and white, but now the disciples, you and I, are in technicolor. That is what saying, "Yes," to God's call is like. Others will see something different about us, will be attracted to what we have that they don't have, and then we will be able to call them. God will call them through you and me to "come and see."

There is a quotation which I have up in my room at home. I have it up in my office as well. I have sent copies to most of my friends. It is a quote by Nelson Mandela, the first black president of South Africa. After years of battling against the evil of apartheid in South Africa, after spending most of his life in a prison camp for speaking out against apartheid, finally after the dismantling and collapse of apartheid, Mandela is released from prison, and miraculously, elected President of South Africa. We cannot begin to imagine how he felt as he makes his inaugural speech to his people. To black South Africans who have been oppressed, beaten, humiliated, tortured. He says to them, and I hope you can hear him speaking to you as well:

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, "Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous?" Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that others will not feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.


This day God is calling you. What is your response?