The Most Unlikely Priest - March 30
Today’s Readings: AM Psalm 6, 12; PM Psalm 94 ; Jer. 15:10-21; Phil. 3:15-21; John 12:20-26
Today’s Reflection
During Lent and Holy Week, we spend much time reflecting on how Jesus emptied himself for our sake. This idea of self-emptying (Gk. kenosis), is one of the cornerstone beliefs of the Christian faith. As we hear Jesus tell Andrew and Philip in today’s Gospel passage from John 12: “Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life” (John 12: 24-25).
Just as Jesus, in order to fulfill God’s plan, had to give up his human life in order that we could gain eternal life, so, too, are we called to sacrifice something of ourselves for the greater good. For the wheat to bear much fruit, it must first be buried in the soil for a while before a new shoot of life will sprout forth, thereby allowing more wheat to grow and more people to be fed. This all sounds very noble, but in practice what does it look like when “those who love their life lose it”? Here’s how this principle of “those who love their life will lose it” bore itself out in one person’s life story.
An Englishman named Justin tells of how he first came to faith in Christ while he was a student at Trinity College, Cambridge. Later, when this man became a husband and father, his family became more involved in church after the death of their infant daughter in a car accident. Going through that trauma drew Justin and his wife Caroline to a renewed closeness with God. At the time, this young man was working as an executive in the oil industry, a career in which he had achieved success and financial security for over a decade. He was extremely comfortable in his profession and lifestyle and eventually began serving as a lay pastoral leader at Holy Trinity Brompton in London. After serving in that role for a while, he began to sense that still small voice, that nudge of the Holy Spirit.
The man recalls how, “something in me said this is what you should be doing.” So, with some trepidation, he began putting one foot in front of the other to find out which path that holy voice or nudge was leading him to follow. As he recalls, “I was in a great church, and I was loving my job, things were going quite well. But we had this sense, Caroline and I had this sense, that God was calling us—calling me to ordination, us as a family—into that life. And I was really very hopeful that they would turn me down.”
When he got to ACAM (a ministry discernment event), the last interview of the three days was with a bishop who was running the panel. The Bishop asked him, “Why do you want to be ordained?” To which Justin replied, “I don’t.” Looking baffled the bishop asked, “What are you doing here?” The young man thought, “That’s a reasonable question.” So, he said, “I can’t get away from it.” The bishop then queried, “What will you do if we turn you down?” Justin’s response was, again, not what the bishop expected: “I’ll go back to London and take my wife out for the best meal I can afford …to celebrate.” This perplexing answer seemed to cause the bishop even more frustration, as evidenced by his summation of Justin as a potential candidate for ministry: “I’ve interviewed more than a thousand people for ordination and I can tell you, that you don’t come in in the top thousand.”
Looking back, Justin recalls being relieved to hear this. As it turns out, he ended up being delayed for one more year in his discernment process. He felt uncertain about making this major turn in his life, toward walking down this new path on which God was leading him—losing his very comfortable life as an oil executive and a lay leader at a church he loved, losing this familiar chapter of his life for the sake of loving God and all God’s people. But, eventually, Justin Welby started walking down the path appointed for him—one that ended up with someone who at first was deemed ill-qualified and very unlikely to be a priest becoming, as we now know, Archbishop of Canterbury, the spiritual leader not only of the Church of England but of our worldwide Anglican Communion.
Two years ago, I had the chance to hear Justin Welby share this story with a small group of seminarians and other discerners gathered in the choir room of a church in Dallas. Though I had heard the story before, it was very powerful to be reminded by him, in person, of the importance of saying yes. When told that he would have to continue to discern for another year, Justin Welby could have just quit. He could have turned around and gone back to his life as before—happily. Instead, he chose to follow Jesus: “Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honour” (John 12:26).
Of course, very few end up being called to be Archbishop of Canterbury—but we are all called to follow to wherever Jesus leads us to serve. As Welby says, “Everyone has a vocation. Everyone is called to be a Christian disciple wherever they are.”
—Becky+
Questions for Self-Reflection
What is the “grain of wheat” in your life that could be buried in the ground so that, at just the right time, something new can sprout up, grow, and begin to bear fruit?
Daily Challenge