This Sunday I am preaching on Luke 13:10-17 where Jesus heals a "bent over" woman on the sabbath, bringing on himself even more derision and opposition from the religious leaders, the supposed experts on holiness and upright-ness (pun intended). Jesus notices the woman, calls her to the center of the powerful synagogue, heals the woman and gives her an unheard of title: "daughter of Abraham". He affirms an identity that she herself could not even see.
Sunday is a significant day for me because it is my last day of my internship at Hope and I am also joining the church, beginning the first step on a new journey, moving closer and closer to what I came to seminary for....becoming a real authentic faith leader. And I will have a community behind me. And from the first day, the first minute they saw something in me that I could not see at the beginning of the summer. All my plans seemed up for question, everything in my life felt unsteady, shakable. I felt like I was nothing at all. But somehow that is not what they got from me. They looked at me and saw their pastor.
Truly they were Jesus to me.
Because I was bent over from so much only a few months ago and they looked at me and straightened me up. They saw in me someone worthy of being called something I could not yet even call myself. Pastor. Called. Leader. I cannot believe it really.
From the woman battling cancer trying to keep it under wraps but who lets me into her hospital room to the three year old who runs to hug me around my knees to the young adult (ten years older than me) who asks me to help her think through what God is doing in her life. They did not even realize I was bent over. But they did notice me and they did see me. They are helping me to see me.
In this area of my life, I feel I am becoming more than ever who I am called to be. In other areas I feel like my vision is obscured. I feel like I have lost myself a bit. Like I have very willingly dropped the ball and let it shatter because I do not want to barrel ahead unwilling to be made new, even from scratch or even from pieces.
Only time will tell where all this is headed.
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