A Genesis 50:20 Calling

Many years ago now, when I had been an Episcopalian for only a few months and was anxious to experience every opportunity the faith provided me, I attended the ordination of a woman named Pam.

Pam had been present at my very first visit to the church some months before during Easter Sunday.  She was a postulant for Holy Orders at the time, fulfilling her internship at our church as she learned the ins and outs of being a deacon.

I found her to be someone filled with boundless joy.  And so, of course, I was excited to attend her ordination.

The ordination was held at the cathedral.  I feel like every Episcopal diocese is mandated to have a cathedral, something large and gothic appearing, something that makes you stare up at it in awe before you’ve even entered through the doors.

It’s the perfect setting for ordinations, for the culmination, the acclimation and the affirmation of a holy call.

That day at Pam’s ordination, the cathedral was packed.  The inside was just as impressive to me as the outside and I think I spent quite some time just looking around with my mouth open.  There was a choir in the choir loft and the acoustics were such that there was not one inch of that place that wasn’t filled with holy song.

As the candidates for the diaconate began processing in, they did so solemnly, one at a time, maybe one or two risking a small smile as they passed a loved one in the pews.

But then came Pam.

Pam was all smiles.  Her smile was one of those open-mouth, count-every-tooth-kind of smile.  It was the kind of smile that hurts but in a good way.  And as she walked, she pointed to the friends and family she saw on both sides of the aisle and she waved and she laughed and she clapped.

She exuded joy.

The story of how Pam became Deacon Pam is her own to tell, but I will tell you that over the years, I have heard the stories of many people who became deacons and priests, and each story is unique in someways and identical in others.

Many people called to the priesthood and diaconate later in life come from jobs you might expect.  I have met nurses and therapists who became priests.  I, myself, was a teacher before answering the call. 

But I have also met former military and law enforcement.  I have met bookkeepers and accountants, people who used to sit behind a desk all day.

The one thing they all had in common was a call they could not ignore, a call from God that for some felt out-there but for all of them—felt right, more right and more perfect and more true than anything else in their life to that point.  God was calling them to be their true-self.

Indeed, in the gospels, Jesus calls His first followers from all sorts of jobs, from fisherman to tax collectors.  Though the disciples worked in jobs, though they had a profession, the disciples lacked something Jesus brought them—a vocation, something that beckoned to them and offered them, even at perhaps great sacrifice, a path in life that would give them meaning and purpose beyond just physical survival.

I think back to the Samaritan woman at the well.

She immediately becomes an evangelist after meeting Jesus, proclaiming that “He told me everything I ever did.” 

Now, as far as we know, the only thing Jesus told her was how many times she had been married.  But it is perhaps what Jesus didn’t say that tells the woman everything she needs to know about Him and about herself.

He does not shame her.

He does not judge her.

He welcomes her.

And she is so convinced that He is the Messiah, that He alone can provide this living water, that she leaves her own water jug behind as she races back into town to tell everyone about Him.

In today’s reading from Genesis, we hear my own personal favorite verse in the Bible, Genesis 50:20, where Joseph says to his brothers in this translation, “Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good, in order to preserve a numerous people, as he is doing today.”

This verse is an essential verse when you are trying to forgive someone.  Joseph, having been sold into slavery, by his brothers, then later falsely accused of rape, then later jailed and seemingly headed to death, has now risen in power in Egypt to becomes second only to the Pharoah. 

When his brothers come to him in desperate need of food, Joseph has the opportunity to exact vengeance upon them, to make them pay for what they did to him.

Instead, he offers them forgiveness.  He doesn’t brush off what they did to him.  He doesn’t gloss over it or pretend it wasn’t that bad.  He acknowledges that what they did was evil, but that God’s power triumphs over all evil.  God used that evil to do good through Joseph.

You see when we don’t forgive someone, we give power to them.

When we do forgive, we acknowledge that God has the power over every living thing in this universe.

Joseph’s brothers hurt him, but God was greater.

Genesis 50:20, though, also speaks to something else—what it means to be called, what it means to hear God in your heart and respond.  Though not everyone is called to ordained ministry, please know that God does call each and every one of us to something unique and special for us.

In Joseph’s case, God took a very awful period of Joseph’s life and shaped it to a call that brought Joseph to a place where he could do, not just good work, but God’s work.

Last week I shared this quote from Frederick Bueckner about calling with a friend of mine.  It says, “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”

That is where each of our callings becomes unique.

I think of Pam processing into her ordination and the joy she radiated—not just any joy—but the joy that comes when you have seen God’s light and love and now that light and love is reflected in you and from you.

That was her calling.

To let others see God’s love within her.

Actually, that is everyone’s calling.  How we fulfill that calling is unique to each of us.

During Pam’s ordination, the choir sang a hymn many of us are familiar with which includes the line, “Whom shall I send?” followed by, “Here I am, Lord.”

I had tears that day as I sang along.

God calls each of us.

Amen.