I spent my second Mother's Day on a 'first date'... (here's the explanation of my cryptic reference to important engagements in a post below)... not with a man, but with a church.
A couple of months ago, I was approached by a head of a search committee at a church. He started talking to me about a position that was open at his church and I listened with the kind of ear I normally listen with - which is half-an-ear. Normally, I get asked by search committees and members of vacant churches if I know anyone at the seminary who might be qualified for/interested in the open position they have. This conversation was different; he asked me if I would be interested. I told him to back up and start the conversation over. This kind of inquiry has come my way only once before and I was in no position to be interested at that point, so I asked him to repeat himself so that I could listen with a full ear - with both ears.
Long story short - they've narrowed their search and I am one of the applicants they're considering. I'm in a great place. I love my current job - Tim is content as well in his position - and yet we're open to possibilities - and this is a possibility.
My 'first date' (their words, not mine) with the church consisted of six meetings with six groups of people over the course of 26 hours - and then I preached this past Sunday. I have no idea where this will go. Although the word is that I was well-received, I'm not counting any chickens at all - I'm living and working as though my first date was just that and nothing more. And I'm praying for them as they 'see other people.'
Sunday was Mother's Day and Pentecost. I preached from Ephesians 3...
I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
I wouldn't have had to have included a reference to Mom's Day in my sermon (not a big fan of Hallmark in the church), but as a pregnant mom in a congregation mostly made up of people over 50 - a congregation that has only ever heard one other woman preach, I did indeed finish my sermon with a bit of a dip into 'mystical motherhood'...
Christ frees you to live your lives apart from sin. Just as surely as water washes dirt from the body, so certainly has the blood of Jesus cleansed you of your sin. Christ forms you into his likeness. Just as surely as the bread nourishes our bodies, so certainly does Christ nourish us by his body to live in the form of Christ. And, Christ fills you now and always with his fullness. If a mother can be a symbol of grace today – just as surely as my womb is filled with a living, moving child, so certainly has your spirit been formed to be filled with the living, moving Holy Spirit.
"Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen."
