Wednesday, May 30, 2012

God's No, God's Wait, and God's Yes (Finally)

Almost exactly one year ago, in May of 2011, my husband graduated from the University of Texas with a Doctor of Musical Arts in Organ Performance (as in the instrument; you will not believe how many people think that has something to do with bodily organs). By the time he graduated, his name had been out for Call (he is also a Lutheran pastor) since November 2010. Everyone told us, "Oh, don't put his name out there too soon. 6 months, maybe less." Yeah. Right.

My husband had served part-time as an assistant pastor at two congregrations concurrent with his further graduate school work post-MDiv. First, he worked at a congregation in Indiana while earning his Mastor of Sacred Music from Notre Dame. Then, he worked at a congregation in Texas while earning his doctorate. Both of these arrangements were part-time and everyone knew that they would end when his schooling ended. It allowed my husband to "keep his hand in" so to speak and it gave the congregations the help they needed. Due to the fact that the call in Texas was part-time, we could not sustain ourselves on that salary alone once Chris' TA position ended with graduation. We were afloat.

There were a few good nibbles here and there, even down to an onsite interview with one congregation (which then decided not to Call another pastor after all). Nothing came, though, and we moved to Nebraska to live with family. Chris went into Candidate Status (which just means "available for a Call and not currently in one") and took a part-time job as head organist and choirmaster at a church in Lincoln. I amped up my tutoring hours. Chris took on lots of other projects and work (weddings, funerals, compositions for CPH, a semester teaching a course at Concordia in Seward). Still nothing. Little nibbles. Here and there. Then, nothing.

I don't know if "Candidate Status" spooked people (what does that mean? Did he do something "bad?"), or if they did not want to pay the scale for a pastor/organist with a doctoral degree, or if they thought he'd leave for a University job (of which there were very, very few anyway), or what. But the fact remained: nothing. Dead silence.

We lived our lives here in Nebraska as best we could day to day. We had a normal routine. Thomas started preschool. We enjoyed the extra benefits of being near family: weddings, Baptisms, holidays, birthdays, etc. But in the background the question loomed:

Where is God?

And we asked him. "Where are you Lord? What are you doing? Here we are, wanting to faithfully serve your church, and there is no place for us. What are you DOING?"

God was hiding. He does that: "For the LORD will rise up as on Mount Perazim; as in the valley of Gibeon he will be roused; to do his deed -- strange is his deed! and to do his work -- alien is his work!" (Isaiah 28:21). Yahweh's alien work hurts, it kills, it raises your hackles.

First we repented and pleaded. Then we asked and asked. Then we demanded.

You see, when God hides, you don't look to the hidden God with his alien work, you look to the revealed God and his promises, which are his proper work. And you hold him to those promises. So then the prayers became this:

"We've had enough. You have promised to provide for us, you have promised to hear our prayers and answer them, you have promised to be gracious for the sake of your Son, Jesus Christ. So, Lord, we are holding you to it. It's time to be the God of Promise. It's time to be the God of Grace. It's time, Lord. It's time to say yes."

That's faith talking, by the way. It sounds bad to our ears, but faith clings to the promises of God and holds him to those promises. Faith sees and knows that all of what happens is in the Lord's hands and by his doing, and holds him accountable.

We're not the first ones to talk like this.

Take Job, for example. The Lord had declared him righteous (Job 1:1,8), so Job held God to that declaration. When all his friends said "repent, do something differently, you must have done something wrong" Job said, "No! I know that the Lord has declared me righteous and blameless and I am holding him to it." Job goes so far as to confess that he will have an Advocate and that Advocate will bring his case before Yahweh, who will have to see that he has done wrong by Job. And even if Job were to die and decay, yet in his flesh he knew he would see God, his Redeemer (Job 19).

We are like Job. In our Baptisms, we have been declared righteous and blameless by God. We have gained an Advocate, Jesus Christ the Lord, who pleads for us before the throne of his Father. When God hides and works his alien work, we too can hold him to his promises in Christ Jesus. We too can confess that no matter what God does to us in the meantime, we know that we will see him with our own eyes and in our own flesh on the Last Day when he will vindicate us for Christ's sake.

That's faith talk. And there comes a point where that is all you have left. Faith and its clinging hand, holding on for dear life to the promises of God despite all appearances to the contrary. It is not a fun or easy place to be.

Almost a year to the day on which my husband graduated, he received the paperwork for a Solemn Call to serve as Strategic Mission Developer based out of Leipzig Germany. The Call was issued through the LCMS Board for International Mission. Finally, God said yes and worked his proper work. It was not the type of thing either one of us had ever envisioned ourselves doing (that's the way Yahweh likes to do it -- he sends you out to do the very thing you never thought you could. That way you know it is only because Christ is working in and through you that anything happens). And we responded by saying, "Here we are; send us." So it's off to Germany we go to find out what the Lord has in store for us there, and to serve him and his church throughout the world. That's a big yes from God after a lot of "No" and "wait".

God hides himself at many times in our lives. Deaths of loved ones, miscarriage, infertility, joblessness, depression, illness, injury, etc., etc. During those times when God is hiding and doing his alien work, the faith of the Baptized reaches out its hand and clings to the promises of God, holding on for dear life. And God will reveal himself, God has revealed himself, and God does reveal himself in Christ through Baptism, preaching, absolution and his very body and blood. There faith clings, and there faith will not be disappointed.

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