Called

Last night, after our Longest Night Service, I needed a couple of things from Wal-Mart. I questioned my own sanity, but I went anyway, and surprisingly it wasn't too busy. I got my things, chose a line (always a risky endeavor) and waited. While I waited, the man in front of me (whom I did not know) decided he wanted to talk. He didn't need me to talk, apparently. He just wanted to talk at me. After a rambling lecture on the Marines, Navy SEALs, Osama bin Laden and the number of children he had (and their ages), he finally asked me if I had ever been in the military. "No," I said. "Well, what do you do?" I told him I was the pastor of the Methodist church in town. "Really?" And then he went on to speak of my age (he guessed 50) and his memories of the Methodist church in the small southern town he grew up in (they were positive memories). Eventually, he ran out of steam and turned to talk to the lady in front of him.

When she was paying her bill, he turned back to me. "Are you sure you're a preacher?" Yes, I'm pretty sure. Either that, or I've wasted a lot of Sunday mornings. (I didn't say that last part!) "Well, you don't look much like a preacher. Are you sure you're called to preach?" I told him yes, I was sure. "Are you sure?" he said again. "Because you don't look much like a preacher." At that point, his turn came to check out and the conversation mercifully ended. Because how do you prove a call?

But...apparently, when God calls someone to preach, he gives them a certain "look." A look I don't have.

It reminded me of a couple of conversations from earlier in my life.

On the first night of seminary, Provost Robert Mulholland stood before the gathered new students and spoke for quite a while, giving us an introduction to life at seminary. He said many valuable things, I'm sure, but the only one I remember was when he said, "If you can imagine yourself doing something other than this, you'd better go do it."

When I was assigned to Harrodsburg United Methodist Church as a student assistant, I was introduced as such my first Sunday there. After the service, during the meet and greet, Flossie Grigsby (I couldn't make up a name like that!) came up and rubbed my cheek. "Just checking to make sure you're old enough to shave," she said. I liked her instantly.

On the first day of my first appointment here in Indiana, I was being driven around Muncie with my new senior pastor when he conversation turned to our call to ministry. "If you're not called to this life," Tom said, "it will eat you alive."

Much later, on a youth tobogganing trip, our group was standing in line and I was next to our youth group leaders. I made a comment about a group ahead of us probably being a youth group from another church, and my youth director, referring to their leader, said, "Yeah, he looks like a preacher." So I smiled and asked, "Do I look like a preacher?" "No," she said.

So...I don't look like a preacher. But I am one. And I know I am called to do that, though some days it still threatens to eat me alive. But I have not, yet, been able to imagine myself doing something else for very long (and I'm not qualified to do anything else, anyway!). So I keep at it, and count my blessings that God continues to use my words and prayers to do at least something small for his kingdom.

So, yes, Man At Wal-Mart, I am called to preach. And I'll try to do better at having the preacher look. Once I figure out what it is.