“A Visitor from Clergy Land”

Acts 9:1-20

April 25, 2004

St. Paul United Methodist Church

Rev. John Fleming

It hardly seems possible that it has been fifteen or sixteen years since the church meeting that changed my life. I still remember it. It was a special called church meeting at my home church in Jackson, Tennessee. In the United Methodist Church, we call these meetings Charge Conferences. They are very exciting meetings that happen every fall to report on how things are going in the church. This was not that meeting. This was a special meeting, a called meeting, whose only agenda item was me. I am pretty sure that it was in the fall of the year when the church gathered in the chapel of our church. Up front, sitting at a six foot table, was our church’s secretary, our pastor, and our District Superintendent. I wanted to be one of the last ones to walk in the door and to take my seat and so I saw all of the people as they made their way into the chapel. I saw Ann and Ernest Lawrence. I saw Miss Nancy, my first grade Sunday School teacher come in and take her seat. I saw Jimmy Doak, the head usher for our church. I saw Verlene Humphreys, who, with my mother, had kept the one year old nursery for what seemed like forever.

As I said a moment or two ago, I was the only agenda item for the meeting. The church was there to vote on whether or not to recommend me to be a minister. Finally I walked in and sat on the front pew. Sitting there with me were my parents. It was supposed to be a proud moment for them. I was dressed in my best shirt and tie, because I wanted to impress these people. But after I saw who was at the meeting, I was pretty sure that my recommendation was pretty much a lost cause. I looked back at Ann and Earnest. I was sure that they had their “no” vote ready to cast. After all, how could they vote yes. They were there that morning, at Mr. Donut, running a little late for Sunday School when I walked in on my way to skipping Sunday School. And who, after all, would vote for someone to be a minister who skips Sunday School. I looked over my shoulder and saw Verlene Humphreys. Verlene and my mother kept the one year olds at the church for years. Verlene had changed my diapers hundreds of times and had seen my bare bottom just as many times. I was sure that whenever she saw me in a pulpit, she would remember my bare bottom and dirty diapers. So I was sure that she would cast a “no” vote for me when it came time for the ballot. Sitting near Verlene was Jimmy Doak. Jimmy was the head usher at our church, so he hung out in the narthex of the church most of the time. There was a door on one end of that narthex that led down some old steps and through a dark tunnel. I always thought that it was a scary place. It was how the choir made their way from the choir room to the back of the sanctuary, just before they processed down the center aisle and into the choir loft. I was willing to open the door, go down the rickety steps, down the long, dimly lit hallway to freedom and the coke machine. On more than one occasion, Jimmy Doak caught me doing that. I was sure that Jimmy would bring that up, if he could just be recognized at the meeting. And I was sure that he would cast a “no” vote for me, because, after all, what kind of a minister skips worship services?

There were some other people gathering in the chapel who I was pretty sure were “yes” voters. I looked back and saw Virginia Burnette. Her husband was our senior pastor. When they first came to our church, Virginia was my senior high youth leader. She was the one who asked me to stay late after youth group one Sunday night. She had something on her mind that she wanted to talk with me about I spent almost the entire youth meeting trying to figure out what I had done, Maybe she had figured out that I was one of the ones who had speed way the night before after throwing toilet paper in the trees at the parsonage. I thought that I was in trouble. I wasn’t. Instead she asked me this, “John, have you ever thought about being a minister?” I was quick to tell her that I had not, that I had big plans for my life that included professional baseball. She looked back at me and said, “Well, I have seen God doing some powerful things in your life and I just thought that you should know.” I was never the same after that discussion. I looked on the other side of the chapel where Miss Nancy was sitting. Miss Nancy had taught first graders for generations. For some reason, the memory of the lesson that she taught us about Jesus’ call to his disciples entered my mind. Miss Nancy told the story with passion and with heart. It was then, perhaps, that I first considered following Jesus. I looked back and saw some of the youth who went on that retreat that I led to Panama City. It was a great and powerful week. At the end of it, on the last night, after communion on the beach, I asked the youth to think about what God was doing in their lives and where God was in their lives. They were to stay near the water front. I went down, close to the water’s edge, and sat down. With my head in my hands, I prayed that God somehow would send me some kind of a sign that what Virginia had seen in me would happen. I had felt the tug and the shove of God in my life, but I needed a sign, some assurance that this is what God really wanted me to do. So I prayed. When I opened my eyes, a star shot across the sky. Did God send me that star just for me? I do not know the answer to that, but I took the shooting star as a sign. In that room, in that chapel, the thought started to cross my mind, maybe there are enough “yes” votes Maybe one day I will be a minister.

Well, the meeting began. The District Superintendent spoke of my desire to be a minister, entertained a motion to that effect from one or two in the room and opened up the floor for comments. I slipped down in the pew when Ernest Lawrence stood up. I was sure that he would bring up the Mr. Donut incident. He did not do that.. In fact, he brought up something about me that I had not seen in myself. One by one, people that I knew stood up, said kind words, then sat down. After a few minutes the superintendent said that it was time to vote. I was hoping for a secret ballot. Instead, he asked for those who would approve of me to raise their hands. They did, everyone of them in that room did, everyone including Ann and Earnest, Jimmy Doak, Virginia Burnette, even Verlene. It is something that I will never forget. I am here this morning because those people said yes.

One of the things that I do for our annual conference is to help those right out of seminary find their way to being fully ordained. We call this process probation. Which is not so great a word, but is better than the one that we used to use. We used to say that these people were “On Trial.” So the term probation is better, but not much better. Every year, I hear the call stories of new probationers. I would like to tell you that most of them are moving and exciting. I would like to tell you that most of them are like Moses’ call. Moses was up on the mountain, taking care of his father-in-law’s sheep, hiding out, minding his own business, when a bush suddenly caught on fire and began to speak.

I would like to tell you that the probationer’s call stories are like Saul’s call, our scripture lesson for this morning. We know that this call is important because it is recorded in this book of Acts three different times. Ironically it is not Saul who tells this story, it is the gospel writer and the author of Acts, Luke, who gives us the details. He tells it in the midst of several conversion stories. Saul’s, of course, is the most dramatic of them all. The truth is that we learn more about the voice from heaven in this story than we do about Saul. People talk about the inner turmoil that raged inside of Saul. The truth is that if there was any unrest, we do not know about it from these twenty verses in the book of Acts. Turn back a few pages in this story of the church and you will see that Luke simply tells us that Saul was a young man who watched over the garments of those who stoned Stephen. Saul, though, is not just any young man. He is not an innocent bystander. In fact, on this Damascus road, in one of his pockets, are orders that he has from the religious authorities to persecute those who followed “The Way.” So make no mistake about it. This is enemy number one. And on his way to Damascus a bright light literally knocks him to the ground. Saul is no theological novice. He knows what bright lights from heaven means. He knows his Bible and would think that a light from heaven meant something. Accompanying the light is a voice that asks, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” I am with you if you think that Saul’s question seems a little strange. I, too, wondered why he would ask, “Who are you, Lord?” He knew God. He had not persecuted God. He had persecuted Jesus and so he wanted to know who he had persecuted. The voice confirms his suspicions and then tells him to get up and to go to Damascus. There, Jesus says, “I will tell you what to do.”

The probationers, in their call stories, rarely tell stories like this one. Instead they tell Ananias kind of stories. I do not mind telling you that it is easy for us to miss Ananias in this drama. In a vision, God told Ananias to go to the house of Judas on the street called Straight and to restore his sight. I think that if I were Ananias I would point my head towards heaven and say to God, “You want me to go where and do what? Lord, do you know the Saul that we are talking about here. He has got a document to kill us Christians, maybe even me.” If that is not bad enough, God says that the message that he must tell Saul is that he will suffer much for the sake of Jesus. If I were Ananias, I think that I would ask God, “Why don’t I give him some good news. Maybe I could tell him that he is going to be wealthy or that his daughters will marry well.” Ananias goes and does what the Lord tells him to do. And when he does, the scales fall from Saul’s eyes and his new life begins.

Sometimes I wish that my call story was a little more dramatic, that it included a time when I was a rank sinner or something and that God saved me out of that life. Something that I could write about, something that would leave you sitting on the edge of your seats. None of you are sitting on the edge of your seats. The truth is that God used little old, Sunday School teaching ladies and nursery workers and preacher’s wives to get my attention. I would not be doing my job if every once and a while, I didn’t ask you if it were possible that God was calling you to do this sort of thing, to answer His call, to go to seminary, to be a preacher and a pastor...

On one of the walls, just outside the sanctuary of the First United Methodist Church in Jackson are the pictures of those who left that church for the ordained ministry. When I last looked at it, there were twelve pictures on the wall. Two of them are Flemings: me and my brother. My picture is the last picture. I left there in 1990. Are you telling me that me that in fourteen years, God has not called anyone else out of that congregation, to the ministry? There are eleven hundred members of that church. Has gone not called at least one of them to be one of His pastors? I like what one guy said about pastors. He said this, “Ministers aren’t visitors from Clergy Land. They are people who come out of the nursery, sit in the pew, answer the call of God from their own church and speak a word for the Lord.” I look around and I wonder. Where are the pastors? Like a lot of people, I am concerned about the future of my church. Who is going to take my place? Who are the best and the brightest and where are they now?

If I had a little more time this morning, I would tell you some of the great stories of my now nearly ten year old ministry. I would tell you about the skunk that a man named Carl and I coaxed out of the Fordyce Church. I would tell you about the time that I told of a bike ride and my persistence in riding many miles. In the sermon I said that my persistence paid off. I should have said that my behind was sore. That is not the word that came out of my mouth. I used a different word. There is a church in Ouachita County that only remembers me for that. If there was time, I would tell you about my first Sunday at a church, when at the end of the day, when I went back to the church, I was locked out because they had not given me a key. A preacher locked out of his own church.

I would want you to know about the pains of being a pastor, too. My own pains and the pains that you have. When you are the pastor, you feel personally responsible for what does and does not happen in the church. You feel every empty pew, you take every transfer of membership personally. You never go home with a sense that everything is done. There were letters you didn’t get to, calls you didn’t make, visits that you should have made. And try working for someone that you cannot see, whose voice speaks to you through other people and sometimes through your heart, and through prayer. It is the same communication line that everyone uses.

It is crazy, absurd, and outrageous to be a minister and there are days that I would not wish this life on my worst enemy or trade it for a million dollars. I have been with some of the greatest people in the world, who have taught me more than professors. I have been in the most important moments of people’s lives, representing God. I have stood beside hospital beds and cribs. I have stood by graves. My hands have been in baptismal waters. I have broken bread and felt forgiveness. I have stood in this pulpit where great preachers have preached. I have made mistakes and been forgiven of them. Some of my mistakes still need forgiveness. Could it be that this is what God wants you to do?

I heard the story of a man who was walking in New York City when a cab jumped a curb and nearly hit him. It knocked him to the ground and for a minute he was unconscious. When he woke up, people were standing around him, gawking at him. In the background he heard the sound of the siren of an ambulance on its way. He told that people were standing over him but all that he really wanted was for someone to kneel down, to hold his hand, and to tell him that everything was going to be all right. That is what a minister does.

Is it your calling? Is it what you are supposed to do? Maybe. If it is, let’s talk after the worship service. I am not letting you off of the hook easy, but it could be that God has something else in mind for you. Maybe he needs for you to be Ananias to someone like Saul. Maybe you could be Virginia to them. Maybe you can be Earnest or Ann or Verlene to someone. Maybe you could say, “I have seen something special inside of you. Have you ever thought about being a minister?” If that is what you are supposed to do, then get to it. Do your job. Is that you calling? If it is, do not ignore it. God calls all of us to be ministers. Some of us He has called to be pastors and youth workers and music ministers and children’s leaders. Let us pray.

(Special thanks to all of the persons mentioned in this sermon who helped me to realize my call to the ministry. I dedicate this sermon to my good friend, Jimmy Jeffords. Jimmy died on Monday, April 19, 2004. Jimmy and I fulfilled our calls to the ministry at Lakeshore Youth Camp for a time. May you rest in peace, Jimmy, and may those that you love find comfort)