January 22, 2012 Reflection by Jayne Slawson

Let us begin with prayer:

Holy One,
Light of all healing:
Be present with us.
May we become rooted in your love,
And filled with your peace,
May we be illuminated by your grace, and
May our hearts be kindled into quiet strength.
Calm our spirit into restoration, and
Touch our lives into wholeness again
So we can respond to your call to come and follow
In our own very ordinary ways... Amen

A couple of weeks ago I thought I would apply for a new work position. In order to do this I needed to do up a resume. In 34 years as a nurse I only ever had to do one resume and when I went back to review it, I could see that it was very outdated, sounded rather ordinary, and I needed to do something about that.

A resume is a summary of one's past professional or work experience and qualifications. When was the last time you did a resume? Even if you aren't looking for a new job, never worked or are retired, have you done a recent self assessment of your life's accomplishments?

By doing so, or by updating your resume on a regular basis you can see the ongoing changes and new experiences that you have made over time. When I redid my resume I was rather astounded—was that really me on those pages? It sure looked like it, but how surprising!

Writing a resume is sort of like writing your own biography, or like writing a Christmas letter about what has happened to you and your family over the past year. It is rather cathartic and when you are done you feel good, you feel lifted, you feel more than ordinary! You may say that you feel extraordinary.

You have taken the "ordinary you" and in a way have given life to your ordinariness. You begin to feel like you can meet new life challenges and opportunities, new job, new life prospects, or perhaps, for us today, new spiritual disciplines that support our openness to journey the way of God.

Thats kind of what Jesus did when he walked along the sea of Galilee and saw Simon and his brother, Andrew, and James and and his brother, John, casting nets out to sea, and called to them to follow him. He called them to not only be fisherman but to take the extra ordinariness of fishing and become fishers of people. Jesus invited Simon and Andrew, James and John to follow him and join him in God's work in a way that fit for them.

They may have been ordinary fisherman, but they could just as well have been ordinary carpenters, mechanics, physicians, teachers, nurses, ministers, book keepers, electricians, writers, musicians, artists, scientists, or a stay-at-home parent.

Jesus calls us to follow him and join in Gods work in ways that fit who we are too. We don't have to become something or someone that we aren't in order to follow him. Rather he frees us to bring the best of who we are and offer that up to the world, our communities, our friends and families. No matter who you are, where you have been, how old you are, Jesus calls us to use our talents, strengths, knowledge and passions, those things that only you alone possess. Imagine the freedom and purpose Jesus offers each of us by inviting us to be who we are as we reach out to others; calls us to be disciples, to walk with and learn from him. We are also called to be apostles to go forth into our world in the particular way that God gifts us. To minister love, peace, joy, truth, and wisdom, sharing Gods word of forgiveness and hope.

It is not always easy work as it demands alot.

It demands discipline, single-mindedness, determination and resolve. Sometimes it requires us to stretch ourselves and to leave behind things precious and dear to us. It can involve doing things we may not want to do, like in the reading from Jonah were Jonah reluctantly goes to Nineveh or like many of the other great prophets who were sent out to warn and prophesy. Each one initially saying, "God, don't send me, I'm heading the other way, I'm not worthy, they will crush me, Why me?"

Dr. George Darby served as a mission doctor on the Pacific Northwest Coast for 45 years. When Dr. Darby graduated from Medical School in Toronto his professors recognized in him a great deal of surgical skill and tried to persuade him to take up a lucrative practice in the city, but he was determined to minister to people in deep need of his care. And he did—in tiny fishing and logging camps and Native American villages from Alert Bay to Prince Rupert, and under conditions that were frequently harsh and almost always uncomfortable. "I hope that no one will ever say to me that I stuck it out here," he stated, "for I saw it as a privilege and I am forever thankful for the opportunity."

In her first year of "helping the poorest among the poor", Mother Theresa experienced doubt, loneliness and the temptation to return to the comfort of convent life. She wrote:

Our Lord wants me to be a free nun covered with the poverty of the cross. Today I learned a good lesson. The poverty of the poor must be so hard for them. While looking for a home myself, I walked and walked till my arms and legs ached. I thought how much the poor must ache in body and soul looking for a home, food and health. Then the comfort of Loreto my former order came to tempt me. "You have only to say the word and all that will be yours again," the tempter kept on saying. "But of free choice, my God, and out of love for you, I, Theresa, desire to remain and do whatever your Holy will is in my regard. I did not let a single tear come."

When we invest in serving others it means we quit focusing on what we don't have or who we aren't as an excuse for not ministering to others. We don't have to be as rich as someone else, or as smart, as winsome, as successful, as educated, as able to speak or teach in public.

We only need to offer all that we are. Would if we concentrated on these three principles:
    *   Being who we are
    *   Seeing what we have, and
    *   Doing what matters.

How would that free up the call of your heart and response to Gods call to serve others? What impact would that have on peoples lives, on our communities, on our world?

A week ago and for the next five weeks, I and another nursing colleague will and have been a preceptor to a 4^th year nursing student. Both I and my colleague are nearing the end of our nursing careers and here we are expected to mold and nurture this young, keen nursing student, to show her the extra ordinariness of nursing. These days both I and my colleague have been only feeling the ordinariness of our career. One of the great things about being a preceptor is that the energy, the passion, the freshness of these eager spirited students soon to be new graduate nurses surprisingly rub off on us and we again feel excitement, the extra ordinariness of Nursing... we again find the passion that we too once had and actually always had—we just needed someone—this vivacious student to come and show us, to uncover, this passion again.

Thank goodness for nursing students! Thank goodness for all those who inspire us.

It's the feeling we get when after a rain storm a rainbow appears, when the snow disappears and the first flowers of spring appear, when a new baby is born... we are reawakened and the ordinariness of life becomes extraordinary and we are changed forever.

The lesson here is that we don't have to go far to change the world, what we need is an alluring vision that will focus people on changing their own neighborhood. We have no elaborate strategies or rituals to love those who wonder into our lives. We just need to be faithful to those brought before us each day and committed to those who are placed in our care. Jesus didn't stumble upon extraordinary people who became leaders, he took ordinary people and made them into extraordinary leaders. Each one of us is an extraordinary leader in our own right, sometimes it takes an event, sometimes a special person or a simple message or word... for us to see it.

Bruno Serat, a retired chef in California, uses his life long talent for cooking to serve free pasta dinners to poor children who's families live in motels; Robin Lim, whose sister died of birth complications, became a midwife and went to Indonesia to help low income women get free prenatal care and provide safer birth conditions; Derreck Kajongos collects partially used soap from hotels and reprocesses them into bars of soap for 3^rd world communities; Rachel Bechwith, age 9, raised $1.25 millon for clean water in developing countries. We know of Jamie MacBeth working with her Kukua Pamoja program for change with disadvantaged youth in a Nairobi slum. Ordinary people who demonstrate extraordinary service to others.

All of us are called—each in our own way—to follow and serve. All of us are called, each in our own way, to be made new in Christ—to allow Christ to speak through us, to allow God to work within us and to reach out and touch others using our hands, our hearts, and our words. And in this only great things can happen.

Rick Warren, in his book, The Purpose Driven Church, writes:

Small ministries often make the greatest difference. The most important light in my house is not the large chandelier in our dining room, but the little nightlight that keeps me from stubbing my toe when I get up to use the bathroom at night. It's small, but its more useful to me that the showoff light.

Nelson United Church has a new Mission Statement... Can you recite it?
"We dare to live the Way of Jesus, embodying the Love of God."
In there is a call—a call from Jesus—a call from God to come and follow a post-missional, a post- modern approach to life, work and ministry. How will you respond? How will this faith community respond? Our new Church Board needs your hands, your voice and your heart. Our community, our world calls out with the same needs. It all starts with us and how we hear Jesus call to follow and serve. Come, come and follow...

Together let us conclude this message with these words:

Ordinary extraordinary people are you and I.
We meet them at work, in our grocery stores, on a busy street and everywhere.
They come in all shapes and sizes, we only have to look all around us and sometimes simply in a mirror.
They are strangers
They are neighbors
They are us.
They care a lot about other people in our community, in our world.
They have an indomitable spirit and great strength.
They have a lot of faith and courage.
They take pleasure in performing small acts of kindness rather than in grand intentions
They look for the best and give the best, they have.
They inspire
They teach
They share their talents and gifts.
They see a beginning in every end.
They touch lives and leave caring foot prints on hearts.
They change lives forever and are themselves changed forever.
They are ordinary
extraordinary
you and I.

Amen