God Calls All

This past Sunday my congregation celebrated Laity Sunday.  It was a celebration of a reality so profound, yet too often underwhelming relative to its meaning.

Search a definition for the term “laity” and you will discover something to the effect, “people of religion who are not clergy.”  Is the implication that clergy are professional religion people and laity are amateur religion people?  This would make Laity Sunday even more meaningful to me.

A product of the reformation, and I might even look old enough to have lead that movement, laity Sunday is special.  We affirm that God calls all, clergy and laity both, to meaningful ministry.  The priesthood of all believers encompasses only those in the title, “all”.  Believers are merely those who have opened their eyes and ears to the Good News that embraces them.

I am thankful that the church at large has set me aside, affirmed my unique call by God to ordained ministry and made possible that I might give my life to the service of God’s church.  Equally, I am thankful that I serve with children of God who are gifted with amazing callings to ministry that we share.  From Sunday school teachers, to Elders, those who set up for worship and those who make fellowship meals happen … all make stronger the relationship between God and God’s people.  The church fight in Acts 2 is an early reminder of the weakening of that relationship which results when God’s gifted folks are not in action.

This past Sunday my congregation celebrated Laity Sunday and it was profound.  A retired college professor who was raised and baptized in our church returned to share the message about her transformative experience in the Holy Land.  A mother preparing to be baptized in our church was inspired by the message.   What a profound experience of God’s Spirit!

Laity Sunday is another expression of an open table.  The communion we celebrate, as Jesus instituted, which is open to all.  So is the ministry of Jesus’ church.  

And they shall know us by our love.  And we shall know a tree by its fruit.  And thus we witness to the love of God by our expressions of this call to all to be loved and to love as God loves us.

A year until our next Laity Sunday … just a few days from our next Sunday to celebrate our common call our the common table of Christ.  See you Sunday!