The Calling to Change

In late July, The Rev. Twila Smith is serv­ing as a dai­ly “pil­grim­age blog­ger” for the Dio­cese of Beth­le­hem and you can fol­low these posts through the dioce­san web­site or Face­book.

“… for the gifts and the call­ing of God are ir­rev­o­ca­ble.” – Ro­mans 11:29

All around we see the needs, we hear the cries, to work to­geth­er for bet­ter out­comes, to do things dif­fer­ent­ly. Yet even in the church I think of the hard slog to get there, push­ing time-worn prac­tices, the sins of the gen­er­a­tions, and my own habits up the steep in­cline of change. My shoul­ders ache just think­ing about it.

In my mind, the bar­ri­ers to change be­come hard, rigid, and I feel the risk of be­com­ing an equal­ly un­change­able force press­ing against them. It hap­pens. Yet as I steel my­self to push hard­er, my soul re­mem­bers the most trans­for­ma­tive change-agent I have ever ex­pe­ri­enced – not a force in op­po­si­tion, but a call­ing, an in­vi­ta­tion, through the clear wa­ters of baptism.

How can this be?

An ir­rev­o­ca­ble covenant with God, an un­stop­pable flow of gifts from the Holy Spir­it, the changeover from death to ever­last­ing life through Christ – not break­ing us down with bur­den or force, but call­ing us into pow­er­ful wa­ters and wash­ing us anew … call­ing us to a life­time of change, of grow­ing and per­se­ver­ing, seek­ing and serv­ing … call­ing us into re­la­tion­ship, into com­mu­ni­ty, re­mind­ing us that we do not shoul­der this alone.

God’s faith­ful, ir­rev­o­ca­ble call: stead­fast and yet chang­ing us over and over again, pulling us out of the mire of the past, rais­ing us up to the new life of grace.

Keep call­ing me, O Lord, to the wa­ters of change. And help me stop push­ing long enough to in­vite oth­ers to join me here.