An Impossible Calling

By Rev. Meredith Gudger-Raines

In the last days of the 2016 election, I escaped into the new Netflix series The Crown. Mid-century glamour, British accents and a monarchy immune from elections—all welcome relief from American politics. I found myself in deep empathy with the Queen. Not because I also have several mansions to my name or a family to preserve from scandal, but because I also am a leader in a monolithic institution. As an ordained protestant minister, my role often demands one kind of action while my personal opinions lead me toward another. The Queen has a responsibility to her government and people to be predictable and unbiased, but she is also a human with a heart. It is almost an impossible calling.

In our faith, we talk a lot about calling. A call is something God asks you to do. It rarely comes with burning bushes and thundering voices. It often comes when all other avenues become unacceptable. It’s a leading, an urging, a nagging, a pit-of-the-stomach ache. It goes from a reckless idea to something you must do, or woe to you if you don’t. Sometimes a calling aligns with your personal delights; sometimes it goes against them.  How many of us want to find ourselves immersed in conflict? Yet sometimes God calls you there.

As a pastor, I am called to see each person as a beloved child of God. I am called to show them love, care for them, assist them in spiritual growth, be there for them in tragedy. I do not first ask them for whom they voted. When I say that everyone is welcome at Christ’s table and so everyone is welcome in our church, I mean it. This calling comes with the weight of a crown; I must ensure our church is a home for all people, and that means making space for beliefs different than my own.

But I am also a minister of the gospel. God is clear about our responsibility to love the foreigner in our midst, the poor and vulnerable, even those of different faiths. Our gospel proclaims equality of men and women, and since God declared that we should not label unclean those God lovingly created, we welcome our LGBTQ neighbors as the beloved of God. Our new administration poses unique threats to these people whom God has called me to love.

So what do I do when the calling to prophetically proclaim God’s love for these marginalized groups makes some in my church, whom I am called to love and pastor, so uncomfortable that they leave? What do small business owners do when they want to use their position to proclaim justice, knowing it will cost them business? What do mothers do when they want to march for human rights, knowing it will cause a rift in their family? What do journalists do when reporting the truth may land them in legal trouble?

What do we do when two callings bump up against each other and make it impossible to do both faithfully?

Jen Psaki, the White House Communications Director for the Obama administration, wrote in a recent article about the weeks after the election, when Obama’s team had to welcome the new administration as they were simultaneously preparing to continue their work in the private sphere:

“It required us to live in two worlds: One where we are gracious hosts, welcoming our successors and providing endless binders of logistical information. And, the other where we each took time to reflect on what the outcome of the election meant for us, for the issues we had worked on and fought for, for the draw to public service that had led most of us to start working for a skinny guy with a funny name ten years ago. It felt dishonest.”

Through the lens of faith, I see her living two competing callings. One calling to make space for people with whom she disagrees, and the other to fight for the issues she finds essential. One calling is to treat others the way she would want to be treated; the other is to fight for what she knows to be right. It felt dishonest because she was doing two seemingly opposite things, but it wasn’t dishonest. It was the height of honesty, and I would say that she was living out part of Christians’ greatest commandment: to love others as you love yourself. With integrity, she saw her Republican counterparts not as enemies, but as people, and treated them as such. With integrity, she made plans to fight for her causes on their merits, not with cheap political ploys. Sometimes the call to love God, love neighbor and love self all at the same time feels impossible and dishonest. I’m sure Jesus knew that when he told us to do it anyway.

Not all of us are queens or clergy or communications directors. Some of us don’t have to walk such a fine line or live in two different worlds. All of us, though, are discerning a new calling, and it is a calling that cannot work with our lives as we’ve known them. We have to give up comfort and risk upsetting others. We have to give over our time to meetings and phone calls and marches. We have to see people as people, even—especially—when we disagree. We have to give up feelings of confidence and control, and do things that will make us feel awkward—talking to strangers, knocking on doors, listening to others, making our case. We will make sacrifices and mistakes. We white women will realize that our sisters of color have been fighting these battles all along, and we will have to humble ourselves to ask their forgiveness in coming so late to the party. Living into a calling is painful and frightening and demanding. But all other avenues have become unacceptable to us, and woe to us if we do not fight for each other.

The Queen is 90 years old, and her head still holds up the crown. Be strong, and let your heart take courage. We can do impossible things.

Meredith Gudger-Raines serves as the pastor of Ridgefield Community United Methodist Church in Ridgefield, Washington.