“Fear and trembling,” those words we heard from St Paul this morning. You can bet I’m feeling both of those at this moment.
Nonetheless, I’m Jessie Maeck, and it’s a delight, on this day we celebrate all the amazing people who do lay ministry at Redeemer, to be invited to share with you what lay ministry has come to mean to me.
A young girl named Mary might have been the first lay minister, at least to Christians.
She said “yes.”
Another person who answered a call is the first son in the parable in today’s gospel.
We’re here to celebrate lay ministry today, right?
Most of us don’t get a visit from the Angel Gabriel, and we aren’t invited to give birth to a divine part of God either. But as soon as we move just a little beyond where those paralyzed priests and elders who challenged Jesus in our Gospel reading were, as soon as we give up enough fear to be able to listen, we will be called. And usually what we’re invited to do is, in fact, to assist in the birth of something Divine.
